Where’d You Go, Bernadette
I read it because James Patterson said it was his favorite book of the year.
Actually, I’ll look it up!
“Maybe that’s why ‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette‘ is my favorite novel so far this year. It’s funnier than a season’s worth of ‘Modern Family,’ ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ and ‘Justified’ episodes; it’s also the most original and imaginative fiction I’ve read since ‘The Invention of Hugo Cabret.'”
That gets your attention, doesn’t it?
No, I’m not a fan of James Patterson, I’ve never even read any of his books! All I know is you’re required to hate him. But I’ve become intrigued by him, because a guy I went to college with coauthors his novels.
That’s how Patterson does it. He comes up with an idea and gets somebody else to write the story, that’s how you become rich in the book business…produce, produce, produce.
And this guy…I’ll never forget standing on the steps of Hepburn Hall as he groused he’d gotten a B in poetry, and told us his prep school teacher told him he was her best student EVER!
Yes, he actually said that. I know they don’t talk like that in real life. But at Middlebury College, “Lord Of The Flies” incarnate, you staked your spot on the intellectual ladder and you swatted down those below, and pushed aside those above.
I wasn’t used to this. I went to public school. I still haven’t recovered. Well, about ten years later I normalized, but after four years at Middlebury I was convinced I was…inadequate. Could never measure up. Because these people were winners and I was not.
But that’s not the way it played out. The people who put me down, corrected my grammar, poked holes in my analysis, taught me to think before I speak, have not gone on to be world-beaters.
And that leaves me elated, alienated, depressed and exhilarated all at the same time.
Just like Bernadette.
Characters are supposed to be sympathetic. No one’s got time to listen to complaints. Every rapper’s a winner and every homeless person has got an app. Life is no longer about the middle, but the edges. If you’re not a winner, you’re a loser, kind of like Bernadette and her husband Elgin. Elgin’s a winner, with a famous TED talk, Bernadette can barely leave the house.
A TED talk! That’s why the book is so good, it’s so au courant, not worried about being universal, unafraid of being dated.
And it’s told primarily in e-mail. At least at first. Then there are faxes, snail mail, autobiography… Maria Semple is taking a risk. It’s like the music of the sixties and early seventies. You put it on and your jaw dropped as you were taken through twists and turns only the musicians could conceive of. This is not Katy Perry, safely replicating what she’s done before, but someone stalking into the wilderness on her own trip, which you can either ignore…
I looked up “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” on Amazon. It had 1600 reviews. It was not brand new. It was a positively cult item I’d never heard of being kept alive by word of mouth, today’s vaunted virality. Especially in books. There’s no money in books. They launch them with a zap of publicity and abandon them. It’s left up to the readers to keep them alive.
For every “Fifty Shades Of Grey”… That’s just the point, there’s only one of those. Just about every other book is niche, except those by Malcolm Gladwell and Stephen King, and when you lie awake at night by the light of your Kindle, you feel like you’re part of a secret world, and there’s nothing more thrilling than being a member of a cult no one else is aware of.
And at first the sheer innovation is so thrilling you can’t stop reading.
But then you’re not sure where it’s going and you’re no longer riveted until…the twist. And then you cannot put it down.
And that’s all I’m gonna tell you. Because there’s nothing worse than a book review that gives away all the plot points.
But I will whip out a few good lines…
“My point is this. I’m getting really scared about the trip to __________. And not just because I hate people, which, for the record, I still do.”
Ha! If you don’t hate everybody on a regular basis, you’re no friend of mine. I hate those people who never have a bad word to say about anybody, who refuse to gossip, who act so well-adjusted. It’s hard for us to get along, like penguins without chicks!
“Not eating cake because the man has discipline.”
I don’t have this discipline. Can anyone deny oneself to this point? Hell, Jim Gaffigan has built an entire career on the inability to deny oneself food.
“Because, as they like to say, it’s a company built on information, and that can just walk out the door.”
THAT’S WHY STEVE JOBS WAS SUCH A SECRECY FREAK!
“He’s usually all into his email.”
I’ve been unable to break my addiction, you?
And the piece de resistance…
“My heart started racing, not the bad kind of heart racing, like, I’m going to die. But the good kind of heart racing, like, Hello, can I help you with something? If not, please step aside because I’m about to kick the shit out of life.”
Whoo-hoo! I was just talking about this to my shrink this afternoon. I’m too INTO things for people. I just voraciously devour them and can’t stop talking about them. I read too much, ski too much, analyze too much, if I had a dime from everybody who told me to cool it I’d be rich.
Yes, the world is comprised of those who do their best to fit in, to look cool. And I never fit in, and that does leave me hating people on a regular basis, but it does not leave me bored. I’m pissed the flight is only eleven hours, how am I going to get all my reading done! I want to know how every ski on the market turns. I hoovered up the credits on my albums. I’m writing so much now that you’re unsubscribing!
You think I don’t know that? That you’ve got limits!
And god forbid I go off point.
And if you don’t unsubscribe, you jam it in my face. To make it less frequent and shorter and…
But there’s a thrill in creativity. And to get the juices flowing you’ve got to work, work, work, to get to the pinnacle!
Which means I’m working all the time.
So I’ve never seen “Modern Family,” or “Justified.” I’m not saying they’re bad, I’m not saying I don’t have a whopping cable television bill, I’m just saying I’m so busy getting deeper into my stuff I don’t have time for them!
Except when I don’t. When I’m so spent I can barely get off the couch.
Like Bernadette.
