If you were to google-stalk me, which I’m sure you weren’t, but just indulge me here for a moment, and pretend, if you will, that the small matter of my incessant self-googling doesn’t exist. Now. Depending upon which search engine you were to use (note here how “google,” as a verb, is in danger of becoming a generic; you know, like “rollerblading”), you might stumble upon a certain Amazon.com customer review I wrote, in about 1998, for Julia Alvarez’s In The Time of the Butterflies. These things are embarrassing, and in this case the review comes replete with misspellings–my, that’s charming! But the more important thing is that I described Butterflies as a “very important book.” And that’s charm squared, if you ask me. I was a late-bloomer.
This is a book I have since bought for blood-relatives and old chums in need of gassing up on some “girl power.” But sadly, I’m pretty sure none of them ever picked up the thing. I’m sure glad I did though, because I remember admiring the Mirabelle sisters and their varying paths to political resistance and feminism. This latter virtue was more important to me then, as I had not yet experienced life under a repressive regime. (Remember: Bill Clinton was president, and as a later-bloomer, I can hardly be expected to remember the administrations of Reagan and Bush Sr. Sheesh!)
This, too, was my final tangle with that whole “multiple perspective” trick–you know, the same thing Barbara Kingslover used in The Poisonwood Bible and countless other authors have used for their popular books–although other examples don’t immediately pop to mind. It’s a crafty trick. Sure I’ll use it myself when I write my great novel one day. (Another note: late-bloomer + ADHD. Sucks for me, yo.) Nevertheless, the whole “multiple voice” schtick strikes me now as being rather non-committal, sorta like a theatrical revue or a faux-hawk. But I’m not above non-committal.
I haven’t read Alvarez’s other books, including this newest one, Saving The World–which has great feminist potential. But because I have such fond memories of Butterflies, I hereby crown Alvarez’s Talking Volumes debut as Secret of the Day. There.
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