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Private Life
Book by Jane Smiley
318 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
362 people are currently reading
3006 people want to read
About the author
Jane Smiley
133 books2,714 followersJane Smiley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained a A.B. at Vassar College, then earned a M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. While working towards her doctorate, she also spent a year studying in Iceland as a Fulbright Scholar. From 1981 to 1996, she taught at Iowa State University. Smiley published her first novel, Barn Blind, in 1980, and won a 1985 O. Henry Award for her short story "Lily", which was published in The Atlantic Monthly. Her best-selling A Thousand Acres, a story based on William Shakespeare's King Lear, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992. It was adapted into a film of the same title in 1997. In 1995 she wrote her sole television script produced, for an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. Her novella The Age of Grief was made into the 2002 film The Secret Lives of Dentists.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005), is a non-fiction meditation on the history and the nature of the novel, somewhat in the tradition of E. M. Forster's seminal Aspects of the Novel, that roams from eleventh century Japan's Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji to twenty-first century Americans chick lit.
In 2001, Smiley was elected a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Smiley grew up in Webster Groves, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, and graduated from John Burroughs School. She obtained a A.B. at Vassar College, then earned a M.F.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. While working towards her doctorate, she also spent a year studying in Iceland as a Fulbright Scholar. From 1981 to 1996, she taught at Iowa State University. Smiley published her first novel, Barn Blind, in 1980, and won a 1985 O. Henry Award for her short story "Lily", which was published in The Atlantic Monthly. Her best-selling A Thousand Acres, a story based on William Shakespeare's King Lear, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992. It was adapted into a film of the same title in 1997. In 1995 she wrote her sole television script produced, for an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. Her novella The Age of Grief was made into the 2002 film The Secret Lives of Dentists.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005), is a non-fiction meditation on the history and the nature of the novel, somewhat in the tradition of E. M. Forster's seminal Aspects of the Novel, that roams from eleventh century Japan's Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji to twenty-first century Americans chick lit.
In 2001, Smiley was elected a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 784 reviews
February 22, 2011
Ok, that’s it. No more Jane Smiley for me. Hubby and I have tried 1000 Acres and wound up giving up on that finding Smiley's focus on the mundane details of EVERYTHING to be incredibly tedious, characters unappealing, and totally in need of a good editor to cut it down by 75%..
Now comes Private Life, which from the publisher’s blurb sounded like an intriguing story. Not. It is a character study straight out of DSM – see Dependent Personality Disorder. And, while this could be fairly interesting, given Smiley’s penchant on describing EVERYTHING in minute detail, it is simply unutterably mind numbing.
The book is about Margaret, a disengaged 27 year old woman who at the turn of the century (19th) is considered a spinster. Her father committed suicide when she was just a child – you might ask who cares about this detail because it is not salient to the character or her development. Wait! There is no development.
So, Margaret marries Alexander Early, a repressed, rigid and obsessive scientist and enters into a joyless marriage.
Ok, so what, big deal. Does anything happen in this book? Not really. Smiley divides it into sections that begin with Margaret visiting some Japanese friends and then jumps through time examining the role of women from the late 1800s to mid 1900. Never once did I have a good idea of Margaret as a person in spite of this. What were her motivations? Did she actually have a personality apart from her husband and what was expected of her? Maybe her personality was indeed that of a Casper Milquetoast, in that each time a situation presents itself where Margaret actually could come to another’s aid or step outside her autistic like existence, she makes a half hearted attempt and then withdraws. She does not learn anything from experience and she has little insight into how she has been manipulated by others and how devastatingly their actions have impacted her life. When she does muster up such a glimmer, what does she do? Nothing.
She simply lives a totally and completely repressed and bland life with everything subordinated to others- and to her own fears. She is disengaged and lives a bland existence that in the end leaves no mark upon the world nor any important contribution. She seems afraid of everything – including facing the truth, turning away from anything that might upset her bland world.
She sort of reminded me of an emotionally abused wife – which I guess she really was. She was completely subjugated to the needs, wants, and desires of her husband and everyone else. Truth had no place in her life, nor introspection, nor taking any risk to learn anything new about anything. Perhaps it was Smiley’s intent to paint this picture – and I do admit there are women like this. But I don’t really want to read an entire novel about them unless it is a novel of growth and gumption to break out of this emotional prison in which they find themselves.
One might say that this is an unfair assessment. Women did not have much in the way of options at the turn of the century. To this I say balderdash. There are many ways to make one’s mark in the world and always have been. Mousehood and withdrawal from reality (unless one is psychotic and can’t help it) is not one of those.
So, I didn't like the character and I really don't like Smiley's writing style. What's up with the Pulitzer committee? Who does she know?
Now comes Private Life, which from the publisher’s blurb sounded like an intriguing story. Not. It is a character study straight out of DSM – see Dependent Personality Disorder. And, while this could be fairly interesting, given Smiley’s penchant on describing EVERYTHING in minute detail, it is simply unutterably mind numbing.
The book is about Margaret, a disengaged 27 year old woman who at the turn of the century (19th) is considered a spinster. Her father committed suicide when she was just a child – you might ask who cares about this detail because it is not salient to the character or her development. Wait! There is no development.
So, Margaret marries Alexander Early, a repressed, rigid and obsessive scientist and enters into a joyless marriage.
Ok, so what, big deal. Does anything happen in this book? Not really. Smiley divides it into sections that begin with Margaret visiting some Japanese friends and then jumps through time examining the role of women from the late 1800s to mid 1900. Never once did I have a good idea of Margaret as a person in spite of this. What were her motivations? Did she actually have a personality apart from her husband and what was expected of her? Maybe her personality was indeed that of a Casper Milquetoast, in that each time a situation presents itself where Margaret actually could come to another’s aid or step outside her autistic like existence, she makes a half hearted attempt and then withdraws. She does not learn anything from experience and she has little insight into how she has been manipulated by others and how devastatingly their actions have impacted her life. When she does muster up such a glimmer, what does she do? Nothing.
She simply lives a totally and completely repressed and bland life with everything subordinated to others- and to her own fears. She is disengaged and lives a bland existence that in the end leaves no mark upon the world nor any important contribution. She seems afraid of everything – including facing the truth, turning away from anything that might upset her bland world.
She sort of reminded me of an emotionally abused wife – which I guess she really was. She was completely subjugated to the needs, wants, and desires of her husband and everyone else. Truth had no place in her life, nor introspection, nor taking any risk to learn anything new about anything. Perhaps it was Smiley’s intent to paint this picture – and I do admit there are women like this. But I don’t really want to read an entire novel about them unless it is a novel of growth and gumption to break out of this emotional prison in which they find themselves.
One might say that this is an unfair assessment. Women did not have much in the way of options at the turn of the century. To this I say balderdash. There are many ways to make one’s mark in the world and always have been. Mousehood and withdrawal from reality (unless one is psychotic and can’t help it) is not one of those.
So, I didn't like the character and I really don't like Smiley's writing style. What's up with the Pulitzer committee? Who does she know?
