The Virgin Suicides

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Summary: Five Girls' Lives are as Inconsequential as Fish Flies!
Review: Book Review: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Why would five teenage sisters, growing up in an affluent suburb in the Midwest in the '70s need to kill themselves? That is the question posed at the beginning of this novel and it is a question that remains with the reader after the novel is finished. As the story unfolds, we are introduced to the Lisbon family, with its five daughters. Mr. Lisbon is a teacher at the local private school and lives in this wealthy area where his school's students reside. The apparent care and regard for others in this neighborhood is superficial and unsettling because as the story unfolds the deterioration of the Lisbon family is so obvious, but everyone in the neighborhood appears to ignore the warning signs.

A nameless man, recalling a tragic time in his adolescence narrates this disturbing story. By reminiscing with his friends about this period in their youth, and by interviewing others who came into contact with the Lisbons, he tries to piece together what happened during the last year of the remaining four Lisbon girls' lives. The five Lisbon girls are Cecilia, who dies at the beginning of the novel, and Lux, Therese, Mary, and Bonnie, the four who die at the end. Because they have so much mystery and misery surrounding them, the characters remain two-dimensional. However, the reader does care about them.

This book is about a group of boys that try to gain as much knowledge as possible to figure out the mysterious Lisbon girls. Paralleling the Lisbon family tragedies, it is also a story about a group of teenage boys trying to grow up and figure out life, girls, rules, and fantasies. At the start of the story, Cecilia has a failed suicide attempt, and then three weeks later when the neighborhood boys are at the Lisbon home for a party, she jumps out of a window and impales herself on the fence. The family, strange at the start, becomes more odd and more isolated. This adds to the boys' fascination. "Added to their loveliness was a new mysterious suffering, perfectly silent, visible in the blue puffiness beneath their eyes or the way they would sometimes stop in mid-stride." They begin to fantasize about the girls. "...we lay on a strip of leftover carpeting and dreamed of all the ways we could soothe the Lisbon girls." This fascination becomes an obsession as they collect things that the girls owned and began to watch them more carefully. But, we find out that they never really know the girls at all, just as I would probably not know an acquaintance well who decided to commit suicide. If you don't really talk about personal issues, it's hard to know any thing important about them.

There is suspense throughout the novel as the reader keeps waiting to find out why the girls are driven to kill themselves. We never do find out, though and that is what is really alarming. You're left with the same questions at the end of the book. "It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls, but only that we had loved them and that they hadn't heard us calling, still do not hear us, up here in the tree house, with our thinning hair and soft bellies, calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time, alone in suicide...and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.

Symbolically, there are inconsequential fish flies that plague the neighborhood. They're everywhere, they annoy people, only have a one-day life span, yet get killed by people, cars, etc. Everyone in the neighborhood goes on living their lives, basically ignoring the flies, and every so often sweeping them up. That seems to be how they live with the whole tragedy of the Lisbon family, too.

One theme of this book is that a neighborhood can appear to be caring and concerned, yet a family can totally unravel and lose five children, and the neighbors can miss all of the clues. The neighbors try to help the Lisbons at times, with yard work, etc. yet when the adults come together to talk about it, they're more concerned with "the negative publicity the suicide scare would bring to our town, as well as the subsequent fall in commercial activity." Another theme is that sometimes there is no explanation for why things happen. People can gather information, try to analyze it, and still feel stumped.

I feel that Mr. Eugenides does an excellent job in depicting the disconnected, sad lives of the Lisbon girls. The reader can make predictions along the way as to why the girls are sad and depressed. Their parents seem strange and out of touch with teenagers, even though the dad is a teacher. At the end he leaves you frustrated that there is no clear answer. At first I felt gypped. Then I realized that that was the theme-that's life.

Rating:
Summary: Poetic, deep and interesting...
Review: This is an excellent book. The story follows the (short) lives of the Lisbon girls. The story is narrated by a group of, then, boys that were infatuated with these five young girls.

Many people describe the boys as horny, but I disagree, I think that they are horny, but it goes beyond that to a deep, dark interest to the workings of these girls. Going through puberty, experiencing firsts (not many, as they live in a very sheltered, Christian household.), and everything in their daily lives.

