Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz is not a book I necessarily recommend.  I honestly didn’t much like the protagonist, Portia, and yet I’ve read it all the way through; it certainly retained my interest.

What kept my interest in this quite-dense book?  Well, I actually enjoyed the ongoing discussions of the admissions processes for the Ivy Leagues.  The author herself was a part-time reader for the admissions office at Princeton for a couple of years, so she has given it all such thorough consideration that I was impressed at Portia’s integrity about the process.  She’d lean a little too much one way—but only for a few pages, and then she’d draw back and be more balanced. She dealt with my reservations and questions, on a philosophical and moral level, about the whole admissions process. Occasionally Portia would lose her temper over reasonable concerns and laments by those who were disappointed in the results of the process, and I was impatient with Portia for this—because when it wasn’t application season, she was out there encouraging those kids to apply, getting their hopes up.  So for her to turn around and have no patience for the complaints of families of the brilliant, near-perfect students getting turned away…well, nope, again not sympathetic.

As a sidenote, I partly enjoyed reading this book because it was validation for me as a writer!  I am told again and again not to include history in my novel because it takes away from the story-arc. Yet the reason I choose to read historical fiction at all is to have history brought to life. Throwing in historical details adds value and reality to the writing. Conversations about political situations bring us into the period authentically.  I find a similar situation with this book.  My favorite passages of Admission are actually when Portia goes on her diatribes about the admissions process, which take up much of the book, most often in conversation form.  It’s nice to see it from her perspective and to appreciate the balance the admissions officers try to maintain. As my daughter and I are looking at colleges for her right now, it’s somewhat fascinating to contemplate.

My son actually was interviewed to go to Princeton.  Only in reading this book did I realize he might not have gotten so far without his national-level award, which was a little extraneous to his main efforts and who he is, perhaps why he didn’t get in. I’d never have guessed it to be a critical factor in his being invited for an interview, in his obtaining admission.    

I leave feeling disquieted at the broad encouragement for normal, excellent students to apply for the Ivy Leagues. It’s clear that unless the students have extremely disadvantaged backgrounds or have achieved national honors at some level, most have little hope of being admitted.  Since the book begins with Portia delivering her, “Apply to Princeton!” sales pitches to high school students, with no mention of how incredibly unlikely it is for those who don’t have unusual qualifications (even 4.0s and perfect SATs don’t cut it, apparently) to get in, I was dismayed to learn this only well into the book, when she was assigning scores based on these factors—numerical scores that generally precluded exceptional students with otherwise unremarkable achievements from getting in.  Only the exotic, eccentric, and massively-achieved-outside-of-sheer-academics-alone need apply!  (It doesn’t count to be service-oriented or to volunteer regularly, etc.)  But then, I get why they’d want a variety of applicants.  After all, aside from trying for diversity and wanting to keep their ranking high (they’re ranked #1 for undergrad universities), which is largely dependent on how many rejection letters they get to hand out, they do want a certain variety of students on campus—like singers and rugby players and the like.  I don’t pay much attention to sports, but Portia and the admissions officers want a vibrant, wholistic campus life.  And…I sorta get that.  So someone with a noted talent, like singing, might get in with a solid SAT and excellent grades.  To find the best of those folks, they want a broad applicant pool. It’s in the school’s best interests for all students to apply, to broaden the base for their Office of Admission to pick and choose.

Still, there’s something wrong with Portia taking offense to the upset applicants and their families.  When one mother says, “It’s a disaster!” or something of that nature, Portia makes an intelligent, well-thought-out response about how higher education is better than it’s ever been, how excellent the state universities so often are, how many good choices students have nowadays.  I liked her reply, but I didn’t like her contempt.  Because it is rather a disaster to get so many near-perfect students’ hopes up—and waste their time—only to dash them because those students really have little-to-no chance of getting in.  Not if they come from an unremarkable family and haven’t achieved something extraordinary (these factors are not specified in the recruitment speeches).  Minorities might have a slightly greater chance, and they are looking to round out things, as I said, so I do see why they’re reaching out so broadly, but it’s still a disaster for the incredibly intelligent, hard-working kids who don’t stand out.  Oh, and she made it clear that Princeton could easily fill its halls only with legacy kids, but that 2/3 of the legacy applicants are still rejected. Granted, they have a greater chance of getting in than the other applicants, but with nature-and-nurture from parents with Ivy-League educations and the very best primary and secondary educations their money can buy, shouldn’t they naturally stand a somewhat better chance, even if the Office of Admission were blind to their legacies?    

