Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
–William Blake, “The Tyger”
When an acclaimed author (Audrey Niffenegger) takes a phrase from an inscrutable poem (“The Tyger”), readers (such as myself) are apt to expect a great story. Without a doubt Niffenegger’s prose is elegant, her place descriptions (London and Highgate Cemetery) are exceptional, and her intricate plot has great promise.
That promise is not fulfilled.
Niffenegger speaks of ghosts that dissipate in to the ether, so to speak, because they haven’t been dead long enough to figure out how to keep themselves together and harness their intent. I like this viewpoint within the story. Unfortunately, it also describes the story.
We are introduced to several sets of twins who, as it turns out, are so focused on being twins that they (in one case) do fearful and silly things and (in another case) are relatively boring. In each set, one twin wants freedom and the other wants the status quo. Interesting? Could have been, but it wasn’t.
At best, most of the characters were totally dysfunctional with the possible exception (oddly enough) of the man with OCD who lived in the flat upstairs, up above the American twins who come to London when their aunt (Espeth) dies and leaves them an apartment up above Robert who works as a volunteer at the adjoining Highgate Cemetery. He was Espeth’s lover both before and after she died.
Like ghosts without sufficient practice and power to organize themselves and enjoy the afterlife (with or without haunting the living), the plot becomes weaker and weaker as the novel goes on until on the final pages it evaporates altogether. Yes, there’s a grim resolution to it all, but it’s a weak one and we no longer care.
I suspect the author fell in love with the cemetery and wanted to write a story about it. Naturally, the dead came to mind. But they weren’t strong enough to frighten us or make us care about the symmetry.
Other Blogs:
Morning Satirical News: Talking to a real reporter about Operation E-Book Drop
Mythrider: Natural, But Not Human (our poor perception of the natural world)
Sun Singer’s Travels: Writing one word at a time
Copyright (c) 2009 by Malcolm R. Campbell, author of the comedy/thriller “Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire”
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