Review : The Virgin Suicides

Posted by kay on May 24, 2010 11:48 pm in 5 stars reads | 12 comments

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Pages : 243
Genre : Fiction
Stand alone
My Rating :

What it’s about :

It starts with Cecilia : the youngest of the five Lisbon daughters, she first tries to take her life by slitting her wrists, then succeeds by jumping out of a window. But her act is only the first of many, as her sisters will in turn take their own life.

The Virgin Suicides just blew my mind. I find it hard to write a review that will do it justice. It will be without a doubt on my “Best of 2010” list and a book I’ll add to my personal “classics” list.

The story – scary, beautiful, deranging – is, despite its bleak subject,  incredibly fascinating. By itself, it would probably have kept me reading. But what I loved the most about it was the writing : as dark as the story itself, it carries the atmosphere perfectly, showing to the reader how one’s suicide can affect a complete group of people.

This is shown mostly by the narration, a voice that is hard to grab at first. Rather than taking distance from the events by using the third person, Eugenides chose to tell the story with a “we” that represents the neighborhood’s boys. Therefore, we never know for sure who is specifically speaking. The “we” gives us insight on how the community reacted to the girls in a way that felt both personal (per the boys obsession with the girls) and general (as the story is narrated by a group). I was taken by the story from the first page and found it incredibly hard to put the book down. I absolutely want to read it again, and I am sure I could get something new of it on a second reading.

While I loved it and would want everyone to read it so we can talk and talk about it, I can also see why it wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea. It’s not the kind of book that offers a solution, or answers, or hope in the end. The girls’ tale is presented through the events, but in the end, very little transpire of their motivations. Sure, their parents seemed oppressive, religious and very sheltering towards their daughters ; but enough to justify the five girls suicides? I don’t know. There seems to be much more behind the story than what the readers – and the community – is allowed to see. To me it’s a realistic representation of what someone’s suicide leaves behind.

The only answer we are kind of given is at the beginning of the book, and it really resonated with me. It happens at the hospital, after Cecilia’s first suicide attempt, when the doctor questions her :

“What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.”

And it was then Cecilia gave orally what was to be her only form of suicide note, and a useless one at that, because she was going to live : “Obviously, Doctor,” she said, “you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.” (p. 5)

I’ve heard this said so many times to teenagers in different situations, that to read it really got to me. Cecilia’s answer is simple but perfect, and explains so much in so few words.

Of course, I had to re-watch the movie after reading the book. I have to say, I was impressed how closed to the novel it is, but nothing could equal the effect the words had on me. The book wasn’t without faults; there were a few parts where it slowed down a bit, expressions that made me frown, but in the end, Eugenides captured my imagination in a way that would escape any rating scale I could create; and for that, The Virgin Suicides receives from me five big fat stars.