Okay, so I’ve gone on about the admissions process, but there is an underlying life story for Portia.  Stop reading now if you don’t want a spoiler!

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SPOILER ALERT!

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I am captivated at the moment by the fact that Portia’s offspring, who was adopted out seventeen years earlier, is an eccentric who reads like mad.  When we finally hear of Portia’s pregnancy, how she took a break from school, got a tiny apartment, and spent almost all her time alone reading classics, it makes a mother’s heart ache with joy and sympathy and the beauty of that connection between them.  Portia hasn’t made much of it, but you do wonder how much of what the mother does during her pregnancy rubs off on her children.  I don’t know too much about what my own mother was up to when she had me except that she was caring for a two-year-old boy and that she went into labor a month early while trying to cut our huge yard with a push mower!  She was only two days out from her scheduled Cesarean, and she didn’t want it to be overgrown when she returned—when she did get back, she was furious that nobody had bothered to cut the small patch she hadn’t been able to finish.  I’ve always found that story entertaining, and it’s fun to think how this might have influenced me. Pregnant women often get that tidying urge just before labor, and I also went into labor with my son after cleaning and carrying boards out to the shed (he was just a week early).  Since my mother was a stay-at-home mom, I can’t isolate any of her influences to the period of pregnancy.  I rather think they’re from later, mostly.  But still, it’s nice to see this charming correlation at the end of the novel between Portia and her son. The rest of the book is almost exceptionally uninspired.  Just nuts-and-bolts reality. 

Another reviewer found the book’s romance unrealistic, and I do have to agree.  The way she comes across her adopted son is unrealistic, too, perhaps—though there’s something to be said for that magical draw between mother and child.  I can go for that, from a romantic’s point of view.  The romance with her lover, though, bothered me from a number of perspectives.  One, she slept with him without a moment’s thought to cheating on her 15-year partner.  You might believe this if she were a serial cheater (she wasn’t—she hadn’t been with anyone else in 15 yrs, and only two men before that).  You might believe this if she were drunk—possibly.  You might even believe this if there were an intense romance in their past, and she were caught up in the moment.  But honestly, when she slept with him, it didn’t even sound very romantic.  Almost sordid, it definitely rang of ‘serial cheater’.  I think the author was trying for the shock-factor, for the reader to be stunned when she revealed that Portia had a partner already.  And then, later, when we find out he’s having an affair and the woman’s pregnant, maybe we’re supposed to conclude that Portia somehow intuited this affair.

Portia is a strange, cold woman, though.  She falls into depression, but you’re never even sure exactly what she’s depressed about.  You can guess. There’s a myriad of possibilities. She’s surprised about the affair, and then she just sort of shuts down, and it’s so extreme that it doesn’t make sense that this new guy would be later attracted to her when she must reek.  Portia has him over to her disaster-of-a-house, where nothing has been cleaned for months, and there’s this romantic interlude that I’m completely disbelieving about.  The place is disgusting.  And then!  When Portia’s going to go out with the new lover, she takes a shower, can find no clean clothes of her own that aren’t fancy (put on that cocktail dress, for God’s sake! Or go shopping. Or use your washer!), and so wears her ex’s clothes.  Just no, no, no!  I was appalled.  What in the world?

Okay, I’ve given away so much of the book here, and I suppose I’m being too idealistic, perhaps.  What happens in reality often doesn’t conform to what we imagine things should be like.  It’s only that the author hardly acknowledges the strangeness of so much of what Portia does.