January 2, 2011
Sometimes, when I finish a book, I like to read what others have written, just to see if I agree. This time, I couldn't disagree more. Several people commented that this is the story of a loveless, arranged marriage. Andrew proposed to Margaret and she accepted, so it was not arranged. She traveled across country with him, leaving behind family, friends and her the comfort of the known. Although both mother's plotted to get the two of them together, they did not force the marriage. In an arranged marriage, the bride and groom often do not meet until the wedding. And, arranged marriages are often as successful as any others.
Obviously, Margaret and Andrew were unusual people, based on Smiley's great aunt and uncle. Although, they were not affectionate, I think they loved each other as much as either was capable of love. You have to remember that Margaret did not really mourn the death of her two brothers and never returned to see her family. The real tragedy was the loss of their only child and their decision to have no more children. A child could have saved this marriage and may have delayed Andrew's fall into insanity, just the way their pet dog did.
I do not see Margaret's life as dreadful. She lived in interesting times and made wonderful friends. She lived a life of comfort while many others suffered. I think that Jane Smiley is a marvelous writer, and she took me on a journey through a fascinating period in our history.
Obviously, Margaret and Andrew were unusual people, based on Smiley's great aunt and uncle. Although, they were not affectionate, I think they loved each other as much as either was capable of love. You have to remember that Margaret did not really mourn the death of her two brothers and never returned to see her family. The real tragedy was the loss of their only child and their decision to have no more children. A child could have saved this marriage and may have delayed Andrew's fall into insanity, just the way their pet dog did.
I do not see Margaret's life as dreadful. She lived in interesting times and made wonderful friends. She lived a life of comfort while many others suffered. I think that Jane Smiley is a marvelous writer, and she took me on a journey through a fascinating period in our history.
May 25, 2010
I am a great fan of Jane Smiley. And because I am I kept waiting patiently for the story to pick up. the story takes place between 1883 and 1942. The main characters Margaret a sweet but not particularly dynamic woman who at 27 marries Dr. Andrew Jefferson Early a Navy Captain and scientist. I found it disturbing witnessing 30 years plus of marriage with Andrew never stopping to be selfish and even worse creating insane scientific hypothesis. The period of time covered was a dramatic exciting time in civilization yet that marriage and life was painfully bleak...suddenly I realized.....wait a minute I don't have to hang around and continue punishing myself even though Margaret did not give up....so i did....I stopped three quarters of the way through. Perhaps others have more wherewithall than I.
addendum: I feel redeemed. i just finished reading today's ny time review on this book by michiko kakutani...
poetically described..."a gray, potted stew of a story that's as depressing and tiresome...."
phew its not just my ADD kicking in and dialing me away from some masterpiece...hahhahhah
addendum: I feel redeemed. i just finished reading today's ny time review on this book by michiko kakutani...
poetically described..."a gray, potted stew of a story that's as depressing and tiresome...."
phew its not just my ADD kicking in and dialing me away from some masterpiece...hahhahhah
March 25, 2019
Historical fiction about the life of a woman, Margaret Mayfield Early. Born in the 1870’s in Missouri, she is very much a woman of her era. She quiet and submissive, and appears to be on her way to being, at 27, what was then called a spinster. She meets Andrew Early, an intellectual astronomer who espouses theories of the universe, marries, and accompanies him to an island off the coast of California. Her husband’s actions, at first, seem reasonable to her, but she eventually begins to question his mental stability.
This is a “slice of life” character-driven novel. It develops slowly. Smiley’s writing is evocative. I especially liked her description the bicycle ride of Margaret's youth and the experience of new motherhood. We meet several colorful characters, including Dora, a rare-for-the-time single woman with a job, Pete, the lovable rogue, Mr. Kimura, an artist, Naoko and Mrs. Kimura, midwives, and Len Scanlan, a sycophantic biographer that feeds Andrew’s ego. The historic panorama is almost a character unto itself, as we see the major events in both Missouri and the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 4th of July Parade, 1906 earthquake, the Preparedness Parade, and the internment of the Japanese in WWII, through Margaret’s perspective. One glaring omission was the lack of a radio in the home, which was a predominant method of obtaining news in the 1920’s through 1940’s, and surely Andrew would have had one due to his interest in science and inventions.
Options for women at the time were restricted, especially when a marriage was not working out. Divorce was limited to grounds of adultery, abandonment, or battery. Jobs for women were few. Unless a woman was from a wealthy family, like Dora, she needed to marry to be “provided for.” These days, couples can get to know each other much more deeply than back then when chaperones were required for an unmarried woman, and there was very little opportunity to be alone together without impacting the woman’s reputation. Margaret had no idea what she was getting into when she married Andrew. She did not have an idea of what constituted a “happy family,” as her own family had experienced a series of tragedies. Her lack of exposure to mature males in early life made it difficult for her to question her husband. It made me glad to be born in current times!
The audiobook was eloquently read by Kate Reading. She did a great job of the various male and female voices, and Russian and Japanese accents. I think listening to this book made it even more enjoyable than it would have been to read it.
Margaret’s journey to finding her voice and an ability to stand up to her husband is a major part of the storyline. The book’s first half was more eventful than the second, so if you like lots of action, this is not the book for you. Recommended to those who appreciate in-depth character studies and don’t mind slowly-developing storylines with lots of detailed descriptions.
This is a “slice of life” character-driven novel. It develops slowly. Smiley’s writing is evocative. I especially liked her description the bicycle ride of Margaret's youth and the experience of new motherhood. We meet several colorful characters, including Dora, a rare-for-the-time single woman with a job, Pete, the lovable rogue, Mr. Kimura, an artist, Naoko and Mrs. Kimura, midwives, and Len Scanlan, a sycophantic biographer that feeds Andrew’s ego. The historic panorama is almost a character unto itself, as we see the major events in both Missouri and the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 4th of July Parade, 1906 earthquake, the Preparedness Parade, and the internment of the Japanese in WWII, through Margaret’s perspective. One glaring omission was the lack of a radio in the home, which was a predominant method of obtaining news in the 1920’s through 1940’s, and surely Andrew would have had one due to his interest in science and inventions.
Options for women at the time were restricted, especially when a marriage was not working out. Divorce was limited to grounds of adultery, abandonment, or battery. Jobs for women were few. Unless a woman was from a wealthy family, like Dora, she needed to marry to be “provided for.” These days, couples can get to know each other much more deeply than back then when chaperones were required for an unmarried woman, and there was very little opportunity to be alone together without impacting the woman’s reputation. Margaret had no idea what she was getting into when she married Andrew. She did not have an idea of what constituted a “happy family,” as her own family had experienced a series of tragedies. Her lack of exposure to mature males in early life made it difficult for her to question her husband. It made me glad to be born in current times!
The audiobook was eloquently read by Kate Reading. She did a great job of the various male and female voices, and Russian and Japanese accents. I think listening to this book made it even more enjoyable than it would have been to read it.