People may say that there really is no plot or point to this story, but I think just the peek in on the lives of such interesting people is story enough. You must read this book.

Rating:
Summary: No not Middlesex, but good also
Review:
"The Virgin Suicides" is a fictional representation of a time when this wasn't the case. The anguish in this book is muted, always in the background - simply because its scale is so great that to reveal the truth about it would be overwhelming.

The story of the five Lisbon girls is told by outsiders: the teen boys surrounding them, lusting after them, curious about their mysterious lives. The daughters are Cecilia, Mary, Therese, Bonnie, and Lux; the book begins with Cecilia's classically-inspired suicide attempt, as the Lisbons and the doctors puzzle over its meaning.

Obviously, doctor, you've never been a 13-year-old girl. That's Cecilia's only explanation, and its brusqueness and its quality of "if you have to ask, you'll never know" hint at the rest of the book. The mystery here is palpable - and Cecilia's desire for self-destruction concludes in a single violent gesture at a party.

The social milieu of the book is parties, gatherings, dances - alternated with scenes of solitude. Rarely do we see individual representations of the narrator (a one-time resident of the suburb, who witnessed the year of the suicides) and those surrounding him - and, in fact, the atmosphere of the relationships here is sometimes adversarial. The daughter Lux, surely the book's most compelling character, takes men and boys up to the roof with her out of boredom, vague loneliness, and a defiance borne from pain.

Unsurprisingly, "The Virgin Suicides" doesn't dwell on the morbidity of its subject matter. What's surprising is how well it succeeds in evoking the pain of the girls and the desperation of their final acts. Again, the narratorial perspective here helps to a great extent. We never find out what exactly is going on in the minds of the girls. We're told about the decay of their house, about how they rarely set foot outside following Cecilia's suicide. But the mystery in the darkest rooms of the house is left vague.

The book doesn't exactly dwell on the oppressive atmosphere of its suburban setting. For it to do so would be cliched, and it's a testament to Eugenides's skill that he clearly (yet inconspicuously) establishes the role of suburban ugliness, and lack of regard and caring, in the fate of the Lisbon girls.

The style of the narration, too, is inconspicuous. At times, shocking imagery reminds the reader of the strangeness of the storytelling: an adult male is describing incidents from many years back, told in such detail that one almost turns a cynical eye toward the intentions of the narrator. There is, quite often, a feeling in the narration of fevered stalking - but it comes across as charming, rather than threatening. The real threat in this book is not the unrelenting observation of the girls' every action, or the girls' overprotective parents, but the beast in their minds leading them into darker regions of life.

And that sounds melodramatic, but it's hard not to, in comparison to the novel's technique. A beautiful moment near the end of the novel sums up its emotional atmosphere. In this scene, the Lisbon girls (more reclusive than ever) have received a phone call from the neighborhood boys. Instead of talking, though, they play records over the phone to one another that symbolize their emotions. This could easily come across as contrived, like some statement about the ways in which the vapidity of pop culture overcomes real emotion. But instead, it's a magical and haunting moment.

"The Virgin Suicides": the title is plural, and so it's inevitable that it will end in a spate of deaths. But the real impact of the novel comes from the intervening year it describes: from Cecilia's first cry for help to the conclusion, where private anguish turns into public spectacle.

The book is a countdown - the pace is relaxed, but you know that something horrible is coming in the near future. In spite of its obsessive focus on the transitory things of the material world - the girls, their bodies, the objects and people surrounding them - "The Virgin Suicides" turns out as a reverent tribute to something ineluctable; but try it for yourself! Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- completely unrelated to Eugenides, but very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "The Losers' Club" by Richard Perez, an exceptional, highly entertaining little novel I can't stop thinking about.


Rating:
Summary: A Puzzle With Some Pieces Missing
Review: Jeffrey Eugenides has a captivating writing style throughout "The Virgin Suicides", but I came away from the novel thinking that perhaps I had missed some chapters. There are more than a few holes in this story. The Lisbon girls' parents are the biggest mystery. When Mrs. Lisbon took her four teen-aged daughters out of school, and Mr. Lisbon quit his teaching job there, the family began living in isolation as their home fell into disrepair. What was their game plan here? What was the family's source of income? What possible future could the Mr. & Mrs. have in mind for their daughters? WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?? I might have expected some serious adult intervention on the girls' behalf by then, too. A few answers or at least some insight into these issues would have enabled me to give the book higher marks. Also, I thought the character of Trip Fontaine was given a lot of introduction for naught, since he seemed to suddenly disappear altogether.

