I just finished…
Revolutionary Road. and, well, wow. I had already seen the movie, but the ending, though not surprising, resonated with as much intensity as it would have if i hadn’t seen the movie. I think that it was so strong because the Wheelers ( the main characters) want to move to France just like I do. They feel as if it’s just right around the corner (just like me) and all that they have to do is take a step and they’ll be there. But, Frank Wheeler, who didn’t have the unflagging audaciousness to hop on a freight train and travel adventurously as a child, and April Wheeler find out it’s not THAT easy. The suburban life begins to suffocate them ( akin to me in that I think the incompetence-breeding college campus of tennessee is suffocating). An intense narrative motivated by the psychological intricacies of well-developed characters, a clear thread of cause and effect, and the poignant tool of irony urges the reader onward through optimism and gloom.
The suburban life, i.e. the nice house, respectful job, pretty flowers, stylish furniture, kids, is not what I want immediately. To put it cornily, I have dreams, as did the Wheelers. And I don’t want to end up like them. So, France. I’m still determined to at least travel there, if not move there. I’m just more aware of how NECESSARY it is, because the regret i may experience later if I don’t could very well be stifling. And, now, I realize how it’s not going to be that easy; it’s not going to be as easy as taking a step.
Anyways, enough of lessons and dreams. Yates has some notable weapons of style. He uses parenthesis to interrupt inner dialogues. People’s thoughts are rarely linear and are frequently interrupted by random or reasonable associations. A phrase someone says can reel you back in time to when you were four and your mother said the exact same, or something. Yates does this poignantly.
He also employs the question mark, a lot. Which, obviously, is inquiring much from the reader. This simply forces the reader to wonder if he/ she would think, act, feel differently. Simple, but done well.
Multiple narratives. The book enters the close omniscient POV of at least five different characters, mainly focusing on the Wheelers. So, the narrative becomes more empathetic and expansive throughout.
Irony. I don’t think I can explain this without giving anything away. But, it’s utilized in the novel and it touched me each time he used it.
Wheel: to rotate, to turn, to revolve; as if Richard Yates means to imply they were doomed to be stuck “running in a circle” or something vaguely similar.