Margaret’s journey to finding her voice and an ability to stand up to her husband is a major part of the storyline. The book’s first half was more eventful than the second, so if you like lots of action, this is not the book for you. Recommended to those who appreciate in-depth character studies and don’t mind slowly-developing storylines with lots of detailed descriptions.
January 18, 2011
Only until the last paragraph is read does one come to the realization that this is a cautionary tale on both domestic and worldly levels. In this story, choices are made regarding marriage, social convention, and what to do when one is confronted with a mixture of genius, insanity, and power. The atmosphere is set in the mid-west (oh, how Jane Smiley knows the mid-west)and in San Francisco during the early part of this century. (Yes, it could be a very good movie.)
This book has a graduating intensity. It kind of sneaks up on you, especially since the beginning of the book begins with the prim conventions at the turn of the century, conventions that limit so much what women and in particular, the women of this story are able to do.
The book covers a lot of historical territory, including a lynching, the introduction of cars on roads, the San Francisco fire, and the internment of the Japanese during World War II.
The protagonist's husband is a kind of early 20th century "beautiful mind" figure that looms large in the shaping of the book. Two other interesting figures are a female journalist of unusual independence (for the time) who eventually sees too much, and her mysterious partner of supposedly Russian roots.
This book has a graduating intensity. It kind of sneaks up on you, especially since the beginning of the book begins with the prim conventions at the turn of the century, conventions that limit so much what women and in particular, the women of this story are able to do.
The book covers a lot of historical territory, including a lynching, the introduction of cars on roads, the San Francisco fire, and the internment of the Japanese during World War II.
The protagonist's husband is a kind of early 20th century "beautiful mind" figure that looms large in the shaping of the book. Two other interesting figures are a female journalist of unusual independence (for the time) who eventually sees too much, and her mysterious partner of supposedly Russian roots.
December 17, 2010
As i was reading Jane Smiley's most recent novel, my husband commented that world events did not enter Jane Austen's Emma. What a contrast from Private Life, in which the protagonist Margaret Mayfield Early bears witness to the aftermath of the American Civil War, the San Francisco earthquake, the First World War, anarchy, Pearl Harbor and the national paranoia that came afterwards, as well as the most important scientific advances. Margaret is more forward-looking than her domineering and misguided astronomer husband. As Margaret gradually comes to understand how she has been victimized by her own mother and her mother-in-law she also is able to retrieve her most important fugitive memory, of the hanging she had seen when she was less than five years old. With its ring structure, this is one of the few books I was eager to start all over again as soon as I had finished the last page.
Smiley is a terrific story-teller. She's always writing phrases like "And they never saw her again" that make you want to find out what happened to the person(s) who disappeared. Moreover, Private Life then is an ironic title. Margaret comes to see herself as others see her, from reading her husband's papers and letters and also from sensing what others say about her, especially her diametric opposite, her sister's sister-in-law, an adventurous newspaper woman named Dora. In the end, Margaret is her own harshest judge. Dear reader, can you forgive her?
Smiley is a terrific story-teller. She's always writing phrases like "And they never saw her again" that make you want to find out what happened to the person(s) who disappeared. Moreover, Private Life then is an ironic title. Margaret comes to see herself as others see her, from reading her husband's papers and letters and also from sensing what others say about her, especially her diametric opposite, her sister's sister-in-law, an adventurous newspaper woman named Dora. In the end, Margaret is her own harshest judge. Dear reader, can you forgive her?
August 21, 2010
This is what might have happened to Dorothea in Middlemarch if she hadn't had the good fortune of Mr Casaubon dying and setting her free. This book is no Middlemarch, but it is an excruciating portrait of a sterile marriage in the first half of the 20th century, between a too-timid woman with no other options, and a brilliant but increasingly deranged astronomer. It's slow at first, but the last third of the book, as Margaret slowly begins to see her husband as others see him, and finally realises why she herself is viewed as "a saint", becomes riveting. You long for Margaret to find some get-up-and-go, but sadly she doesn't. The end is still spellbinding though. And there are other moments that are very intense and moving, notably the short life of Margaret's son Alexander. The period detail is fantastic too, with vivid details of ordinary lives; I loved the part where Margaret learns to drive -- which should be a moment of liberation for her, but in fact is the result of her husband's plan to use her as his personal chauffeur, when she isn't typing up his barmy theories.
I was sure Smiley must be drawing on real historical figures, though there's no mention of this in the book. So I was pleased to find this interview in which she talks about her great-uncle and his long-suffering wife. Some more interesting insights and explanations here.. Worth reading the interviews if you find the book intriguing.
I was sure Smiley must be drawing on real historical figures, though there's no mention of this in the book. So I was pleased to find this interview in which she talks about her great-uncle and his long-suffering wife. Some more interesting insights and explanations here.. Worth reading the interviews if you find the book intriguing.
April 30, 2020
Disappointment. The main story failed to engage my interest and contained too much repetition to illustrate a simple point.
May 30, 2010
I'm well into it-and liking it very much.
Finished. In the meantime I read the NYT Michiko Kakutani's review, or shall I say trashing, of the book. I totally disagree with her, as I liked this book very much and found it unique and deep in a way that Kakutani's superficial reading seems not to access.
The time/setting is the early part of the 20th century, in Missouri and California. A timid girl is married to a local standout, an educated and promising fellow, who feels he has understood the universe (he picks a quarrel with Einstein) but whose carrier is increasingly derailed because of how eccentric he is. The novel spans their lives until late middle age, through the World Wars.
What I particularly loved about this novel is the underlaying meditation on people's varying natures. Smiley's female protagonist feels people as life-forces. Concurrently one senses how arrangements, live paths and relationships can be, often are, beyond people's control as these "life-forces converge.
Here is where the irritation of some reviewers (esp. Kakutani) come in; as if they think that consciousness alone, awareness of ones' situation, is enough to brake moulds, set free, oppose, etc. Most people of all times and places have had to come to grips with their reality, their natures, and cope the best they can. It is as if the Kakutanis of the world insist on something totally different: how a feisty heroine lived her live in a rebellious romp.
I enjoyed the details of all the astronomical/physics speculation the husband engaged in. The weirdness is partly humorous, partly sad, sometimes oddly beautiful, such as when the wife observes her husbands reaction to the moonrise outside their living-room windows. I was intrigued by the references to Japanese printmaking as well, it will make me look closer at them although in the novel they reflect on the happenings or the reasons the characters are drawn to them. Perhaps Jane Smiley (whose talent is extremely varied; she has even written a book whose style-points are taken from the Icelandic Sagas) sought a stylistic inspiration/parallel from how these prints capture the mundane and the universal in few exquisite strokes?
Private Lives opens a way of seeing a live and afterwards I can see better the many ways of lives. No 3D needed, just a special book.
Finished. In the meantime I read the NYT Michiko Kakutani's review, or shall I say trashing, of the book. I totally disagree with her, as I liked this book very much and found it unique and deep in a way that Kakutani's superficial reading seems not to access.