The book does bring up a few questions for me.  As in, when Portia finds out she’s pregnant, the man she loves has already dumped her for another woman.  So Portia doesn’t tell him about the pregnancy.  Not to be mean.  She just doesn’t.  And later, she says he had a right to know about the child.  Yet…he went on with his life, married the new girlfriend, and didn’t have to suffer like Portia did.  He didn’t follow up with Portia, either.  So…did he really have a right to know?  Maybe?  It is a little sad that he didn’t know, especially after the baby was born.  But then, he brought that on himself.  If he had a right to know in that instance (seriously, when she let the baby go for adoption, she could have given the child into the hands of his wealthy family), then what if knowing that would have led her to choose an abortion?  Does he have a right to know, given a pro-choice sentiment here?  The book provoked this question for me.

While I was appalled at how he broke up with her, I also thought that although she was madly in love with him that she didn’t quite deserve him.  She was contemptuous of his belief that there was no-such-thing as class, still contemptuous that he had gone back to marry a Bostonian blond young woman and all.  But given her contempt, I don’t blame him. It must have shown at the time (at least, it sounded as though it would have). He’d likely found someone more aligned with his views, who didn’t scoff at his attempts to be color-blind and race-blind.  Portia, by the way, was of Jewish heritage, though it wasn’t a belief system so much as simply an ethnicity. He loved all of her ‘exotic’ qualities and appreciated her disapproving mother. Sheesh, I’m not sure how much harder he could have tried there—and I wasn’t convinced he would actually find her so exotic as she seemed to believe he did.  She felt different and strange, and she projected her beliefs onto him.  Perhaps.  But my sympathies were with her when he so lightly broke up with her.  Maybe he wasn’t really serious about her.  But after several months together, it was awful of him to dump her in Europe like that.  Again, since it would be rather humiliating for a dumped woman to ‘chase’ after a man, does he really have a right to know she’s pregnant after treating her that way?  And what if she’s pregnant but decides she really doesn’t want to be with him, doesn’t want to be pregnant, etc.?   I have to go with it being her choice, but I did balk a little at the thought of her adopting out without letting him know.  While he may have preferred not to have the disruption, it seems just unfair that he wouldn’t have the chance to be the parent of his own child before a stranger would. Then again, he’d dumped her, and she’d have had to face the scorn of his family; she just wanted something quiet, so that she could go back to her own life without having to face the public with it. Honestly, she might not have chosen to have the child if she had to face all that.  So there’s a consideration…

So, the author brought up this difficult question for me unintentionally, I believe.  She wasn’t really exploring these ideas, but we all get something different out of what we read.

This book called to me just as I was looking at college rankings. I knew it was on my shelves, but so are hundreds of other books that will never be read...  It’s taken a while to read, and it’s not exactly inspirational, but it is fascinating for those of us who have considered the Ivy Leagues for ourselves or for our children.  Portia repeatedly claims that there are a slew of excellent non-fiction books on the subject, also by former admission officers, but I’ve never bothered to find them.  This one just came into my hands, maybe at a library sale—and it is fiction, and it does pick up at the end, surprisingly so.

If you prefer novels and think you might enjoy considering long discussions about how Ivy League students should be selected, this may be the book for you.  Portia answers dozens of questions on this topic with insight and depth.  I am finishing the novel with more respect for the struggle that their Office of Admission is going through—and more insight as to what they’re looking for.  That said, unless my daughter publishes a book or does something else truly remarkable, I doubt I will encourage her to apply to the Ivy Leagues.

Beyond all that, Portia pushed people away and walled herself off from her very loving mother, rejecting anything that hinted of ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ and even ‘vegetarian’. It was a bit strange, since she was raised by a mother highly aware of these issues. Even though Portia remained determinedly clueless as to how those benefit our health and society, she seemed to believe that she is ‘a force for good in this world’. As far as her profession as a Princeton admissions officer went, perhaps she was fine (though I worry that she’d have been biased against some of the very best people). But to reject all that her mother taught her?  I understand sometimes when folks raised conventionally have trouble seeing differently, but for this narrow-minded woman, I have little sympathy. 

