When I was a student at uni, I took part in a conference called "Does Man Have Instincts? There were many different points of view at the event, and we argued particularly vehemently about two instincts: self-preservation and the maternal instinct. I remember persistently proving that motherhood is not based on instincts, which a person does not have, but on love for her child - the strongest feeling a woman can have. Yes, it is sometimes difficult to love one's children, but it is IMPOSSIBLE not to. All of a mother's actions are dictated by this feeling.
Lionel Shriver's novels include the New York Times bestseller The Post-Birthday World and the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, which won the 2005 Orange Prize and has now sold over a million copies worldwide. Earlier books include Double Fault, A Perfectly Good Family, and Checker and the Derailleurs. Her novels have been translated into twenty-five languages. Her journalism has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. She lives in London and Brooklyn, New York.
That's the argument I was reminded of while reading "The Price of Not Loving. What if a mother has absolutely no instinct or feeling for her own child? What then guides her in her relationship with her own child? And how does it feel for a child who is not loved? How do parent-child relationships work then? And what does it lead to? It is to these questions the author of the book is looking for answers.
It's been a long time since any book has caused me such hesitation - the amplitude from "what a horror!" to "amazing." A lot of thoughts as I read, a lot of emotions. I still can't give a clear assessment of this novel, to organize my impressions.
One thing I can say for sure: this novel is heavy. Heavy in meaning and content, it is difficult to digest, to accept its logic. Difficult and the style of narration - unwieldy, ugly language, heavy-handed comparisons and descriptions. It's not an easy read. At first I wanted to give up reading, too ridiculous to me seemed ridiculous characters, hypertrophied their feelings, inarticulate language of narration. But the habit of reading through to the end took over. And somewhere near the middle of the book I realized that I can not finish it, although in general terms and it was clear what it was all about. But the book "did not let go.
The book has an interesting form - it is a novel in letters (unanswered), which Eva Kachaduryan writes to her husband Franklin. In these letters, the heroine confesses, recalls in detail her married life, her motherhood. She has everything in her life - an interesting job, a beloved man, wealth, success, friends, travel. Eva tries to convince the reader (and herself) that she is happy. But for some reason this is not particularly believable, gradually forming the belief that there is something wrong with her family and herself. Of course, this is aided by her constant reminders that her son is a murderer. Gradually, as events unfold, it becomes clear that it is the description of this murder that will be the climax of the entire novel (no, my predictions were not correct - the climax is in the finale!). There are a lot of ambiguities, hints, and jumps from one time to another in the book, which is a little annoying at first. But the general chronology in the letters is maintained.
The translator of the novel gave it a very accurate title (in the original "We Need to Talk About Kevin"). It is the unloving part of the novel that is the most important. Eva does not love her children, does not love the country in which she lives, does not love her neighbors, does not love her home, does not love her husband, although she stubbornly claims otherwise. But how can you love a man and yet constantly ridicule his nationality, his culture, his work, his parents, his paternal feelings, etc.?
Eva does not love her son Kevin either, a feeling she begins to have long before he is born. She did not want to become a mother, but she took this step consciously, for some reason immediately hating the child. Eva is extremely consistent in this feeling: she hates her son during pregnancy, and in infancy, and in childhood, and when he becomes a teenager ... She evaluates his every action in the worst way: if the child refuses the breast - he takes revenge on her, if he screams - he expresses his anger, etc. At the age of 1.5 she calls her baby "piece of shit", at the age of 4 she calls him "bottom feeder", at the age of 6 she breaks his arm. Who could grow up to be a child raised this way?
Three days before his sixteenth birthday, Kevin commits a mass murder, and all of Eva's letters are devoted to digging into the past to justify themselves, to shift the blame onto her son, onto her husband, onto society, onto anyone. The piling up of words behind which she hides, her smugness, her pompousness, her attempt to convince herself that she did everything right, her inconsistency - all this evokes a sharp negativity, a misunderstanding. What she certainly does NOT evoke is sympathy, though she does feel a little sorry for her in the novel's finale.
"The Price of Unloving" is not just a book that raises pressing social questions, criticizing modern American society and its system of values. It is a powerful emotional shake-up, excruciating but necessary for anyone who calls or plans to call themselves a parent. Even though it is a fictional story, it is extremely true and relevant. Of course, the causes of juvenile delinquency are not "unloved as a child," but the author of the book did not set out to provide an explanation. It seems to me that she only wanted to draw attention to the problem, and, it must be said, she succeeded.
This article was sponsored by Boban Angjelovski
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