The time/setting is the early part of the 20th century, in Missouri and California. A timid girl is married to a local standout, an educated and promising fellow, who feels he has understood the universe (he picks a quarrel with Einstein) but whose carrier is increasingly derailed because of how eccentric he is. The novel spans their lives until late middle age, through the World Wars.
What I particularly loved about this novel is the underlaying meditation on people's varying natures. Smiley's female protagonist feels people as life-forces. Concurrently one senses how arrangements, live paths and relationships can be, often are, beyond people's control as these "life-forces converge.
Here is where the irritation of some reviewers (esp. Kakutani) come in; as if they think that consciousness alone, awareness of ones' situation, is enough to brake moulds, set free, oppose, etc. Most people of all times and places have had to come to grips with their reality, their natures, and cope the best they can. It is as if the Kakutanis of the world insist on something totally different: how a feisty heroine lived her live in a rebellious romp.
I enjoyed the details of all the astronomical/physics speculation the husband engaged in. The weirdness is partly humorous, partly sad, sometimes oddly beautiful, such as when the wife observes her husbands reaction to the moonrise outside their living-room windows. I was intrigued by the references to Japanese printmaking as well, it will make me look closer at them although in the novel they reflect on the happenings or the reasons the characters are drawn to them. Perhaps Jane Smiley (whose talent is extremely varied; she has even written a book whose style-points are taken from the Icelandic Sagas) sought a stylistic inspiration/parallel from how these prints capture the mundane and the universal in few exquisite strokes?
Private Lives opens a way of seeing a live and afterwards I can see better the many ways of lives. No 3D needed, just a special book.
October 7, 2011
This was a fascinating, if slower-paced, novel. And ultimately, it was a very sad novel, with Margaret realizing at the end of her life that she should have lived it more consciously, not letting it slide by, with key decisions made for her. Not regret you want to feel: a sense of life unfulfilled.
As a girl, Margaret has such promise: the spark of life that has her running up and down her town's main street, with a mind advanced and shaped by a passion for reading. But then no suitable man appears, and at the "old" age of 27, she marries a scientist she hopes will bring her into a life bigger than her small town. She gradually discovers he's delusional and a bit of a scientific quack. But she continues to let him dominate her life and spends hours upon hours typing his books and articles per his demands.
The history in the novel was fascinating: a look at post Civil War Missouri, the San Francisco earthquake, naval family life on Mare Island, the treatment and ultimately, internment of Japanese Americans during the war. And I felt like I got some sense of what it was like to be a middle class woman at the turn of the century--the possibilities and the restrictions.
As a girl, Margaret has such promise: the spark of life that has her running up and down her town's main street, with a mind advanced and shaped by a passion for reading. But then no suitable man appears, and at the "old" age of 27, she marries a scientist she hopes will bring her into a life bigger than her small town. She gradually discovers he's delusional and a bit of a scientific quack. But she continues to let him dominate her life and spends hours upon hours typing his books and articles per his demands.
The history in the novel was fascinating: a look at post Civil War Missouri, the San Francisco earthquake, naval family life on Mare Island, the treatment and ultimately, internment of Japanese Americans during the war. And I felt like I got some sense of what it was like to be a middle class woman at the turn of the century--the possibilities and the restrictions.
September 29, 2012
“Private Life” by Jane Smiley tracks the life of Margaret Mayfield from her youth in Post-Civil War Missouri through her life as Mrs. Andrew Early in California during WWII. Smiley begins with the Rose Wilder Lane quote “In those days all stories ended with the wedding.” Rather than a fairytale “happily-ever-after,” though, Smiley delves into the life of a “good woman” who submits to convention and allows her marriage to define her. Margaret describes herself as the third sister, even though she’s the oldest: “There’s always a beautiful sister and a smart sister, and then there’s a sister that’s not beautiful or smart.” At 27, Margaret is on the verge of becoming a spinster when she consents to marry the odd, but brilliant, Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early.
There is no romance between them, which may be a blessing in itself. Margaret’s mother Livinia maintains what Margaret considered to be a practical view of marriage: Romance is always the first act of a tragedy. When Margaret is eight years old, her physician father commits suicide after a freak accident kills Margaret’s thirteen-year old brother and her fifteen-year-old brother dies of the measles. Livinia tells Margaret that death is the most essential part of life.
The novel has no chapters, just a prologue and an epilogue, both set in 1942, and five parts beginning in 1883, 1905, 1911, 1928, 1937, respectively. Those hoping for a fast-paced read or compelling action will be disappointed, but those who appreciate well-crafted prose, exquisite character development, and insightful reflections upon human nature are in for a treat. In addition to describing Margaret’s inner self, “private” seems to be a subtle reference to Margaret’s station in life beneath that of her naval husband, Captain Early. She is but a spectator in that relationship, and over the years she watches her husband decline from something that approaches genius into what seems to be near madness. There’s no telling what Margaret might know, understand and remember if she finds the courage to let herself think before it’s too late.
There is no romance between them, which may be a blessing in itself. Margaret’s mother Livinia maintains what Margaret considered to be a practical view of marriage: Romance is always the first act of a tragedy. When Margaret is eight years old, her physician father commits suicide after a freak accident kills Margaret’s thirteen-year old brother and her fifteen-year-old brother dies of the measles. Livinia tells Margaret that death is the most essential part of life.
The novel has no chapters, just a prologue and an epilogue, both set in 1942, and five parts beginning in 1883, 1905, 1911, 1928, 1937, respectively. Those hoping for a fast-paced read or compelling action will be disappointed, but those who appreciate well-crafted prose, exquisite character development, and insightful reflections upon human nature are in for a treat. In addition to describing Margaret’s inner self, “private” seems to be a subtle reference to Margaret’s station in life beneath that of her naval husband, Captain Early. She is but a spectator in that relationship, and over the years she watches her husband decline from something that approaches genius into what seems to be near madness. There’s no telling what Margaret might know, understand and remember if she finds the courage to let herself think before it’s too late.
December 9, 2013
Maybe this book is better than my capacity to appreciate. I don't tend toward writing that is obscure, or dense (or makes me feel dense). However, sometimes it's better to roll along with the storytelling and let the deeper meaning work its way up from subconscious to conscious.
The ending of this book is extremely powerful. Margaret, due to the traumatic incident that happened when she was five, lived in a fog her entire life, married to a wacko genius, and not waking up until she was in her sixties and everything/everyone is sad and tired. Yet she seems to catch fire, fueled by bitterness, in the very last 3 sentences of the epilogue. It was a long time to wait for the enlightenment.
I gave the book 3 stars because there's too much backstory too soon, making it hard for me to develop an interest. Once there, I felt frustrated at the repetitious nature of Margaret's obtuseness, even though she's a bright woman, and her deferring to Andrew, even though this is what people - women especially - do.
It went on for her whole life! That she was living in a cloud due to, I believe, the trauma of the childhood incident, and that she was ill served by those around her, didn't make it any easier to like this story. I know Smiley is a master writer, and I feel like a goof not giving her a better rating, but this is my honest reaction.
