Mrs. Robinson seduces again
Written: Jan 30 '08 (Updated Feb 09 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: strong story, humor, delightfully exasperating Mrs. Robinson
Cons: Abrupt ending. Almost no descriptions. Fans of adjectives should look elsewhere.
The Bottom Line: Charles Webb revisits the main characters from The Graduate. Anyone unfamiliar with either that novel or the cherished 1967 movie version probably will not be amused.
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| eplovejoy's Full Review: Charles Webb - Home School |
Charles Webb's follow-up to his debut novel The Graduate features a scheme so sordid it makes Benjamin Braddock hyperventilate when he thinks about it. The person who dreamed it up must be desperate. Daring. Devious.
Benjamin can't believe he thought of it.
It has been 11 years since he and Elaine ran away from her wedding to someone else and boarded the public bus that sped them away from the church full of her family, friends and new husband. There was an annulment and now Benjamin and Elaine are married to each other. They are raising their two boys, Matthew and Jason, teaching them at home and living in New York State in suburban happiness.
Part of their happiness is that Elaine's mother is in California. Anyone who has read The Graduate or seen the movie remembers her as Mrs. Robinson but now she is called Nan. She couldn't abide being Granny Robinson. For many years, the only contact between her and Elaine's family has been long-distance phone calls and presents mailed for birthdays and Christmas. The strict limits are monitored by lawyers, a precaution demanded by more than the tensions resulting from Benjamin's having slept with Mrs. Robinson before she was his mother-in-law.
But when the local school board decides that Matthew and Jason must return to public school after three years in Home School, Elaine and Benjamin decide they need to involve Mrs. Robinson. That is they need to involve Nan. It's hard for anyone who has seen the movie to think of her as other than Mrs. Robinson.
Webb could have had the Braddocks spend a lot of time devising the plan. They could have debated the morality and then put it into motion. They could have waited tensely to see if it worked, and not have known for sure for a long time. The scheme is so audacious that by itself, it could have taken an entire novel.
It takes only the first 73 of Home School's compact 229 pages. Webb devotes the remainder to the aftermath, a series of amusing events that bring to mind the old admonition to be careful what you wish for because you might get it. Among the things the Braddocks get is a house full of house guests. These include a kid who thinks space aliens are real and omnipresent on Earth, an eight-year-old who still breastfeeds and, worse, Mrs. Robinson. Oh, Nan. Old habits . . . .
The strength of Webb's narrative is the story. It unfolds unpredictably for the most part. There is humor in his situations and wit in his characters' dialogue.
There are almost no descriptions. When we first see Mrs. Robinson, Webb tells us only that she wears a "red coat, a scarf and dark glasses." That is Home School's most detailed description. One suspects that Webb could have written pages of illuminating, exhaustive prose and still not have erased memories of Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross and Dustin Hoffman. So he doesn't try. The result is that when Benjamin speaks, one can't help but hear Hoffman's voice.
In an exchange that reflects the novel's tone, Benjamin has come back from a meeting with the school's principal and superintendent. He is frustrated that it went badly. Benjamin calls them "lying hypocrites." Then he hears his son call someone "crazy" and tries to discourage his using such terminology.
'Matt, what have I said about labeling people?'
'Crazy?'
'Any label.'
'What about lying hypocrites?'
His father carefully dried the sides of his cup. 'And you need to learn the difference between labeling people and accurately describing their qualities.'
Another passage also is characteristic, although it begins with an exceptionally long sentence:
Underlying the education of the children was Benjamin and Elaine's conviction that a child's natural learning impulse must be allowed to develop freely, unfettered by direction from above any more than is strictly necessary, and that if this freedom is permitted, innate curiosity will guide the child to the objects of greatest interest and relevance to its life, resulting in an absence of those inhibitions derived from forced institutional learning that can stamp various kinds of psychologically damaging behavior on the emerging personality of the traditionally schooled child. So it was not out of the ordinary the next morning that the family found itself in the back yard to discuss the possibility of Jason constructing a guillotine behind the house.
Those are not the best lines in the book.
Webb knows that The Graduate, both the novel but even more the cherished movie, still resonates after 40 years. He channels those resonances. His writing is brisk, unadorned and efficient. Without memories of the earlier works, Home School would not have sufficient voice of its own. But it sings as a coda.
Or maybe it is not that. The novel concludes one part of the Braddock family history, but Webb lets linger the possibility that there is more about them to be told.
Recommended:
Yes
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Member: Peter William Warn
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