The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides. Book notes.
Written 1993. Made into movie in 1999.
Satire of female adolescence, teenage obsession and voyeurism.
“It was a satire. This book specifically sets out to satirise how women are viewed by society in their best and worst moments, closely examining the way women are perceived by their male counterparts and their society as a whole. (…) They way their actions (no matter how clearly documented and explained) are often reduced to hysteria or womanly whims; the way puberty can often mark an open season on a woman’s sexuality: a true satire of the male gaze.”
Male collective narrative is named “We”. Told when the boys are in their 30ties.
Each of the sisters are “smelly” stereotype.
Cecylia. 13. Is as a puppy. Wearing wedding dress. Slit her veins. Punctured by the fence spikes. It was tradition in ancient Rome to slip veins. Slitting veins like stoics.
Lux. 14. Seductive nymphomaniac, succubus, … sneaking older man… (Trip explain “contact” with her like something off putting, unpleasant, dirty beast, horny werewolf, smelly…), Rapunzel fetishist. Trying to adopt new beauty trends. Suffocation from exhaust fumes
Bonnie. 15. Meek, big nose, chubby. Death by hanging
Mary. 16. Religious, posturing as Audrey Hepburn. Gas poisoning?
Peter Sissen – first boy to come alone to Lisbon house (teacher help)
Paul Baldino – tunnel explorer
Domine Palazzolo – jumped from the roof, because of love
Joe the Retard (with Down syndrome)
House had a look of a church run orphanage
(Exhibits are gathered by Tree House Boys)
Exhibit #1 – Photo of Lisbon house shortly before Cecilia’s suicide attempt
“Suicide, as a mortal sin, is a matter of intent.”
House showed signs of uncleanliness.
“I’ve learned you can’t force it. The time has to be right and the heart willing.”
Chase Bell – son of Christian scientist
“Our parents had been more intimate with crickets. For them the buzzing apparently didn’t sound mechanical. It came from every direction, always from a height just above our heads, or just below, and always with the suggestion that the insect world felt more than we did.”
Girls were did not allow to date.
Trip Fontain (Gina Desander from Las Vegas, his first) – son of Mr Fontain (he has a boyfriend Donald). Second boy who enters Lisbon zone.
Exhibit #7 – a snapshot taken during the Fontain (son, father, lover) trip
“You never know what’ll set the memory off (…). A baby’s face. A bell on a cat’s collar. Anything.”
Exhibit #3 – Photo of Chase ready to swing his new Louisville Slugger
Exhibit #9 – quotation in the newspaper piece from Linda Perl’s story
…growing shabbiness of the house…
“Psychologist agree that adolescence is much more fraught with pressure and complexities that in years past. Often, in today’s world, the extended childhood American life has bestowed on its young turns out to be wasteland, where the adolescent feels cut off from both childhood and adulthood. Self-expression can often be frustrated. More and more, doctors say, this frustration can lead to acts of violence whose reality the adolescent cannot separate from the intended drama.”
Exhibit #4 – Cecilia photo
Exhibit #13-#15 – set of documents…
“(…) is dullness a gift? Intelligence a curse?”
Exhibit #10 – Photo of girls dressed up for party
“The crazy old lady in the elevator every day turns out to be, when you finally speak to her, perfectly lucid.2
“On every corner a black maid waited for the bus.”
“Don’t let it die a virgin.”
“It’s not unusual for the siblings of an A.L.S. [adolescent lost to suicide] to act out suicidal behaviour in attempt to come to grip with their grief. There is ahigh incident of repetitive suicide in single families. (…) Lemmings.”
“For even as the house began to fall apart, casting out whiffs of rotten wood and soggy carpet, this other smell began wafting from the Lisbons’, invading our dreams and making us wash our hands over and over again. The smell was so thick it seemed liquid, and stepping into its current felt like being sprayed.”
Old Mrs Karafilis – Greek old lady
“We Greek are a moody people. Suicide makes sense to us. Putting up Christmas lights after your own daughter does it [suicide] – that makes no sense. What my yia yia could never understand about America was why everyone pretend to be happy all the time. “
“Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair.”
Exhibit #86 – Photo of girls around the tree [supposed to be cut]
Virgin Mary Pictures left around neighbourhood.
“A vein on her neck was softly pulsing, the one you’re supposed to put perfume on for that reason.”
Exhibit #47 – Photo of girls sitting Indian style
Exhibit #18 – Mary’s old cosmetics
Exhibit #32 – Cecilia’s canvas high-tops
Exhibit #57 – Bonnie’s votive candles
Exhibit #62 – Therese’s specimen slides
Exhibit #81 – Lux’s brassiere
“All wisdom ends in paradox.”
The boys (from the tree house) were last to see girls alive in Lisbon house:
Paul Baldino, Tom Bogus, Kevin Head, Chase Buell, Tom Faheem, Jim Hill Conley, Peter Sissen, Buzz Romano. [8 boys and 4 girls in one escape car??]
Are The boys are interested in the girls OR only in themselves and their reactions to the girls? They are in the centre of the story, of them observing the girls.
What is author’s opinion about suicide, therapy?
Is it a Satire of female adolescence, suicide, depression OR paedophile manifesto?
Are the girls are written well? Are the boys are written well?
What the "Exhibits" listed in the book represents? Is it the inability of anyone to really know what's going on in the mind and heart of another person?
How the Modern Age Destroys Young Girls?
Is the natural state of young girls being sadness?
Why were teenagers making suicide pacts? Was it connected to times after wars?
Literature is what you get out of it.
