Book review: The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins

I'm genuinely torn about this book. Half of the writing is almost virtuoso; the other half solidly workaday. And half the time I'm not sure which half is which. Which, for a story with uncertainty as a major theme, is perhaps perfectly appropriate.

First, a warning: this is not a lighthearted, easy-read mystery/thriller. This is a dark book about deeply dysfunctional people and relationships, far more along the lines of Gone Girl than Nancy Drew. I know some people love this sort of thing and some hate it; personally, I have a pretty high tolerance for unlikable characters if they're well-drawn, but this was right on the edge of "too dark" even for me. Hence the warning: you know best if this is the kind of thing you're likely to appreciate.

That said, the portrayal of the three women who narrate the story - by turns Rachel, Megan, and Anna - is one of the virtuosic aspects I mentioned earlier. Rachel, an alcoholic who's sinking fast but hasn't yet hit her personal rock bottom, is particularly heart-rending; she's not likable, exactly, but her humanity is on full display, challenging us even as she tests the limits of our sympathy. Megan is Rachel's foil, possessed of the life Rachel wishes she had but haunted by her past decisions and mistakes. And then there's Anna, borderline sociopathic; so determined to live out her perfect-family fantasy that she ignores, diverts, or offloads any personal responsibility; happy so long as she can stay in denial. The whodunit plot, while not exactly boring, is almost secondary to meeting these three women, getting to know their stories, and watching them struggle to find their identity in a culture where the range of available roles is limited, and past mistakes are punished harshly.

It's perhaps not surprising, then, that the book's biggest weak point is its male characters. We see signs of how they feel similarly restricted by their social roles, by the toxic side of masculine culture that values them as providers and protectors uber alles, that forbids them from showing the vulnerability necessary to truly reach out and connect with other human beings. But their stories are told obliquely, if at all; and their struggles with identity and loss don't come off as half so sympathetic as the women's. Which I think is a shame; it feels like there's a missed opportunity here to show that both genders have many of the same difficulties, and to emphasize that common ground rather than setting them in the far-too-common antagonistic roles.

On a more fundamental level, the writing vacillates between hauntingly poetic and...not quite thudding, but not particularly interesting. I really felt like we could've done with one or two fewer episodes of Rachel's wallowing in self-pity. And I count at least one major plot hole: ( cut for major spoilers )

But given that this is a debut novel, I found it nonetheless very impressive indeed; if the description sounds to your taste, then by all means pick it up. I just don't think I personally am in a hurry to read it again anytime soon. B-

The power of generalization

Tonight Brian and I went to see Mythbusters Unleashed, which is staged (as Brian put it) rather like a science-themed traveling medicine show; for most of the segments, Adam and Jamie would take scientific principles that are relatively dry or abstract (force equalling mass times acceleration, for instance, or the power of friction) and find colorful ways to demonstrate it (having a large male volunteer try to hit a high-striker carnival bell with a gavel versus a fourth-grade girl with a sledgehammer, or hoisting Adam up nearly to the ceiling by two shuffle-paged telephone books). It was fun, in an Exploratorium Onstage kind of way.

One of the more thought-provoking moments, however, was when Adam was talking about his personal history, and how for so much of his life he had lots of different interests, but never had a focus. So he would spend some time learning a new skill or subject and get better-than-average at it, but would inevitably hit that wall where in order to have a hope of actually becoming good, he'd have to dedicate a serious chunk of his life to it. And he'd shy away, because that wasn't what he wanted, and would lament all the time he'd wasted learning that skill, when it was apparently his destiny to only ever get a step above mediocrity.

And then the day came when the studio called him and asked him if he would be interested in joining a show called Mythbusters, which turned into, well...Mythbusters. And even though they've just finished filming the final season, and for the first time in fourteen years he won't be spending huge amounts of time at it, he's discovered through the show that his calling is in science - specifically, the storytelling and communication and public outreach aspect of it. He might not have the specialized know-how to make cutting-edge discoveries or devote his life to research, but he has the intelligence and enthusiasm and charisma to explain and demonstrate basic principles and new discoveries to folks who otherwise might never even think about them; and all his many weird and varied skills help him to do that, as they give him a broad background of experiences from which to draw, which in turn helps him solve problems by thinking in new and different ways.

People who've followed my personal agonizing over my career might recognize this theme. I have so many weird and varied skills and pockets of knowledge, but for so many years, I had no real drive to develop any of them. So I'd write a bit here, and play the guitar there, and study psychological or sociological principles one day, and then read up on how they were used in marketing, and another day I'd be looking at the latest studies in neurochemistry, or learning about physiology so I could diagnose myself and avoid a doctor's bill, and now and then there'd be some yoga in there, and then a friend suggested I go to massage school.

And I suddenly felt like the savant in her element. Helping people feel better appealed to my humanistic bent; all the basic physiology/pathology I knew gave me a good foundation and kept the science courses from being overwhelming. The psychology and sociology and storytelling helped me understand how the profession is viewed and how to frame it most attractively to potential clients; the yoga (and associated knowledge of alignment/proprioception) helped with body mechanics. Even the employment-law and ethical stuff my mother used to lecture me on when I was a kid turned out to have relevance. For the first time, I had a focus, something I was enthusiastic about and not scared to devote a good chunk of my life to; and it intersected with almost everything I enjoy. (Still working on getting the music in there.)

I still worked hard in school, don't get me wrong; there's a reason I was barely available for those seven months. But having that foundation, that basic understanding of how these subjects worked and how they fit together, made all the difference; it's why I got one of the highest MBLEx scores on local record, and why I feel I really have the potential to be great in this field. In a way, I've been studying for it my whole life.

I don't know if bodywork is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life or not. But having had that experience, of finding that point of intersectionality between so many different interests and realizing that it's not necessarily a question of either/or, was a life-altering experience. I don't think I ever consciously articulated it before now, but for so much of my life I was afraid I was going to have to Pick One Thing and focus on it exclusively - that was the message I always got about acting, about writing, about any kind of career-level undertaking (at least if you wanted to excel at your career). Now I know that, even if I do decide to do something other than bodywork later on in life, I'll still have this knowledge (plus whatever else I've picked up in the interim); and chances are I'll find something else that has a high intersectionality with my interests. I'll just have to trust that my intuition will help me figure out what.