White Oleander (Oprah's Book Club)
by Janet Fitch
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Book Summary Information
Author: Janet FitchEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-05-01
ISBN: 0316284955
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Book Reviews of White Oleander (Oprah's Book Club)
Book Review: two stars for the story, one star for the writing
Summary: 2 Stars
before i began writing this review, i surfed the internet looking for reviews from other readers. 90% of the reviews i read began or ended similarly: i am a ____teen year old girl. having only gotten through 150 pages of this book before calling it quits, i wasn't surprised to learn that so many young women gravitated towards this book. after all, the novel's protagonist is just such a teenage girl. however, this fact is more than a little bit troubling because astrid is not someone you'd want your daughter/sister/niece/cousin/etc to identify with. it's also troubling because when so many people, both younger and older, hail 'white oleander' as some sort of literary masterpiece, even going so far as to compare it to nabakov's 'lolita.' this is a horrifying book, not necessarily for the story's content (which is equally horrifying), but for it's plot, execution, characterization, and particularly its ham-fisted writing. to be sure, this is a book written for the oprah generation and reflects the 'oprah-fication' of literature. the novel's problems are so many, that i simply won't have time to address them all. however, i will address some of them:
1) astrid. the novel's protagonist, a fourteen year old girl, is a thoroughly contradictory character. some people have written that astrid is not your 'average' teenage girl and that she is 'gifted.' if she were such a girl, i would expect much more of her. that's the least of the problems, however. i'm not a psychologist nor have i ever been shot, but i suspect any fourteen year old girl who's mother was sent to prison for murder, offered herself sexually to a man three times her age, is shot by her first foster mother, performs oral sex on a boy in exchange for 1/2 bag of marijuana would be severly emotionally disturbed and troubled. astrid, however, seems to care less that she herself was nearly murdered, instead she focuses on and longs her sexual encounters with ray. remember, this is a fourteen year old girl. any credibility astrid has a narrator is blown early on because no one who's gone through her experiences would be in as good as shape as she is. it also discredits her as a character, and with a discredited character, the novel doesn't stand a chance. think about a fourteen year old girl you know. now imagine her beaten, shot, mother in prison for murder, sexually loose (some may argue ray took advantage of her, but remember, astrid was the one who approached ray and when he said no, astrid was the one who dropped her clothes), and yearning for a lover three times her age. it simply wouldn't happen.
2) unfortunately, the plot fitch drops astrid is pretty much by the numbers. i have trouble with any novel where the plot is advanced by a series of tragedies or dire circumstances. more often than not, it's a gimmick (or crutch) inexperienced writers rely on when realistic ideas for authentic plots run thin ('the kite runner' suffered similar fate). read joan didion or toni morrison (or steinbeck) and how see how they use tragedy--it's real, honest, and most importanly believable. most of the 'white oleander's' is simply too unrealistic.
3) the prose is borderline comical. i was awe-struck to read how many people have praised fitch's prose. fitch's use of similie is so overdone and forced that it slows the narrative down to a cumbersome pace. similes should be used judiciously and flow naturally. fitch, on the other hand, find it's necessary to inject as many as four or five similies in just about every paragraph, and most of them just ring false and forced. the 'white' metaphor is also an unfortunate victim. count the number of times fitch uses 'white' to describe astrid, ingrid, clothes, food, dishes, the sky, etc, etc, etc. she beats the 'white' metaphor into holy submission and never really allows the reader to discover for him or herself underlying metaphors. the majority of the book is over-described, and so many of the descriptions are flowery and self-indulgent, as if fitch is trying to prove to her readers that she's a capable and talented writer. the sex scenes, in particular, are dreadful. i don't want to read how a fourteen year old remembers every graphic detail of performing oral sex on a middle-aged man. it's too much. way too much. a 14 year old girl who's performed oral sex on a man is not going to long for it again. i can tell you that. furthermore: at one point astrid sees a shiny convertible, compares it to a man, and imagines herself climaxing while laying on its hood; during her encounter with ray, she describes the act as riding a horse through the surf. and those are just the sex scenes. also, fitch refers to one man's hair as 'balding.' hair, of course, can't bald. scalps can bald. hair cannot bald. these comparisons seem better fit for 3.99 romance novels at the supermarket checkout. fitch also seems intent on stringing together a bunch of pretty words in hopes of making pretty sentences. unfortunately, this does not work. pretty words don't necessarily make pretty sentences the same way pretty notes don't necessarily make pretty songs. fitch's prose works much the same way thomas kincaide's 'art' works -- it's looks pretty, but there's really no substance to it. it's also much like 'legends of the fall' -- sure it looks great, but all you get when you strip the prettiness away, you end up with little more than a soap opera. she would do well to focus more on advancing plot than affecting a poetic or lyrical voice.
4) the characters and uniformly cliched and poorly drawn. astrid's mother is the self-absorbed, feminist poet. her first foster mother is a bible-thumping floozy; her stepmother's boyfriend is the object of astrid's desires, even though he's more then three times her age; the second stepmother is demanding and her husband is quiet and reserved; and of course we have the 'hooker with a heart of gold' who takes astrid under her wing. in fact, the professional prostitute is the only emotionally stable and 'nice' character in the entire 150 pages that i read. what's fitch trying to say? maybe something, maybe nothing. but fitch's character's seem born straight out of some pseudo-intellectual writer's workshop.
any editor worth his or her salt should've have caught and corrected these flaws. the fact that the editor(s) didn't, while i'd like to think it was out of sheer laziness, is proof that american literature as a whole is in serious decline and that unrealistic plots and characters = big dollars. and as i mentioned earlier, the fact that so many people hail this book as high literature signals trouble for the future of the american letters.
i know most people will probably vote this 'unhelpful' simply because i disagree on the book's merits. that's fine. i, for one, strongly object to this novel on the whole. i'm sure that as most of the teenage girls grow up and mature, they'll see 'white oleander' for what is is: an immature, adolescent novel masquerading as high literature. and i sincerely hope that no more young women identify with astrid in anyway. that's the real tragedy.
Summary of White Oleander (Oprah's Book Club)
Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes-each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned-becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.Oprah Book ClubŪ Selection, May 1999: Astrid Magnussen, the teenage narrator of Janet Fitch's engrossing first novel, White Oleander, has a mother who is as sharp as a new knife. An uncompromising poet, Ingrid despises weakness and self-pity, telling her daughter that they are descendants of Vikings, savages who fought fiercely to survive. And when one of Ingrid's boyfriends abandons her, she illustrates her point, killing the man with the poison of oleander flowers. This leads to a life sentence in prison, leaving Astrid to teach herself the art of survival in a string of Los Angeles foster homes.
As Astrid bumps from trailer park to tract house to Hollywood bungalow, White Oleander uncoils her existential anxieties. "Who was I, really?" she asks. "I was the sole occupant of my mother's totalitarian state, my own personal history rewritten to fit the story she was telling that day. There were so many missing pieces." Fitch adroitly leads Astrid down a path of sorting out her past and identity. In the process, this girl develops a wire-tight inner strength, gains her mother's white-blonde beauty, and achieves some measure of control over their relationship. Even from prison, Ingrid tries to mold her daughter. Foiling her, Astrid learns about tenderness from one foster mother and how to stand up for herself from another. Like the weather in Los Angeles--the winds of the Santa Anas, the scorching heat--Astrid's teenage life is intense. Fitch's novel deftly displays that, and also makes Astrid's life meaningful. --Katherine Anderson
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