The ending of this book is extremely powerful. Margaret, due to the traumatic incident that happened when she was five, lived in a fog her entire life, married to a wacko genius, and not waking up until she was in her sixties and everything/everyone is sad and tired. Yet she seems to catch fire, fueled by bitterness, in the very last 3 sentences of the epilogue. It was a long time to wait for the enlightenment.
I gave the book 3 stars because there's too much backstory too soon, making it hard for me to develop an interest. Once there, I felt frustrated at the repetitious nature of Margaret's obtuseness, even though she's a bright woman, and her deferring to Andrew, even though this is what people - women especially - do.
It went on for her whole life! That she was living in a cloud due to, I believe, the trauma of the childhood incident, and that she was ill served by those around her, didn't make it any easier to like this story. I know Smiley is a master writer, and I feel like a goof not giving her a better rating, but this is my honest reaction.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 15, 2010
Margaret Mayfield was considered to be the least attractive daughter in the family—mostly because of her somewhat unappealing personality—and these very qualities were whispered about by neighbors and relatives. So when a very bright man, Andrew Early—a bit older than Margaret, who at twenty-seven was considered to be an "old maid"—appears to be courting her, everyone is pleased.
Margaret's mother Lavinia and Andrew's mother Anna seem to be negotiating for this union.
Margaret herself is impressed by Andrew's interest in her, and together they embark on a marriage that will carry them into what seems to be an interesting life in California. Andrew is an officer in the navy and very much the scientist, with his various theories that seem to dispute much of the popular thought of the day.
Impressed by him at first, Margaret listens and seemingly agrees with her husband's views...mostly because they seem so plausible.
On the personal level, Margaret and Andrew carry on separate lives. Even their attempts to become parents fall flat, first with a miscarriage and then with the death of their child Alexander in infancy.
Later in their lives, Margaret begins to question and even fear Andrew's beliefs and his tendency to sound too suspicious of almost everyone.
What will Andrew do at a pivotal moment in history that will jeopardize the lives of those around them? And what effect will Margaret's pleas have upon Andrew's actions? As this story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that something much more malevolent is going on, and that Margaret herself is a victim to the kind of madness that consumes her husband.
Considering the times and the nature of marital roles then, Margaret seems caught up in the constraints of her wifely role, while Andrew might appear as a man just acting out his role as the husband.
In the end, I felt compelled to read quickly through the pages of "Private Life," hoping for a positive resolution.
Margaret's mother Lavinia and Andrew's mother Anna seem to be negotiating for this union.
Margaret herself is impressed by Andrew's interest in her, and together they embark on a marriage that will carry them into what seems to be an interesting life in California. Andrew is an officer in the navy and very much the scientist, with his various theories that seem to dispute much of the popular thought of the day.
Impressed by him at first, Margaret listens and seemingly agrees with her husband's views...mostly because they seem so plausible.
On the personal level, Margaret and Andrew carry on separate lives. Even their attempts to become parents fall flat, first with a miscarriage and then with the death of their child Alexander in infancy.
Later in their lives, Margaret begins to question and even fear Andrew's beliefs and his tendency to sound too suspicious of almost everyone.
What will Andrew do at a pivotal moment in history that will jeopardize the lives of those around them? And what effect will Margaret's pleas have upon Andrew's actions? As this story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that something much more malevolent is going on, and that Margaret herself is a victim to the kind of madness that consumes her husband.
Considering the times and the nature of marital roles then, Margaret seems caught up in the constraints of her wifely role, while Andrew might appear as a man just acting out his role as the husband.
In the end, I felt compelled to read quickly through the pages of "Private Life," hoping for a positive resolution.
April 16, 2013
This is one of those books that you don't merely read, but rather fall into. Jane Smiley is the queen of details for me, and this is no exception. Very little in this story is told to the reader, everything is shown, in extravagant little details that I concede, some might find excessive, but so appeal to me. The story chronicles the life of Margaret, a quiet, obedient young woman, from 1883 to 1942. Initially not all that interested in marriage, she follows convention when marriage is proposed by a eccentric bachelor. To say the union was a difficult one, is to put it mildly. Margaret is nearly swallowed up by the large personality of her astronomer husband, but is able to carve out tiny slivers of life for herself. Smiley touches on difficult subjects such as mental illness, racial undercurrents of the time and the loss of a child in subtle but powerful ways, all to the backdrop of historical events of the time span. I loved her characters and this book will join the ranks of those I see on the shelves of used bookstores, and with regret wish I hadn't read it yet, so the pleasure of doing so would still be ahead of me.
July 13, 2015
This is one of those books that defy the back cover description. Sure, it's accurate about the plot which really doesn't sound too interesting. What could be so compelling about one woman's life, the typical nuances of fate that make up one person's existence? And the character herself is not particularly noteworthy, the times she lives in are of interest but not extremely so. And yet this book came to life for me the way only a small percentage do. It was real and solid and full of minor epiphanies. I loved its subtle humor, languorous pace and immersive perspective. The way the story is long and momentous like real life but also commonplace and every day. I can't really answer why it was so compelling but I know that it was all in the telling, the details included, the things left out. It felt like one continuous, seamless cloth, no exposed stitches. Margaret was as real to me as if I had known her and full of the small quirks and habits that real people exhibit, entirely three dimensional. Needless to say I was quite drawn in and enjoyed the experience whole-heartedly.
January 12, 2015
“Private Life” by Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Jane Smiley is a third-person narrated account of the life -- from the age of five in 1883 to the age of 64 in 1942 -- of an accommodating, submissive woman, Margaret (Mayfield) Early, who, finally, out of necessity must assert herself. I felt that Smiley’s narration, a consequence of Margaret’s compliant nature, lacked excitement until maybe a fourth of the way into the book when she marries her husband, Captain Andrew Early, an egotistical astronomer and physicist. I empathized more and more with Margaret’s character as her dissatisfaction with Andrew progressed.
People late in life tend to judge their past lives in terms of accomplishment and fulfillment. Margaret’s judgment becomes one of bitterness, toward those who have manipulated and controlled her and toward her own cowardice of accommodation. Accomplishment requires courage. Fulfillment requires contentment with outcomes and with oneself as a human being. Throughout most of the novel Margaret lacks the courage to forge her identity and determine her future. She has allowed stronger-minded individuals to control her. Her enjoyments result from her associations with strong-minded yet considerate acquaintances: her eccentric, exciting sister-in-law Dora; Mrs. Lear, a neighbor and wise advisor at Mare Island Naval Base, Calfironia; Mrs. Wareham, a compassionate boarding house landlady in Vallejo, California; Pete Krizenko, an adventurous, mysterious Ukrainian entrepreneur for whom Margaret feels an emotional and sexual attraction; and the Kimura family – the aging father, an exquisite painter; the mother, a tireless, traveling midwife; and the daughter Naoko, a trustworthy midwife and housekeeper.
At the beginning of Part One of the novel we learn that Margaret, living near St. Louis, Missouri, has repressed her memory of a public hanging that her older brother had taken her to witness when she was five years old. Both of her brothers die during her childhood. Margaret’s father, a physician, kills himself. Margaret’s mother Lavinia moves her family to her father’s nearby farm where they reside until her three daughters marry. From an early age Margaret learns resignation.