Tietam Cane by Lance Levens

Lance Levens is a highly-regarded, long-standing member of my writing group. He has a handful of novels out, some available on Amazon and more in the pipeline.  He's just released Mr. Hooks, which I've yet to read. I have, however, recently completed his altogether-different novel Tietam Cane. The protagonist is an unusually bright boy with an extensive vocabulary, but otherwise he's a typical white boy from middle Georgia, the author's home terf. Tietam has been brought up by his Confederacy-loving grandfather and is intensely loyal to his family. In the course of the book, however, his entrenched prejudices are reexamined to a certain extent.
I had so much sympathy for this boy--and his love for his family.  Being from the South and quite into genealogy, I’ve discovered that my adult male ancestors of soldiering-age in the Civil War period were almost all Confederate soldiers, nearly half of them dying on the battlefield.  It was sobering to discover this and to reflect upon how radically it changed the lives of their fatherless families.  Most of the women did remarry, but the devastation wrought by the war was severe, and I could appreciate Tietam's grandfather’s suffering at thoughts of ‘the boys’ (young soldiers who died for the Confederacy).  At the same time, it was interesting to watch Tietam’s oftentimes-painful shift from ‘little rebel’ to someone with a more open mind.
What I most appreciated about this novel were the incredibly rich, poetic descriptions and how Tietam perceived his world.  His commentary was often amusing, with one reviewer comparing him to Huck Finn. I can certainly see why. What a voice Tietam had regarding everything and everyone—and half the time even he didn’t understand why he reacted the way he did.  So little of what he said or did was planned or thought out, which is how it truly is so much of the time.  Tietam Cane was beautifully written and left me full of curiosity about the boy's future.

The Guineveres by Sarah Domet

The Guineveres is a brilliant piece of writing.  Engaging emotionally, drawing us into a reclusive convent school, the novel is one of the first examples I’ve seen of proliferative story-writing in the first person plural—though the novel was technically set as first person singular from Vere’s perspective.  I was so impressed with this little group of girls, so interlinked that they were often a ‘we’ in their experiences.  Conversations were relayed, so often not seeming to find it important to differentiate who said what.  “Someone said.”  “One of us said.”  In most books, that would have been annoying and disconcerting, but in The Guineveres, it emphasized the unity of the bond these girls had.

I was momentarily confused by the insertion of each of the girls’ pre-convent histories, again told from the first person POV—the only time it veered away from Vere.  Once I realized what these jumps were about, though, I appreciated them even more—they were artfully interspersed throughout the novel, making us long to hear Vere’s history, which she saved for last.

The other deviation from the story were the tales of women saints—several of them, masterfully and dramatically told, also interspersed through the book.  After the first of these, however, I found them rather in the way of the story about the girls, which I was anxious to get back to.  Overall, though, they leave me feeling that the story is epic, grander than I would have remembered it being.  And they emphasize an aspect of Catholicism I have never given much thought to—not in any sort of appreciative way.  I’d previously read some short descriptions of the terrible fates of several saints, quickly realizing it wasn’t something I wanted to think about, but Domet makes them come alive for us in a poignant, beautiful way that my summaries did not. 

The Guineveres is overall a poignant, beautiful story, too.  Domet doesn’t coddle us with fairytale happy endings, but neither does she devastate us completely.  She somehow has us desperate to run away from the convent and yet duly impressed with it at the same time—all the while not romanticizing the religious workers—except that I adore the overly-strict Sister Fran, for some reason. But that’s me. I read pensively, afraid of the possibilities, but Domet kept me sympathetic to nearly everyone in the book.  I highly recommend this read!         

