I was going to make a few brief notes about this and then add this to my review roundup of the Monica Heisey and Curtis Sittenfeld books–and they sort of make a good triptych of more or less complicated women by women writers. But I ended up rambling a bit more about this one, and indeed, Cassandra of Cassandra at the Wedding is not so much complicated, or even messy, but a full on crucible of chaos and doubt and solipsism in human form, who goes from simmering to seething to bubbling over the course of a weekend (with occasional pauses at ‘diabolical’).
Content note for the book: eating disorder, suicide attempt
Cassandra’s twin Judith, a pianist, is getting married and turning her back on the life of art and music and philosophy and general brilliance that Cassandra thinks they ought to have together; Judith, for Cassandra, is not just her other half but half of her self. I bought this because of the cover, to be honest–I’m a sucker for anything watery at this time of year, and when you read it you realise that the little red-haired figures in the pool form a Pisces sign, two fish heading in opposite directions but trapped together forever. Tensions that have been brewing since Cassandra’s and Judith’s childhood (their father is a professor–there are some delicious swipes at academia, and their mother died, and their grandmother is a handful) boil over during the wedding weekend on a ranch in the middle of nowhere (or five hours from Berkeley, where Cassandra studies for a French literature PhD and screws around and thinks terrible thoughts on the bridge). Cassandra is queer, on many levels, and her narration has something of the dark crystalline clarity of The Bell Jar–and is also funny in the same astute, sardonic way (if you’re the kind of person who finds parts of The Bell Jar amusing, you’ll probably enjoy this).
The devil is in the details here–some authors, or some characters, narrate in a way that gives you a sense of the whole without zooming into every single pixel of it. Cassandra (and Esther Greenwood) slow right the fuck down; their observations of the world and people around them, and of their own thought processes and movements and choices (or inability to make them) are precisely monitored, which creates claustrophobia and frustration, but also floating, or suspension, in time.
She sighed, and after a while she said rather easily: ‘You mean you’ll be burned up if I get married.’
First tactlessness, then callousness. Nine months in New York had not increased my sister’s sensitivity. There was no way to answer. I lay there in all the heat and wondered what it is that gets lovely simple things so knotted and gnarled up. What makes mistletoe move in on Jane Edwards; why do weeds flourish and flowers give up? Why does papa have to prefer drinking alone on a ranch to the entrenched inanities of the university world? Where is there to go? Or barring that, where can you hide?
‘Is it what you want? I said, and I didn’t load the question except that I may possibly have given a little accent of incredulity to the word want. Enough, at least, to get a much quicker answer than I might have hoped for or expected. (p. 143)
I read this in pretty much one sitting, although said sitting was in a hospital waiting room. It’s textured, and thorny, and frustrating, and deserves to be a lot better known.