Lavinia considers Margaret, at age 23, to be lazy because she is content to read books rather than assert herself to attract suitors. Daughters of several of Lavinia’s friends have taken school teacher jobs in Idaho to find husbands. Margaret tells Pete Krizenko fairly late in the novel: “I was the third sister even though I’m the oldest. There’s always a beautiful sister and a smart sister, and then there’s a sister that’s not beautiful or smart.” Lavinia places her daughters Elizabeth and Beatrice in social circles where their attributes attract eventual husbands. Margaret appears destined to be an old maid. However, Mrs. Jared Early, a rich, seemingly generous, well-educated widow and elitist member of high St. Louis society, befriends Lavinia, and, ultimately, Margaret. Her son, Andrew Early, educated at Columbia and the University of Berlin, and recently a professor at the University of Chicago, visits St. Louis. Mrs. Early arranges for Lavinia and Margaret to spend a fiercely cold winter night at her residence. Andrew is present. Margaret had met him by chance briefly several years before. Margaret experiences “the distinct feeling of staring into her own future … The play had begun. The customary ending was promised. Her own role was to say her lines sincerely and with appropriate feeling. At her age, she thought, she should know what those feelings were, but she did not.”
In the spring of 1903 Mrs. Early arranges to have her son and Margaret tour the exposition grounds of the 100th year celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Margaret recognizes that “he was not exactly like other mortals—he knew more, saw more. His mind worked more quickly and surveyed a broader landscape.” Submitting to the wishes of her mother and Mrs. Early, Margaret persuades herself to believe that, unlike other couples, they could share a unique life. He leaves St. Louis to spend several weeks in Washington, D.C. Afterward, he travels to Arizona and California. Lavinia advises patience. Eventually he returns and proposes. Thus begins their unique, increasingly unhappy marriage.
Years later Margaret discovers several letters that Mrs. Early had written to Andrew about the purpose of the marriage.
"Our thoughts about certain persons here in this town may not have come to anything (though the girl and her mother still seem receptive enough), but there are other girls and other mothers. My very least favorite thought is that of you solitary and alone, with no companion and no one to care for you. … No, the girl is not educated nor evidently intelligent, quiet without being mysterious (though I think there is more to her than meets the eye), but what do you want in a wife at your age? [He was 38, she 27] … I do not, frankly, think that you could abide a rival or even a young woman who considered herself your equal and spoke her own ideas back to you with any sort of self-confidence. … This girl is a well-made young woman with proper instincts and reasonable connections. Her mother has trained her to take care of household matters."
Telling Margaret’s thoughts, the author narrates: “in the end, Mrs. Early carried her point—she had chosen the local old maid, harmless but useful, to marry and care for her darling son” and that Lavinia had been “in on the plot. … Not only had he [Andrew] entertained doubts about her, he had tried her out, seen that he could have her, and then doubted and hesitated and suffered before taking her as the least of evils.”
Margaret learns that Andrew is actually two men. “When he was wondering [his greatest talent], he was a likable, congenial, and sociable person. When he had stopped wondering and was convinced that he knew the answer, he became stubborn and stern.” Before their marriage, while he was at Columbia and Chicago, he had challenged his superiors’ theories and made enemies. Married to Margaret, forced thereafter to work independently of academia, at a naval observatory at Mare Island, California, he spends most of the next three and a half decades of his life seeking to achieve scientific world acclaim. He writes numerous newspaper and scientific journal articles; he makes speeches; he writes lengthy books about the universe. “Private Life” is as much a portrait of an unstable genius who, craving adulation and not receiving it, becomes delusional and callously destructive as it is the portrait of a not remarkable, submissive, but decent woman who must defy her deep-rooted passivity to take command of her life.
Margaret’s and Andrew’s dual stories weave through many important historical events: the San Francisco Earthquake, World War I, the influenza epidemic of 1918, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, the rise of totalitarianism in Germany, Pearl Harbor, and the internment of Japanese American citizens.
Early during my reading I considered not finishing the novel. “The pace is slow,” I complained to my wife. A fourth of her way through the book, while I was writing the first draft of this review, she disagreed. “It’s not slow at all.” I persevered and was amply rewarded. This is a thought-provoking book. In strategic places Jane Smiley’s excellent command of language stirred powerfully my emotions. I conclude this review with this example, the death of Margaret’s jaundiced baby.
"Alarm and guilt surged in her, burning upward from her feet, enveloping her head, her brain, her mind in a fever of knowledge. … Alexander started to make a noise, high-pitched and distressed, and to arch his back. It seemed to her that he was crying for help, so she picked him up and went to the door of the room and opened it. Naoko was in the hallway. She looked at her, and without Margaret’s saying a thing, the girl ran out the front door. Margaret closed her door and carried Alexander over to the bed. She sat down and readied herself to nurse, but in that short moment, the moment between her sitting down and her putting him to the breast, he lost even that ability—Margaret felt it. It was a feeling of something dissolving. She looked at his face. She saw that he had but one thing left, which was that he could look back at her. She stroked the top of his head, moving the thin hairs this way and that, feeling the smoothness of his golden skin. She held him closer, as gently as she could. And then, in the way that you can feel with your baby but not see or sense with anyone else larger or more distantly related, she felt the life force go out of him entirely."
People late in life tend to judge their past lives in terms of accomplishment and fulfillment. Margaret’s judgment becomes one of bitterness, toward those who have manipulated and controlled her and toward her own cowardice of accommodation. Accomplishment requires courage. Fulfillment requires contentment with outcomes and with oneself as a human being. Throughout most of the novel Margaret lacks the courage to forge her identity and determine her future. She has allowed stronger-minded individuals to control her. Her enjoyments result from her associations with strong-minded yet considerate acquaintances: her eccentric, exciting sister-in-law Dora; Mrs. Lear, a neighbor and wise advisor at Mare Island Naval Base, Calfironia; Mrs. Wareham, a compassionate boarding house landlady in Vallejo, California; Pete Krizenko, an adventurous, mysterious Ukrainian entrepreneur for whom Margaret feels an emotional and sexual attraction; and the Kimura family – the aging father, an exquisite painter; the mother, a tireless, traveling midwife; and the daughter Naoko, a trustworthy midwife and housekeeper.
At the beginning of Part One of the novel we learn that Margaret, living near St. Louis, Missouri, has repressed her memory of a public hanging that her older brother had taken her to witness when she was five years old. Both of her brothers die during her childhood. Margaret’s father, a physician, kills himself. Margaret’s mother Lavinia moves her family to her father’s nearby farm where they reside until her three daughters marry. From an early age Margaret learns resignation.
