The Virgin Suicides

I love this book!

Gorgeously written. At once deeply knowing and incredibly shallow. Voyeuristic and blind to reality. The story is told from the POV of a group of boys through one of their representatives. They're intrigued by a family of five teenage sisters who live in the neighborhood, with an apparently domineering, religious mother and a passive, weak father. The girls are nicely fleshed out, as much as they can be from an outsider's POV, anyway. Each has a distinctive personality. The shallowness comes from a certain misogyny on the writer's and narrator's part. What could be have been more beautiful is cheapened by the fact that all the boys ever see is their chance of a sexual relationship with the girls. But underneath that misogyny is more than meets the eye. The end feels karmic in a way, a payment for the voyeurism and complete lack of understanding on the boys' part, to look past the misery, emptiness, and desperation of the girls who needed real help and got only horny boys who thought they could cop a feel. The blind eye of an entire neighborhood allows the demise of these girls, as does the passivity of the father and the extremist beliefs of the mother. All at once beautiful and heartbreaking. A worthwhile read. Do be aware that there are some uncomfortable ideas and contents that are no longer timely, but the book was written in the 90s. The final chapter irritated me and in a way cheapened the rest of the book for me. I would have preferred skipping it.

Granted I had heard of Jerry Eugenides pulitizer prize winning novel Middlesex and Sofia Coppola's movie The Virgin Suicides but never really gave it much thought to sit down and read one of Eugenides' books. Upon shopping for fiction-lover brother this past August, I did some Amazonian research and came up with a list of ten or so titles I thought would fit him and his literary tastes. Eugenides' "The Virgin Suicides," made it to the top of the list. So I did the easy thing and ordered it from Amazon and just before wrapping it I took a closer look at the subject matter...hmmm 5 or 6 sisters all kill themselves and that's pretty much the plot of the book...and had second thoughts about unleashing this black macabre upon said brother. Thus, a second gift purchasing of The Power and the Glory (Penguin Classics) became the substitute stand-in as I kept "The Virgin Suicides," to read and screen first before unleashing such dark subject matter on another. And on a selfish note, boy, I'm glad I kept it. Good creative writing where sentences are crafted well and language is used uniquely and the narrative is skilled to weave a story wins me over every time, despite subject matter. From a person who has read a few books in his days, Eugenides won me over on the first page. "They got out of the EMS truck, as usual moving much too slowly in our opinion, and the fat one said under his breath, 'This ain't TV, folks, this is how fast we go.' He was carrying the heavy respirator and cardiac unit past the bushes that had grown monstrous and over the erupting lawn, tame and immaculate thirteen months earlier when the trouble began." That's a sentence. In fact its two sentences. In it, along with the book's first sentence, we get pre-announced that this book is going to be about a group of teenage sisters that end up killing themselves and thirteen months time elapsed it will take for the story to unravel. Many authors would think that's putting too much out there in the beginning revealing the big reveal on page 1. It works wonderfully for Eugenides' tale though. The story is told through a Greek Chorus narrator of a group of nosy pubescent boys who investigate and obsess over the Lisbon sisters to no end. And just like the classic tragedy, this story harkens back to a Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet. We don't blink twice about our teenagers being exposed to Romeo and Juliet's star-crossed love affair ending in suicide and murder but the subject matter of Eugenides' "The Virgin Suicides," can be daunting and vexing. The novel is loosely based on a real life event of which I'm not too sure about the details so these kind of things evidently happen. Eugenides just turns it into a moral tale about the ultimate selfishness of such acts and while doing so spins a yarn so perfectly catching the awkwardness and thrill that comes along with growing up in America that you become a believer that this isn't just a black comedy but a tale that reveals something true of the human soul and psyche...an aim for all good literature. So there is a pinnacle moment in the book of which I won't tell of as to not give anything away should you read it. I read a lot of Stephen King books as a kid growing up and though "The Virgin Suicides," isn't a horror book, this piece of writing in a few paragraphs achieves a chill in the bones as much as a novel full of King's Pet Cemetaries or haunted Colorado hotels do. Just listen to this writing, "How long we stayed like that, communing with her departed spirit, we can't remember. Long enough for our collective breath to start a breeze slowly through the room that made Bonnie..." And that's all I'll reveal. The rest you just gotta read for yourself, dear readers. I'll hand off this book pre-screened to the brother now, with a caveat, I want it back to read again someday. Eugenides' "The Virgin Suicides," highly recommended but not for the faint of heart. --mmw

The book is good. Love the little humour here and there and it has great progression with details. What I don't like is the " See Exhibit #1 etc.." it can be a little annoying seeing as the are no pictures to view or a brief description of the exhibits. Luckily I glimpsed the movie while waiting for the book to arrive so I have a rough idea of the exhibits in question. Even though the movie and book has slight variations.

Excelente producto y servicio

Lobed this book

j’ai beaucoup aimé le film de sofia coppola du coup j’ai acheté le livre en anglais il est plutôt bien ça va !! en plus le colis est arrivé très vite avc la livraison normale en moins d’une semaine il était déjà là

From the title itself and the way this book entails so much about religious stuff I was convinced that this would included some sacrificial shit. But no that's not it. This is a story about how the deaths actually affected the life of people around the Lisbon girls. The fascination that everyone had about the mysterious Lisbon girls leads to their obsession with their lives. This is one of those books which do not give much importance to the plot but to the way it's written and it's vocabulary. Great writing and oddly satisfying. And yes you do get to know why they killed themselves which was expected but still shocking.

Item is in good condition and the delivery was fast.