"Commonwealth" by Ann Patchett
Book Review
(Art by Randolph F. Miller)
I saw Ann Patchett recommended somewhere online and picked up one of her books, “Commonwealth,” as being new to me. [It’s available in KU if you’re enrolled].
While I haven’t previously posted a book review on Substack, I sometimes write up my thoughts about books, and decided to share this one. I should note, my book reviews are presented from the reader’s perspective - I’m a reader, not a critic!
From my POV as a reader:
“Commonwealth” is written in a style that’s recognizably different from other novels. I appreciated this distinctiveness. The author includes all kinds of extraneous details, some contribute to the story, some don’t, but it was all fine in the context of the novel. I enjoyed reading something different from the style of fiction I usually encounter. It was an easy read.
As far as a general summary of the plot, the novel tells the story of two families, related by marriage, across a span of two generations. It has many characters, and the focus shifts back and forth between them.
I didn’t mind the multiplicity of characters. For a while, I found it interesting; until, halfway through the book, I realized that I didn’t really care what happened to any particular character. I would say this was one of my larger issues with the book. The different characters would drop in and out of sight, in a random way. I could deal with this collage approach to storytelling, but at some point I didn’t care if the individual characters reappeared in the story, or not.
My bigger issue with the novel was the number of times the author collapsed relationships into summary statements. People got together, broke up, got along, didn’t get along, for no reason other than the author told us that’s what happened. At times, she’d provide a degree of explanation, but it felt superficial. For a novel that included so much detail, I found the inadequate treatment of relationships quite frustrating by the end.
Let me give you one example to illustrate what I mean about the treatment of relationships in the novel.
It’s not a spoiler to say, the story begins when Beverly and Bert leave their respective spouses to get together. It upends the lives of their children and spouses, and sets the train of events in motion. I never got a sense of why these two people should be together, beyond physical attraction. I’m not sure I found it believable that Beverly would be interested in Bert, beyond basic attraction, enough to disrupt her family for him. How did their relationship actually work? I could ask the same about the many (many) sibling, parent-child, and romantic relationships in the novel: a lot of summarizing, not enough detail or insight. Repeatedly, I would see two people barely interacting, and the next time they came into view, they would have a close relationship. Or, the opposite would happen, people would get along, then split up, without much explanation. By the end, I was even less invested in the relationships than I was in the individual characters.
Overall, I’d give this book 3 of 5 stars, as being easy to read, potentially interesting, but didn’t deliver when it came to the characters or relationships.
Until next time.
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