Lavinia considers Margaret, at age 23, to be lazy because she is content to read books rather than assert herself to attract suitors. Daughters of several of Lavinia’s friends have taken school teacher jobs in Idaho to find husbands. Margaret tells Pete Krizenko fairly late in the novel: “I was the third sister even though I’m the oldest. There’s always a beautiful sister and a smart sister, and then there’s a sister that’s not beautiful or smart.” Lavinia places her daughters Elizabeth and Beatrice in social circles where their attributes attract eventual husbands. Margaret appears destined to be an old maid. However, Mrs. Jared Early, a rich, seemingly generous, well-educated widow and elitist member of high St. Louis society, befriends Lavinia, and, ultimately, Margaret. Her son, Andrew Early, educated at Columbia and the University of Berlin, and recently a professor at the University of Chicago, visits St. Louis. Mrs. Early arranges for Lavinia and Margaret to spend a fiercely cold winter night at her residence. Andrew is present. Margaret had met him by chance briefly several years before. Margaret experiences “the distinct feeling of staring into her own future … The play had begun. The customary ending was promised. Her own role was to say her lines sincerely and with appropriate feeling. At her age, she thought, she should know what those feelings were, but she did not.”
In the spring of 1903 Mrs. Early arranges to have her son and Margaret tour the exposition grounds of the 100th year celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Margaret recognizes that “he was not exactly like other mortals—he knew more, saw more. His mind worked more quickly and surveyed a broader landscape.” Submitting to the wishes of her mother and Mrs. Early, Margaret persuades herself to believe that, unlike other couples, they could share a unique life. He leaves St. Louis to spend several weeks in Washington, D.C. Afterward, he travels to Arizona and California. Lavinia advises patience. Eventually he returns and proposes. Thus begins their unique, increasingly unhappy marriage.
Years later Margaret discovers several letters that Mrs. Early had written to Andrew about the purpose of the marriage.
"Our thoughts about certain persons here in this town may not have come to anything (though the girl and her mother still seem receptive enough), but there are other girls and other mothers. My very least favorite thought is that of you solitary and alone, with no companion and no one to care for you. … No, the girl is not educated nor evidently intelligent, quiet without being mysterious (though I think there is more to her than meets the eye), but what do you want in a wife at your age? [He was 38, she 27] … I do not, frankly, think that you could abide a rival or even a young woman who considered herself your equal and spoke her own ideas back to you with any sort of self-confidence. … This girl is a well-made young woman with proper instincts and reasonable connections. Her mother has trained her to take care of household matters."
Telling Margaret’s thoughts, the author narrates: “in the end, Mrs. Early carried her point—she had chosen the local old maid, harmless but useful, to marry and care for her darling son” and that Lavinia had been “in on the plot. … Not only had he [Andrew] entertained doubts about her, he had tried her out, seen that he could have her, and then doubted and hesitated and suffered before taking her as the least of evils.”
Margaret learns that Andrew is actually two men. “When he was wondering [his greatest talent], he was a likable, congenial, and sociable person. When he had stopped wondering and was convinced that he knew the answer, he became stubborn and stern.” Before their marriage, while he was at Columbia and Chicago, he had challenged his superiors’ theories and made enemies. Married to Margaret, forced thereafter to work independently of academia, at a naval observatory at Mare Island, California, he spends most of the next three and a half decades of his life seeking to achieve scientific world acclaim. He writes numerous newspaper and scientific journal articles; he makes speeches; he writes lengthy books about the universe. “Private Life” is as much a portrait of an unstable genius who, craving adulation and not receiving it, becomes delusional and callously destructive as it is the portrait of a not remarkable, submissive, but decent woman who must defy her deep-rooted passivity to take command of her life.
Margaret’s and Andrew’s dual stories weave through many important historical events: the San Francisco Earthquake, World War I, the influenza epidemic of 1918, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, the rise of totalitarianism in Germany, Pearl Harbor, and the internment of Japanese American citizens.
Early during my reading I considered not finishing the novel. “The pace is slow,” I complained to my wife. A fourth of her way through the book, while I was writing the first draft of this review, she disagreed. “It’s not slow at all.” I persevered and was amply rewarded. This is a thought-provoking book. In strategic places Jane Smiley’s excellent command of language stirred powerfully my emotions. I conclude this review with this example, the death of Margaret’s jaundiced baby.
"Alarm and guilt surged in her, burning upward from her feet, enveloping her head, her brain, her mind in a fever of knowledge. … Alexander started to make a noise, high-pitched and distressed, and to arch his back. It seemed to her that he was crying for help, so she picked him up and went to the door of the room and opened it. Naoko was in the hallway. She looked at her, and without Margaret’s saying a thing, the girl ran out the front door. Margaret closed her door and carried Alexander over to the bed. She sat down and readied herself to nurse, but in that short moment, the moment between her sitting down and her putting him to the breast, he lost even that ability—Margaret felt it. It was a feeling of something dissolving. She looked at his face. She saw that he had but one thing left, which was that he could look back at her. She stroked the top of his head, moving the thin hairs this way and that, feeling the smoothness of his golden skin. She held him closer, as gently as she could. And then, in the way that you can feel with your baby but not see or sense with anyone else larger or more distantly related, she felt the life force go out of him entirely."
July 8, 2012
I do not agree with the publisher's blurb that this is a riveting tale. It is a story that shows how the young woman retains her privacy and doubts about her supposedly so spectacular scholar of a husband. The story is carried in part by the young man's mother and letters that she had written to her son over the decades, urging him to take his great mind and to be humble with it. The wife learns that the accusation of misuse of data against her husband when he was young is not the end of his preoccupations with showing that he is the most knowledgeable scholar in different areas of science. I was pleased with the ending of the book and how it grew from all the events in their married life and her private reflections.
Nonetheless, I found this the most boring of all of Jane Smiley's books that I have read so far, starting with Thousand Acres. Smiley is trying to write in different genres and diverging topics: this is straight fiction told from the viewpoint of the young woman/wife but the topics are research and theory of over 100 years ago. The other topic which is woven in and out throughout the book is what "women's roles" were considered to be. Boring but comical were the accounts of how she hated to type from his handwritten "scribbles," especially when a "true worshipper" of her husband comes to live with them. Also comical was the final episode of the husband's desire to be well known, sending letters to the President, the War Office, and key officials accusing his wife of being a tool of Japanese spies in WW II.
Nonetheless, I found this the most boring of all of Jane Smiley's books that I have read so far, starting with Thousand Acres. Smiley is trying to write in different genres and diverging topics: this is straight fiction told from the viewpoint of the young woman/wife but the topics are research and theory of over 100 years ago. The other topic which is woven in and out throughout the book is what "women's roles" were considered to be. Boring but comical were the accounts of how she hated to type from his handwritten "scribbles," especially when a "true worshipper" of her husband comes to live with them. Also comical was the final episode of the husband's desire to be well known, sending letters to the President, the War Office, and key officials accusing his wife of being a tool of Japanese spies in WW II.
