The reviews of Madapple enticed me: "spellbinding"; "haunting"; and my favorite, "Theology is on trial in this extraordinary first novel" (Publisher's Weekly). Yet, the book sat in my school library for nearly a year before I read it. Although I truly enjoyed the book and loved its premise, I was somewhat disappointed with the ending.
Despite my desire for a cleaner finish, I recommend this book and compare it to Tender Morsels, by Margot Lanagan, for its depiction of powerful, brilliant, yet flawed and often self-destructive women who must construct worlds of fantasy in order to survive the cruelties they have suffered.
Madapple blends botanical lore, religious fundamentalism, incest, and family dysfunction in a setting both contemporary and ancient. Aslaug and her mother, Maren, live in the remote woods of Maine, relying on Maren's botanical knowledge and an extreme distrust of the outside world for survival until Maren's death from cancer. Aslaug flees from her home and the misguided efforts of a social worker to discover, in a hazy and accidental manner, her mother's sister and her cousins. Hidden from Aslaug is the secret that she is the child of incest, born of her mother and her grandfather, but it is from her new family that Aslaug seeks knowledge of her father's identity.
Immediately recognized as Maren's daughter, Aslaug's aunt and her cousins bring her into their home, ruled by feverish religion and addiction. Interspersed between Aslaug's narration of her life, are murder trial proceedings of the deaths of her mother, and later, of her aunt and cousin with Aslaug as the accused, balancing the surreal setting with a grounding realism.
The reader is thereby able to establish a broader perspective than that offered by Aslaug or the court witnesses, and I appreciated this distancing from the fuzzy, curious combination of indoctrination and scientific wonder that defined each member of Aslaug's family.
Despite the harsh isolation of Aslaug's childhood, she absorbs her mother's knowledge of the sciences, ancient mythology and multiple languages and is soon used for her talents. Although she is ill-equipped to defend herself against the machinations and manipulations of her family, she is able to love and forgive, and provide the resolution to an otherwise improbable ending; Aslaug is exonerated by her surviving cousin, who also fathered her child in a drug-induced seduction. Together with her cousin, Rune, her child and Rune's wife, Aslaug forms a new family, determined to never repeat the lies and isolation her mother forced upon her....(A hopeful message, perhaps, but not a forceful antidote to the wrongs Aslaug suffered).
The most intriguing elements of this novel are both academic and psychological. Meldrum establishes connections between botanical science, ancient mythology and Christianity throughout the novel. Her female characters survive extreme violation through incest and abandonment by turning to science, mythology and Christianity. To be able to weave such distinct disciplines and histories as these into a compelling story is artful and ambitious. Meldrum leaves the role of religion in Aslaug's life open to our interpretation, and offers the reader subjects for further research: the relationships between folk medicine and science; mythology and Christianity.
In addition to Tender Morsels, I also compared Madapple to White Oleander, by Janet Fitch. Like Madapple and Tender Morsels, White Oleander documents a mother and daughter's travails, caused in large part by the mother's addictions and warped sense of justice. Despite the abandonment of their daughters (both psychological and physical), the mothers deeply love their daughters but are unable to live in conventional society. The daughters are, therefore, defenseless when they must live in the "real world". Another similarity to these novels is their northern European ethnicity. Perhaps I should read Toni Morrison's Beloved, to gain another perspective on the complexities of mother/daughter love that is ultimately more harmful than life-supporting.
Are these novels expressions of a type of feminism? Mothers abused or abandoned by their fathers, grow up unable to provide nurturing love and stability for their daughters, yet these daughters (except, of course, in Beloved) develop survival skills and a higher level of consciousness than their mothers...primarily because they have had to either "mother" their mothers, or they have had to leave their mothers. There was no bitterness at the conclusion of these novels, but, rather, an acknowledgement that abused and addicted mothers damage families as much if not more so, than abusive and addictive fathers...that abused women are culpable; to be pitied, perhaps, but to be admonished for not seeking and obtaining help. Isolation is not an excuse! Retreating from society provides only temporary relief and eventually exacerbates the shame, guilt and lack of social skills needed for survival.
In order to stop the cycle of abuse and victimization, women must join society, face their accusers and abusers, and develop their minds and psyches.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
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