I was encouraged to read The Virigin Suicides by my roommate, Adria. I purchased the movie version for her as a birthday present last year. We watched it one night close to finals week when we were supposed to be doing important scholastic things, so I already knew how the story ended, even if the novel included more background and further plot developments. I guess it doesn't take much to figure the basic concept out; it's right there in the title. Regardless, I think knowing the ending ruined the novel for me.
The story centers around five Lisbon girls, aged from 13 to 17: Cecilia, Lux, Bonnie, Mary, and Therese. Their parents are extremely devout Catholics who don't allow the girls to socialize properly. The youngest attempts to commit suicide, but fails; she is successful a few weeks later, and this provides the context for most of the novel. Told from a first person plural perspective by the Lisbon-obsessed boys of the neighbourhood, The Virgin Suicides explores how Cecilia's death affects her sisters and the rest of the neighbourhood.
I measure whether a novel is good or not by the feeling I get upon its completion. That's why I have such issues with beginning a book and then laying it aside - I feel I can't judge it properly unless I've read it all the way through. The only thing I'm overcome with is disappointment. The concept of five beautiful virgin teenage girls (well, four - Lux is a bit of a temptress) is alluring enough to pique curiosity, even if that's the only context. However, the context the Eugenides provides makes their deaths seem inconsequential, since everyone in the neighbourhood (and therefore his readers) expects it to happen. Maybe there's something in his boldness with such a tender subject that I'm missing; maybe that lack of surprise is what Eugenides felt would "make" his novel. If that's the case, I just don't see it.
Here's what I do see: an interesting concept explained by a great voice (having the boys of the neighbourhood narrate was genius, the best thing about Virgin Suicides, in my opinion) that has been lost in a molasses-slow plot and inconsistency. All signs point to the parents as the causation of the Lisbon girls' suicides, but they never do anything actively terrible. Also, two of the girls successfully kill themselves with sleeping pills. I've only done a modicum of research about suicide for a school project back in seventh grade for my health class, but even I know that taking sleeping pills is one of the least effective ways to commit suicide. The body automatically rejects the amount of toxicity by causing the consumer to vomit the pills back out. This wasn't a minute detail, it was one of the defining points of the novel. It seemed like Eugenides hadn't done much research, and that made me less inclined to appreciate his writing.
This whole novel made me reconsider what I deem to be good writing. Does a great idea make a good novel? A great plot? Characters? Themes? I don't think a novel can be considered truly great unless it has several of these characteristics, and that is why The Virgin Suicides does not meet my standards of a good work of fiction. I have tagged it an an "airplane book" because that's what I consider it to be: it doesn't matter if you get distracted, because it's not a novel that requires concentration and active thinking. This novel is good for whiling away the hours, but not for sparking intellectual curiosity. I wouldn't recommend not reading it, but I wouldn't recommend reading it, either.
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