Read
August 9, 2011There are a handful of living women writers whose new works are required reading. For me, Jane Smiley is one of them, all the more so because she lives in Carmel and I like to follow how her world view and attitude continue to evolve. Although many of Jane Smiley's novels are set in contemporary life, she sets this one in the late Victorian period,and finishes in 1943, after Pearl Harbor.She explores the mysteries of married life from the point of view of Margaret,a compliant protected young woman who has grown up in St. Louis, Missouri. Her protagonist husband is Captain Andrew Early, an astronomer who becomes a physicist. Because of Margaret's tolerant and patient nature, decades pass before she can acknowledge her husband's true character. He is in his late 30's, she in her late 20's when they marry. Considered a scientific genius by his family and community, she finds she is required to serve and worship him. His personality might be described as obsessive, intense and even autistic. Margaret's emotional needs take a back seat to Captain Early's grand theories and frustrations at being upstaged by Albert Einstein. She very gradually becomes conscious of her own identity through relationships with a local Japanese family, and two worldly wise friends who are connected with left wing politics between the wars. This is a subtle elegant book that unfolds slowly with dramatic power against the backdrop of events both in Northern California and Europe.
April 29, 2013
I listened to this book on my iPod, and it seems to me that this is a book best enjoyed in listening to it. The gentle, straight-forward narrative mirrors the internal life of Margaret, the protagonist, an ordinary, submissive, rather passive housewife, married to a scientist. The book follows her through her girlhood in 19th century Missouri through her marriage to Andrew Early, the most successful man ever to emerge from their little town, to their lives together in California, up through WWII. Margaret accepts all that life deals her, including the death of a child and the sham of her marriage, and she does her utmost to make the best of it. The book climaxes with Margaret's realization of the full awfulness of the man she's married to and her recollection, finally, of an event that happened when she was five, frequently alluded to throughout the book, which obviously had tremendous impact on her life, and which she had never before remembered. Jane Smiley is a very fine writer who has written in a variety of styles on a variety of subjects. In this case, she's written the sort of book that Henry James might have inspired, in which the minutiae of daily life accumulate with a significance appreciated in hindsight. And like James, it can be a bit boring, which is why listening is, I think, the best way to enjoy it.
March 25, 2013
I wanted to like this book--in fact, I bought it in hardcover, since everything else I've read by Jane Smiley has been superb, so why would this be any different? My two-star review is a reflection of the fact that I gave up partway in, unable to force myself to read any further.
The book opens with a riveting sequence that takes place in post-WWII San Francisco. I was immediately pulled in and wanted to know more about what had led to this situation involving Japanese citizens (or, possibly, non-citizens) in the US. The book then goes back in time, maybe fifty years or more, to the protagonist's childhood and proceeds slowly through her life, showing us the man she meets and marries (a rather unpleasant, but brilliant, scientist) and several other characters who may or may not still be there by the time we return to the opening scene. I was bored by then, though, and decided that my life is too short to waste on books that take a lifetime to tell somebody else's life story. So, I never finished it!
Disappointing, since Smiley is usually a great writer. I expected more from this book.
The book opens with a riveting sequence that takes place in post-WWII San Francisco. I was immediately pulled in and wanted to know more about what had led to this situation involving Japanese citizens (or, possibly, non-citizens) in the US. The book then goes back in time, maybe fifty years or more, to the protagonist's childhood and proceeds slowly through her life, showing us the man she meets and marries (a rather unpleasant, but brilliant, scientist) and several other characters who may or may not still be there by the time we return to the opening scene. I was bored by then, though, and decided that my life is too short to waste on books that take a lifetime to tell somebody else's life story. So, I never finished it!
Disappointing, since Smiley is usually a great writer. I expected more from this book.
December 27, 2015
Far from "riveting" (publisher's blurb). The writing is, of course, up to Jane Smiley's usual high standard, and Kate Reading's reading (ha! was there ever a better name for an audiobook narrator?) is excellent, though I didn't really care for protagonist Margaret's voice. But nothing ever really seemed to come to anything. Shows that a realistic reflection of life does not necessarily make a good novel. For much of the novel, I felt as trapped as Margaret.
February 17, 2021
3 stars
I really enjoyed this one. Atmospherically quiet & contemplative. It reminds me of Willa Cather’s work.
I’m also biased because the setting is a place where I have family roots, & had never expected to find in a novel.
I really enjoyed this one. Atmospherically quiet & contemplative. It reminds me of Willa Cather’s work.
I’m also biased because the setting is a place where I have family roots, & had never expected to find in a novel.
April 30, 2025
This is a wonderfully subtle, slow-burning book that makes me wonder, again, how Jane Smiley does what she does. In a lesser writer's hands this account of a woman's life covering from the 1880s to the 1940s (and touching on, among other things, the San Francisco earthquake/fire of 1904, the the Spanish flu epidemic, two world wars, the internment of California's Japanese population and the theory of relativity) could seem like a cliched pastiche. Here, it's utterly convincing.
October 18, 2018
If I didn’t have to read this for book club, I would not have finished it. How is it that some authors create characters you come to love and feel like you have known personally, while other authors’ characters impress nothing upon you whatsoever? This book contains the latter. I just did not care at all.
August 17, 2020
Confesso que não tinha ouvido falar nesta autora antes de trazer este livro da biblioteca, por impulso.
Não posso dizer que tenha sido um descoberta fantástica porque embora a história e o conteúdo e algumas (poucas) passagens tenham sido bem interessantes, infelizmente o estilo de escrita da autora não é nada empolgante nem especial o suficiente para me cativar.
É verdade que li bem este livro, nem sempre as coisas se arrastam como pareceria pelos comentários de alguns leitores e há ali momentos brilhantes mas... a maior parte do tempo a maneira como a história é apresentada pareceu-me aborrecida.
Não posso dizer que tenha sido um descoberta fantástica porque embora a história e o conteúdo e algumas (poucas) passagens tenham sido bem interessantes, infelizmente o estilo de escrita da autora não é nada empolgante nem especial o suficiente para me cativar.
É verdade que li bem este livro, nem sempre as coisas se arrastam como pareceria pelos comentários de alguns leitores e há ali momentos brilhantes mas... a maior parte do tempo a maneira como a história é apresentada pareceu-me aborrecida.
October 23, 2020
Private Life was an interesting portrayal of American Life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It follows Margaret through her childhood to adult hood. Sometimes I had a hard time relating to her, because of how she reacted to her husband, but I constantly had to remind myself what life was like for women during that time period. This story also spoke about what aspired people to do what they did, how others reacted to them and how one struggles to live up to what they think they should be.
January 11, 2022
This was very slowgoing, about the ordinary and inner life of a woman who never dared. She lived during the First and Second World War and just did what was expected of her as a woman.
It's an interesting story, but it's definitely something you need to be in the mood for. It doesn't deserve the bad reviews.
It's an interesting story, but it's definitely something you need to be in the mood for. It doesn't deserve the bad reviews.
October 27, 2022
I can’t even explain how boring this reading was. This is such an unnecessary story, so basic, with no conclusion or purpose. It’s one of those story’s that doesn’t need to be told tbh. I don’t like to leave my books without an ending, and yet, reading this was a real sacrifice.
April 15, 2020
Second time reading this book. It was nice
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