Guides to the Victorian Life

Here are two wonderful books that have influenced my editing of Silk: Caroline's Story. While I am charmed by Sarah Chrisman's love for all things Victorian and appreciate her delightful explanations about aspects of Victorian living, I cannot recommend Ruth Goodman's How To Be a Victorian highly enough for those who really just want the nitty-gritty. Ruth Goodman has a rather more objective, encompassing outlook, while Sarah is inspiring, sharing her joys in discovering the Victorian world.

Ruth is so, so practical. She's been experimenting with much of what she researches her whole life, shying away from almost nothing - neither the clothes, the cleaning implements, nor the tools. She tries out everything so that we can be informed - not intending to adopt her experiments as habits or a permanent way of life as Sarah Chrisman does. Ruth has wonderful attention to important details - keeping in mind the needs of filmmakers and authors. 

Ruth is British, whereas Sarah is American, so Sarah's perspective helps to round out Ruth's very British focus a bit. Sarah provides an intimate perspective on the hows and whys Victorian living - one that only a modern person would know how to explain to us. I am charmed by the way she relates her discoveries - the joy is palpable. Her staunch defense of Victorian ideals and morals leave me inspired, and I find myself agreeing with the overwhelming majority of her views, although apparently they have created a backlash among certain segments of fearful, intolerant people.  Sarah Chrisman keeps up a fascinating blog at www.thisvictorianlife.com.

I look forward to future books by by both of these amazing women.

Medicis Daughter by Sophie Perinot

I enjoyed getting to know Marguerite and the Valois court in Sophie Perinot's new book, Medicis Daughter. Not only is this 16th-century princess brought to life for us, but Perinot depicts the tragedy of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and provides a compelling story of how it came to pass. I was brought to tears at one point by the poignancy of Margot's romantic dreams being sacrificed for state reasons. Her subsequent pragmatic behavior was understandable, if less than inspiring--and yet Perinot is showing how Margot can remain true to her heart despite the realities of her surroundings, which is inspiring in its own right. I did find myself wondering at times about how much of the story had been edited out--there seemed to be some rather abrupt shifts in perspective and attitude which I felt certain were not the author's oversight, as she is a meticulous writer. At the same time, however, I was able to follow along just fine and felt like the story went at a good pace in those sections. Perhaps the edited-out sections would have bogged down even as they made the transition more seamless, but I would have liked to have more explanation for Margot's shifts included. The ending was unexpected for me, but it made sense and and I appreciated not being fully placated at the end. History is complex and these stories are far from being fairy tales. I saw a review which suggested there was too much morality in the story, but I found almost the opposite--Margot was very, very practical, and as an idealist, I had difficulty understanding how she could not dwell on disturbing events more than she did--aside from her primary love interest, whom she dwelt on plenty! A good read, especially for those who are interested in the intrigues of 16th-century court life, and I'll look forward to Sophie Perinot's future novels.

An Unconventional Victorian Lady: Victorian Secrets by Sarah Chrisman

There’s a Victorian couple living in Washington state.  Yes, they wear clothes that bring to mind reenactors, but no, they’re not part of some religious group or strange community.  They simply like that turn-of-the-century era and find a lot of good sense and aesthetic appeal in that period’s practices.

After reading an article by Sarah Chrisman and learning that she wears a corset daily, uses an icebox, and enjoys the way her long skirts function like ‘cat’s whiskers’ in keeping her aware of her surroundings, I downloaded her first book to listen to, Victorian Secrets, which focuses on her early experience with wearing a corset.  She has another, more comprehensive book about Victorian living that I am even more excited about, but that one isn’t slated to be released until December.

Mind you, I am a person who prioritizes comfort above most things, but as my historical novel protagonists are often bedecked in corsets, I was extremely curious to hear from someone who appreciates the experience.  Like Sarah, I have always heard the corset upheld as one of the horrors of the age, an an oppression of women that we are well rid of.  Yet Sarah points out the the great feminists of the age argued against the men who wanted to rid them of corsets.  Sarah herself tried out her corset only begrudgingly (it had been a birthday present), but she found value in it very quickly.

