THE INTERESTINGS (2013)
Meg Wolitzer
Riverhead Books, 480
pages, 978-159488399
* * *
Entertainment Weekly Magazine
proclaimed The Interestings one of
the best novels of 2013. That's quite an exaggeration in a year in which its
list did not include The Goldfinch, which
just happened to win the Pulitzer Prize! But one can certainly understand why
the editors of a pop culture magazine would like it. The novel's major
characters were born in 1960, which technically makes them Baby Boomers, but these
are kids for whom the mythical 60s were passé before they got out of grade
school. They talk about the 60s, but as parrots mouthing lines from their
parents and TV. In actuality, their blossoming values owe more to the
Stoicism-meets-pragmatism-and-materialism of the emerging generation. In fact,
you might want to think of the last half of The
Interestings as Doug Coupland's Generation X grown up–a bit like some of those
on recent EW boards.
The Interestings
opens in 1974, when Jules Jacobson finds herself at the Spirit of the Woods summer
camp. She's a gawky, frizzy-haired, Jewish middle-class kid amidst the spawn of
the rich and would be the proverbial fish out of water if she had the faintest
clue of who she was in the first place. Her forays among the rich and beautiful
convince her that she wants to escape the bourgeois 'burbs but as projectiles
go, she's more sponge than skyrocket. At the camp, she hangs out with five
others above her socially: Jonah Bay, the son of a famous folksinger; Ash and
Goodwin Wolf, well-heeled New Yorkers; Cathy Kiplinger, who yearns to be a
dancer; and Ethan Figman, an imaginative but dorky-looking guy who lives in a
dream world of his own invention and illustration. Jules gets by with snark and
obeisance, the six dub themselves The Interestings, and they revel in pretensions
of their own superiority whilst sipping vodka and Tang cocktails. Amidst the
solipsism, Jules and Ash become best friends.
The book follows the six across the decades and against a (stereotypical)
backdrop of the cultural markers: cults, women's liberation, Nixon's
resignation, New York City's descent into near-bankruptcy, the Yuppie greed of
the Reagan years, MTV, AIDS, TED-like conferences…. Personal journeys evoke the
age-old question of whether it is better to flameout in youth, or to suffer the
disappointments of adult life. Jules dreamed of becoming a comic actress, but
instead became a psychologist married to the steady but average Dennis and
wonders if she ever had any aptitude for much of anything. Cathy never became a
dancer, the gifted Jonah gave up music, and the hunky Goodman's only talent was
for being a jerk. There's also the frustrating question of proven soulmates who
know they cannot be together, as in the case of Jules and Ethan. Ethan has
become fabulously successful and rich–his boyhood fantasies converted into Matt
Groening-like cartoon, TV, and film franchises. He and Ash are married and she
is a successful feminist playwright. They are also best friends with Jules and
Dennis, but there is an enormous wealth gap between them, which leads Jules to realize
that it has always been such. An attempt of Jules and Dennis to turn back the
clock is particularly poignant because we know what they do not–you can never
go home again.
This is a book that probes whether or not the identities we
show others are reinvention, subterfuge, or charlatanism. It is also about
dreams and frustrations, social class and assumed privileges. Many reviewers, like
those of Entertainment Weekly, have
given it more gravitas than it deserves. Wolitzer's characters are well
developed and their back stories keep our interest, but there simply aren't
many layers to either. Similarly, Wolitzer's peeks into American society feel
more like contrivance than relevance. The book is also relentlessly New York in
its outlook–a bit like a Woody Allen script with more believable dialogue. Like
an Allen movie, The Interestings is
filled with delicious moments and vignettes, but its characters are hard to
admire or love. They are the sorts with which we sometimes identify, but just
as often want to smack with a plank. I suppose this gives the book an air of verisimilitude,
so I give this book a qualified recommendation. It is a diverting read that has
occasional insight, but don't buy into the hype. –Rob Weir
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