Give me empathy or give her death

If you plan to read Sue Monk Kidd's The Mermaid Chair, you should know that this post contains spoilers.

So, okay, I picked this book up because a couple other girls I know wanted to all read it together and discuss it as a group. I knew from reading the book jacket that the plot involved a woman who was kind of restless in her marriage and meets a monk. I honestly didn't think the book would go the obvious place of this woman having an affair - yes, an affair - with the monk. But let me say that the plot of the book isn't my only issue with it.

I disliked how forced the prose felt to me. I've certainly read books and stories by authors who were very careful and purposeful in their word choice. But I felt like Kidd tried so hard in this book to paint a certain kind of picture and evoke a certain kind of feeling - and fell short. I tried to feel some empathy for Jessie Sullivan, the middle-aged, restless wife who doesn't really know herself and only begins to know who she is through her sexual relationship with a monk.

Oh, wait, maybe her name was Edna Pontellier? Hester Prynne? Kidd drowns Jessie's sexual encounters with Brother Thomas in spiritual imagery, and even when their relationship is through, Jessie performs a marriage ceremony with herself. So the if Jessie is Hester, then I guess the Pearl she must live with as the result of her infidelity is a deeper, truer knowledge of herself, and she gets to go back to her husband?

I realize I'm being hard on Jessie. And to be fair, I don't really think the book would have been made better if she'd drowned herself like Chopin's Edna. However, I take issue with any book that puts adultery and fornication as equal partners in a relationship with finding oneself.

I'm sure I have much to learn about who I am. But I seriously resist and reject the notion that the answer to who I am will come through a physical relationship with another human being.

There's more to the story than that - Pick's disease, a mysterious death, father issues transferred onto Jessie's husband, a couple of chopped off appendages, but they really all seem secondary to Jessie's journey to find Herself.

If you want to read some of Kidd's work that won't send me (or maybe even you) on a blog rant, try The Secret Life of Bees. Then, go see the movie when it comes out this fall.

Q out.