Just finished reading The
Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton and was hooked from the beginning but
disappointed overall. This first novel
tells the story of Abbey Grange, an all-girls high school where it has been
discovered that a male teacher has taken advantage of a student. As the story progresses, the freshman class
at a local drama school decides to perform their version of this local news
story as their first play.
One of the things I loved about this novel also proved to be
a weakness: the narrative style. Catton
relies on an omniscient narration that shifts between the drama school and the
girls of Abbey Grange as seen through the eyes of the unnamed saxophone
instructor. Sounds simple enough,
yes? The drama school chapters use
months of the year; while the Abbey Grange chapters are days of the week. However, each chapter may jump back and forth
in time or have several viewpoints from the same day. It can become confusing. Added to this is the unnamed saxophone
instructor. She is the novel’s downfall.
Having been both an educator and a music student, I am
troubled by this enigmatic character (hereafter referred to as “she”). She asks questions to learn more about her
students’ lives; actually, she asks questions to attempt control of her
students’ lives. She is especially
interested in the characters of Julia and Isolde and encouraging a lesbian
relationship between them which parallels the implied one she has with her
former instructor, Patsy. But Patsy is
now married, and their past relationship is unclear because what we hear from she
is sometimes questionable. This
ambiguity reaches a climax in Chapter 13 when a conversation between Julia and
Isolde ends with this confusing passage:
Julia steps forward and kisses her
on the mouth, and all in an instant they’re back in the smoky fug of the bar,
and the last number is playing, the last song…Patsy turns to the saxophone
teacher to say something but whatever she was going to say dies on her
lips. Her eyes flicker down to the
saxophone teacher’s mouth, and then the saxophone teacher leans over and kisses
her, her gloved fingertips against the other woman’s cheek. (297-8)
Initially I felt it was bad editing; “they’re” must refer to
the saxophone teacher and Patsy. In her
mind she is back with Patsy at a bar; however, an earlier passage when Julia
drives Isolde home from a concert ends with confusion over what really
happened. There is the possibility that
Julia snuck the underage Isolde into a bar.
She also has the most bizarre conversations with the mothers
of her students. Most of what she says
to the mothers is insulting or totally inappropriate. At times it states that she wishes to say
something but only thinks it; other times this is not stated. I do not feel Eleanor Catton has any concept
of what a professional educator would or would not say.
Other scenes, however, are beautifully written. One of my favorites is when a young drama
student, Stanley, is experiencing sex for the first time. “Was he supposed to undress her first, or
wait to be undressed?...He had imagined this moment many times previously, but
Stanley realized now that he had imagined the scene mostly in close-up, arching
and rearing and heavy breathing and skin” (255). When envisioning something it is natural to
imagine from the outside looking in. How
is every sex scene shown in a movie?
There is a sweetness to this scene that is very real.
Will I look for more novels by Eleanor Catton? Yes, there are strengths in her writing to
admire. I’d like to see if she is able
to work with those more. But this first novel
did not satisfy me. I was left with too
many questions that I believe to be unintentional.
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