I was amazed to hear that within months, Sarah’s waist shrank from 32 inches to 22 inches (and even smaller).  The corset helps her posture and supports her while restricting portion sizes.  She has an elegant hourglass figure that she never had before, and she appreciates it tremendously. 

I have to admit, I’m tempted to order a corset just to try it out, but I can’t quite imagine myself wearing one for more than a couple of hours.  I can’t even stand an underwire bra, for goodness sakes, and I question a few of her assumptions.  For one, she asserts that corsets did not break bones, but given that even coughing fits will occasionally break ribs in the frail, I have my doubts; osteoporosis undoubtedly occurred then as it does now, and old women do not lose all vanity as they age—besides, their clothing was designed for wear with a corset.  For another, she scoffs at the notion that restrictive pressures could lead to cancers—as with underwire bras, for instance.  Given that lymph flow is critical for maintaining health and that Sarah is trained as a massage therapist, I’m disappointed that she would so off-handedly dismiss such concerns.

Nevertheless, I am intrigued by her story and am not arguing against the corset.  Sarah is undoubtedly at a healthier weight now, and she has a posture that will reduce spinal degeneration.  She is protecting her skin from toxic chemicals with her Victorian clothing, which protects all of her from the sun.  She even wears thin gloves and bought sheer silk veil material for her hats in the summertime, and I am impressed that this fair blonde can go outside in the midday sun without any need to slather herself with toxic sunscreens.  There’s something to be said for common sense, isn’t there?  Except…many people don’t see it that way.  Poor Sarah has had to deal with a venomous backlash that leaves one stunned.  I can’t quite fathom what is so threatening to others about someone who is unique in a way not protected by ‘PC’ concerns.  How is being old-fashioned in a classy way antagonizing?  How is appreciating the values and common sense of our forbears such fodder for attack? 

I applaud Sarah for doing what inspires her.  She has become living history, a treasure to be valued.  She provides consultation for others on the Victorian era—on both the nitty-gritty and the ideals of the period.  What an intellect, and what an example for others.  Not necessarily to wear a corset—although I won’t rule that out—but to draw on the past. 

Complex, sophisticated civilizations have existed for thousands of years, but we are inundated with propaganda condemning them as backwards and superstitious.  We swallow ridiculous tales about them as fact, and the myths about the oppression of the corset are only one example.  Who hasn’t heard the very strange assertion that by the age of 35 one was considered old in Medieval times?  That is sheer nonsense—many thrived into their 80’s, as I’ve found out only with research.  Why are we so very willing to believe that our culture and our time must be the most correct, the most ‘advanced’?  We lose our discretion because of pride and blind faith in the propaganda that we are fed—and then so eagerly, so unwittingly pass it on ourselves. 

We’ve been flippantly tossing out deeply-rooted beliefs and traditions while embracing an increasingly consumeristic, polluting, throw-away society that jeopardizes our very futures.  Not only our distant futures, but our current health and even our IQs (reported to be much lower on average than in Victorian times).  Given that we’ve become a little slower than the Victorians were, isn’t it a little presumptuous to assume that they didn’t know what they were doing when they clothed themselves?  I’m not arguing in favor of the corset, in particular—I’m still a little hesitant about that—but I have tremendous interest and respect for the values, cultures, and traditions of the past, and I would love to present Sarah Chrisman with a medal for her contribution to this understanding.  

        

King George I's Birthday Today

King George I was born on this day in 1660.  As the Protestant great-grandson of King James, George Louis was the first of the Hanoverians  to inherit the British crown.  Unfortunately, despite his mother’s efforts, his nature was more dour and militaristic than scholastic; he never learned to speak English fluently and was therefore quite unpopular in Britain, though his Hanoverian subjects were far more devoted to him.  He left his ex-wife, Sophia Dorothea, under castle arrest in Germany, so she was never queen.  Their daughter, also Sophia Dorothea, became queen of Prussia, and their son, King George II, ruled Britain for 33 years (as opposed to a mere 12 years for George I).