El despertar (1899)

Pioneering feminist work bogged down by its emotionally distant atmosphere, without any room for complete immersion nor resonance, The Awakening tells the frustrating ambivalence and wavering desire of the unhappily married Edna Pontellier. Caught in the surging waters of domesticity, while living a comfortable life on its treacherously calm surface, she wades around for any sense of purpose. But she is tied by social norms, pulling her underneath. This is exacerbated by other women, wives and mothers both, swimming around her, docile and obedient, as they trap themselves happily within the borders of opportunities or lack thereof, entirely contented by the lacklustre life laid out before them. Be a wife, be a mother, they say. Be grateful, they say. But Edna could not accept such a fate, yet she does not know what she path to take for herself. She is neither an enthusiastic wife nor an enthusiastic mother. Kate Chopin writes it as an 'indescribable oppression, which seems to generate in some unfamiliar part of her (Edna's) consciousness'. So Edna moves her arms, tightens her muscles, does two, three strokes, cuts across these waters, 'she wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.' Edna rebels in immoral and disagreeable ways. However, not even the temporary (false) freedom and (sly) satisfaction and (tyrannous) thrill provided by anything forbidden—as an aspiring painter, as a pining lover—satiates her soul. Every choice is impeded by a society only interested in making her a woman like a million others. What's left is to take the only thing she tightly clasps between her fingers; the only thing she owns, even if it has been (unsuccessfully )shaped into everyone's expectations. So she let the strong current swallow her, drag her down—willingly and wantonly for once. ( )

I came across this book when my nephew was reading it for school. First published in 1899, the book was famous (notorious) for its sympathetic portrayal of a woman in a loveless marriage who strays from her husband and responsibilities.
The book was lost from view for more than 50 years, and only came back to notice when a Norwegian academic wrote about it.
It's an OK book, nothing special. For me, the major interest was the historical context - the role of a woman and wife 120 years ago, and their limited opportunities to live a satisfying and productive life. While the role of women today may not be ideal, advances in education, employment, courtship and contraception mean that vastly fewer western women now face the stultifying existence of the main character of this book. ( )

"But as she sat there amid her guests, she felt the old ennui overtaking her; the hopelessness which so often assailed her, which came upon her like an obsession, like something extraneous, independent of volition. It was something which announced itself; a chill breath that seemed to issue from some vast cavern wherein discords waited. There came over her the acute longing which always summoned into her spiritual vision the presence of the beloved one, overpowering her at once with a sense of the unattainable."

I once tried to read this book, quite some years ago, when I wasn't ready for it and I didn't finish it. But today, many years older (and hopefully wiser), I finally understood it. And it was everything. While I didn't actually like anyone in the book, I have to admire Chopin's determination to write something like this, to write Edna's boldness in wanting to be more than just a wife and a mother.
#booked2018 #feministclassic ( )

A trailblazing novel in its time, kind of boring to the modern reader. ( )