On being alone

I’ve just finished Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.
I wavered before buying, drawn by the praise of writers like Ruth Ozeki and Ursula Le Guin, made hesitant by the memories of the Jane Austen Book Club (which wasn’t for me) and by the subject matter itself. (Fair warning: read no further if you’re not up for spoilers.)

But it was a compelling, harrowing, unputdownable read. I succumbed to tears just as many prior readers had done. Even though the last section of the book, where it all comes together, where the family lives as best they can with the past, was somehow unsatisfying. Though what else could Fowler have done? Any other ending would have been to deny the nature of Fern and to gloss over the realities of what had happened and what could be done. The last scene, though, was devastatingly sad and altogether beautiful.

But why was it so compelling for so many people? Perhaps because, like Rosie, we all feel a little of the Monkey Girl: out of step, misunderstood, misunderstanding. Wanting to be wild, but choosing the wrong moments to express that wildness. Perhaps this is a quite extreme version of a common story. And if that is so, how can it be true? How can so many of us feel like outcasts? To quote Kurt Vonnegut, “Do you realize that all great literature is all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? Isn’t it such a relief to have somebody say that?”

So it goes.