This book tells the story of a woman who is tired of her marriage and the life it has given her. Written in 1899, it’s reads remarkably fresh and modern. It is apparently – though I had never heard of it – widely regarded as an American classic. While really an excellent book, that caused a furore when first published (apparently female self-discovery is “trite and sordid”), it was then forgotten for the next sixty years until feminist circles picked it up. Patriarchy doesn’t play when it comes to pushing things out of print.
The main character is on holiday at the beach in Louisiana with her husband and children when she meets a man and finds herself growing interested in him. She doesn’t actually cheat, but this interest slowly has her re-examining what she is doing, moving out of her husband’s house, and separating herself from her children whom, enjoyably shockingly, she feels pretty average about. Kate Chopin knew something about having children, having had six herself in just eight years. At some point you have to wonder at what point pregnancy tips into spousal abuse. (As a side point, it’s interesting to note that in all countries without exception, birth rates decline as female empowerment goes up. Makes you wonder how women in the past really felt about their children, especially after the third or fourth.)
It’s a book I strongly recommend, reaching out across over a hundred years to speak truths we still recognize about love and boredom. Chopin is a remarkable writer, and shockingly contemporary. Enjoy this, not from the book itself, but from her diary, which gives you a sense of her style:
I must tell you [her diary] a discovery I have made – the art of making oneself agreeable in conversation. Strange as it may appear it is not necessary to possess the faculty of speech; dumb persons, provided they be not deaf, can practice it as well as the most voluble. All required of you is to have control over the muscles of your face – to look pleased and chagrined…interested and entertained. Lead your antagonist to talk about himself – he will not enter reluctantly upon the subject I assure you – and twenty to one – he will report you as one of the most entertaining and intelligent persons