"Middlesex" is a much longer book, and has received kudos. Maybe Eugenides had matured as a writer by then, and learned to fill in some of the blanks. I haven't yet read it, but think it's worth a try. "Virgin Suicides" was merely his first novel.

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Summary: Cycle of life.
Review: WOW. To read this chronicle about five daughters deprived of physical freedom was like eating ice cream and getting brain freeze the last half of the bowl. The first person collective voice narrative was at first confusing because I wanted to know what the character looked like. He was so descriptive, declarative and introspective about the five secluded girls. He never showed his face, only his voice, he never shared a personal opinion, only a collective one about the family, which was so private.

I enjoyed how the story was plotted with past and present, the suicides happening twenty years previous, and the narrator's and friends presently conducting interviews about the suicides...but, the story could have been told in half the time without excessive mataphores and smilies, some of which anesthetized my feeling for the girls.

If you enjoyed reading Middlesex first, read this, it's different and shorter, but I wouldn't keep it on my library shelf.

Rating:
Summary: Virgin no longer
Review: The Virgin Suicides 2/7/05 amazon
This book really relates to those individuals that have struggled with depression. This book allows you to get very close to the characters. At points in the book you can actually feel the girls desperation. This book shows that suicide is a major factor in today's life and how big of an issue it truly is. It also shows how some of us deal with a loss of someone we love and no matter how much we think no one cares, somebody always does------------------------- If you enjoyed books such as McCrae's "The Children's Corner" or "Middlesex," then you'll love this one.

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Summary: Virgin Suicide Review
Review: Eugenides, Jeffrey. Virgin Suicides. Bloomsbury:Warner books, 1994.249 pages.

This book is a really good mystery book that makes you think. It leaves the door open for anything to be able to happen and it is full of unexpected things that pull you into the book. This book places the reader in the shoes of the boys that neighbor the five awkwardly amusing girls that the whole town talks about. The girls live a hidden life which draws everyone in, wanting to know why the five Lisbon girls do the things they do and around every corner theres a new unexpected twist. In the end the boys get to know the girls in a very unimaginable way. "Even we who had tried to save the girls came to consider ourselves temporarily insane." (Eugenides 219)

Rating:
Summary: Just not my kind of book.
Review: I decided to get this book after seeing so many good reviews but upon reading it I was kind of let down. I can understand why some people would like this book, but I don't. To me the whole thing has just seemed painfully slow. I don't like the writing style, too many metaphors and drawn out descriptions. It's like this author thought they had to write everything to sound like poetry and it's too much. Bleh! Again, somebody else would probably like this, I just don't.

Rating:
Summary: Well written, but .....
Review: I saw the movie before reading the book, so maybe that was a mistake. I was really looking for more insight to the story, as I usually find when reading the book after viewing the movie. That wasn't the case here. The movie covered the book exactly, nothing extra in the book at all. The writing was well done and very descriptive, but I found the book to be extremely slow-paced. It was depressing, of course, but I figured it would be. I just really had hoped for some more insight into the girls' minds. They covered so much more about Lux that I felt I didn't know who the other girls were at all. Definitely worth reading, but it wasn't everything I had hoped it would be. As a side note, I would give director Sofia Coppola 5 stars for her movie version, as she did a great job bringing this book to the big screen.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and Dull
Review: Kind of looking back and trying to determine why I chose this book in the first place. I think it was because of the generally positive reviews of this and Middlesex. I read this one first because it was shorter and to get a feel for the author.

For me, the title of the book suggested a much more interesting story than what was delivered here. Maybe it was just how removed the story seemed from me, the reader. This story was basically told by a narrator who was a distant spectator to most of the action (giving his best guess as to what happens in many cases) and all the action is being recalled from some 20 or so years ago.

Dialog is minimal in this book as is action. The humor missed me entirely as did the appeal of this book. Others seemed to have enjoyed this, though I'm not sure how.

No chance of me reading Middlesex after trudging through this one.