the dive from clausen’s pier: ann packer
i picked this book off the shelf at the library book sale last week because i remembered hearing good things about it a year or two ago, but i didn’t really have any idea what it was about. as it happens, it is the story of a young woman looking to find a new sense of self in the aftermath of a tragic loss for which she feels partly responsible. it is about the ways that she finds to both escape and confront her loss, and the things that she learns about herself as she goes.
it is emotionally gripping, and rather sad overall, despite definite undertones of hopefulness. i came to empathize with the main character in a lot of ways, but i was also always aware of differences between us. in many ways i think this means that the author did a good job of crafting a complete and believable character – i felt like i understood her, and liked her, and definitely wanted the best for her, but i did not feel like i Was her. she is very much her own woman, which strengthens the impact of the story.
one of the main themes of the book has to do with the balance between independence and intimacy, which is something that i’ve been thinking a lot about lately. i should write another entry if i really want to go into more personal details, but suffice it to say that i am currently in a place where i’m doing a lot of thinking about this question of who i am on my own, and how that relates to who i want to be in a relationship. sometimes i feel like being single in my twenties is an amazing gift – i can find out answers to questions that would never come up, or would at least be much more complicated, within a serious relationship. i can see what i am made of, when all i have to answer to is myself. i can see what work i choose, and what play. i can find out how i like to load the dishwasher, and where i really think the baking powder should go. i can sleep all day or stay out all night without having to explain myself to anyone but me, and there’s a certain kind of insight that it seems can only come from those kind of explanations. sometimes it seems to me that a chance to answer these questions is priceless, but sometimes i laugh at the idea. what does it really mean for us to know how we behave in isolation? when are we really in isolation?
this book struggles with these questions. carrie, the protagonist, finds herself suddenly free from a relationship that she has grown up within, a relationship that has always partially defined her. she had begun to be afraid of how inevitable the path of her life was feeling, and then tragedy strikes and she finds herself able to start anew. she runs away from her home, and she falls in love with a man who is fiercely independent. he listens to her, supports her, refuses to meddle in her decisions, and refuses to talk about his own life. they have a passionate relationship, and in many ways she blossoms, but she also finds herself resenting the wall between them.
in the end, it’s unclear to me what the book thinks of the moral of independent living.
this review is unfinished, but here’re the notes i left to myself as prompts:
apart from these deeper things, the book made me miss new york. in the years since i moved away i’ve found that it hits me in waves, but it has never really stopped hitting me. there is something of the city that got into my blood, and the stories of carrie and kilroy walking all over town, playing in the snow in gramercy park, eating in holes in the wall, shopping at the strand, wandering through soho… it hit me. the comparisons between madison and new york, the midwest and the city, were strikingly relevant to my situation. i love bloomington dearly, and
julie?
what’s in this idea we have of getting away?