The Girl Pretending To Read Rilke Barbara Riddle 9780615904320 Books
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The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke is a coming-of-age novel set in a biology lab in the summer of 1963 in Boston. Both the heroine, 19-year-old Bronwen, and America are suffering growing pains and soon all the standards of the past will be shattered as the Pill and the war in Vietnam change people's expectations forever. A shocking telegram forces Bronwen to choose between family and the temptations of a dazzling future in science. "Barbara Riddle has given us a sharp, funny glimpse into a little-explored moment in women's recent history. The year is 1963, the same year Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique. Brave young women were heading out from college and looking for lives very different from those their mothers had lived. My excitement about The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke stems in part from the fact that I was there- heading for graduate school in science in 1963. I recognize Riddle's heroine Bronwen for her spirit of adventure as well as her sometimes crippling self-doubts (carefully nourished by the all-too-realistic boyfriend-from-hell). Today's 20-somethings will recognize her as a woman struggling, like themselves, for personal coherence in a world that still has difficulty seeing us as complete and entire human beings." -Barbara Ehrenreich (author, Nickel and Dimed)
The Girl Pretending To Read Rilke Barbara Riddle 9780615904320 Books
I love this story! The mc is not always loveable, but she is utterly believable. The work spans a single summer in the life of a college co-ed, and brings in the newly burgeoning age of psychedelics along with breaking from the traditional 1950’s early 60’s pathways for young people and for women in particular.The author offers wonderful dialogue and characters with depth. There are laugh out loud moment and events you wish were real so the reader can put an arm around Bronwen and help her through the crisis.
A wonderful read!
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Tags : The Girl Pretending To Read Rilke [Barbara Riddle] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke is a coming-of-age novel set in a biology lab in the summer of 1963 in Boston. Both the heroine,Barbara Riddle,The Girl Pretending To Read Rilke,Pilgrim's Lane Press,0615904327,Coming of Age,Fiction - General,Fiction Coming of Age,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)
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The Girl Pretending To Read Rilke Barbara Riddle 9780615904320 Books Reviews
-Barbara Riddle's novel, "The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke" is set during the summer of 1963 in Portland,Oregon, New York City and the academic hotspots of Waltham & Cambridge, Massachusetts. The characters in this novel are coming-of-age during the escalation of the war in Vietnam and the expansion of the civil rights movement, during the beginning of the age of Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. The popular music of the time, referred to by her characters, expresses their emotional conflicts about being in academia while the world is in such turmoil.
The novel's central theme is the coming-of-age story of Bronwen, a nineteen-year old college junior who is entering into a summer internship at a genetics research lab at a time when the role of women in the professional world was beginning to change from what it had been for previous generations. Two of the colleges that are part of the setting of the plot of her novel, although given fictional names, are most likely Reed College in Portland, Oregon and Brandeis University in Waltham. There are some amusing and revealing glimpses of undergraduate life during the '60s, including a drug trip scene involving the protégées of a Harvard professor who can only be Timothy Leary. There is also a darkly funny reverse Annie Hall scene in which the WASP-y Bronwen has dinner with the Lefty-intellectual parents of her Jewish boyfriend Eric, and she completely disgraces herself by feigning familiarity with the story of Sacco & Vanzetti.
While the theme of the coming-of age story is in many ways timeless, I particularly enjoyed reading this novel because the story of the main character in Barbara's novel portrays an image of the early 1960's that even those of us who came of age in the 80's and the 90's can relate to.
Becoming independent from parents and mentors and choosing one's own path is an individual task that every human being must wrestle with. And, as a man in his mid-30's with many female friends who are pursuing professional careers, it is clear to me that a lot has changed for the better, but that perhaps some of the issues Barbara Riddle deals with are still ones that every young woman must solve for herself. Hopefully, society is making it a bit easier.
The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke
This is a brilliant piece of fiction and social commentary. I reread it just a few days ago, returning with vivid memories to a text that had given me great pleasure a while back. Riddle makes us feel the momentous societal turn of the 60’s. Women were suddenly free to enjoy their sexuality and were (almost) being encouraged to liberate their minds at the same time. The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke gives us a sense of how overwhelming that whirlwind of change was.
As richly presented as this is, one has first and foremost the experience of simply reading a first-rate literary work. The characters are beautifully rendered in a prose that meticulously (and often hilariously) develops individual languages—of the tongue and of the body—for each. Take Felix, disappointed to find his wife determinedly asleep after his long day at the lab
"If he remembered correctly, there was only one slightly stale jelly doughnut left over from yesterday somewhere in the kitchen. Felix extricated himself from the warmth of his marriage bed and lurched naked down the hall of their Cambridge flat, leaning way over on the balls of his feet, his soft belly plopping gently in the dark as he hurried towards his goal."
The amazing thing for me was rediscovering the turns of phrase, the elegant movement of the storyline, the always sharp but understated social insights and yet experiencing all the excitement of a first read. It is a very rare book that I have difficulty putting down, but Riddle’s novel falls decisively into that category.
CJ
Poised in a moment in time marked by change, Bronwen, age nineteen, is eager to begin a research summer job in Boston. And with the job comes a reunion with boyfriend Eric, a graduate student at Harvard. For the summer, they will be living in Eric's Cambridge flat.
The 60s had brought remarkable opportunities for young women. At any other time in history, could a young woman have obtained an internship with a Harvard Junior Fellow? Before Betty Friedan's book hit the stores, had women ever realized all of the possibilities available to them?
But Bronwen is in a state of conflict, too. She is ready for love, but she also wants her life as a scientist.
Over the next few weeks, we watch as she deals with the conflicts in her life, including a less-than-attentive boyfriend, another possible love interest, and her life of commitment to her work. Just as she is ready to complete her summer, sad news erupts. And shortly afterward, she is forced to face another obstacle to her goals.
I enjoyed engaging with this young woman as she confronted her personal and work issues. I liked how she protected herself with her Rilke collection, for as much as she loved science, a part of her clung to another kind of inner life
"Zipping up her Army surplus parka, she bent her head into the late afternoon breeze. In the pouch-like pocket of her jacket, next to the letter, she felt for the presence of her trusty ubiquitous Rilke volume, her shield against unwanted dinner conversation...."
The Girl Pretending to Read Rilke took me back to my own younger days, when I, too, had to consider my options and make choices. Sometimes impossible choices. 4 stars.
I love this story! The mc is not always loveable, but she is utterly believable. The work spans a single summer in the life of a college co-ed, and brings in the newly burgeoning age of psychedelics along with breaking from the traditional 1950’s early 60’s pathways for young people and for women in particular.
The author offers wonderful dialogue and characters with depth. There are laugh out loud moment and events you wish were real so the reader can put an arm around Bronwen and help her through the crisis.
A wonderful read!
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