Evening

This week, dear friends, we begin an exploration of a new book, Susan Minot’s 1998 novel, Evening. If one reads back of the book blurbs and plot summaries, one gathers that this story is about an older woman dying of cancer and looking back on her life, particularly her love life—not the sort of book I personally would be drawn to. However, the summary and related marketing efforts fall short of describing a beautifully written story that I believe is about time and memory. In a sense, it defies a unitary description, because it demands each reader to construct her/his own set of meanings.

It was no less a human than Roland Barthes (name-dropping) who developed the distinction between “readerly” and “writerly” texts. Readerly texts are more common; they offer a straightforward narrative with minimal ambiguity. Meaning tends to be a given, as in “all politicians are insincere.” The reader accepts the truth of such beliefs in order to enjoy the passive reading experience.

Writerly texts, on the other hand, demand active participation from the reader to construct meaning. There is ambiguity and openness, and a focus on the way the story is told—language and style, as opposed to simply conveying generally accepted information.

Let’s take our old friend, the Dick and Jane stories as an example of a readerly text. The meanings in the story tend to be given. Spot is a dog, and everyone knows that dogs love to play. So Spot loves to play. Dick is a boy and boys are adventurous, so Dick is adventurous. And so on.

Of course, close analysis of the readerly/writerly distinction tends to break down the conceptual either/or clarity. Any story requires the reader to make meaning; it’s just that many stories come with comfortable, pre-packaged meanings that don’t require much work.

Evening is—you guessed it—not one of these.

Evening is essentially the story of Ann, a woman in her sixties who is dying from cancer. She spends her time in bed, surrounded by her adult children, and nurse and a doctor who makes house calls (?). She is using opioid painkillers and is frequently in a twilight state of consciousness. The story is told mostly through Ann’s perspective, although there are sections from her daughters’ perspective, and even one through that of the nurse. Ann is in the present at times, but quite a bit in the past, particularly in a period when she was in her early twenties and unmarried. At a family wedding, she had an affair with a friend of the family, and the wedding was also tragically marked by the death of a cousin.

Of course, it is a given in Evening that Ann will die by the end of the book, and that is what is shown—by implication. There’s no will she or won’t she die, we’re told she will up front.

‘Kay, all pretty digestible, right? You might be thinking, what’s all this Roland Barthes stuff? Huh?

It is true that the basic story is unambiguous. However, the way the story is told calls for considerable work on the reader’s part.

After some fifteen pages of preparation and introduction—which includes an intriguing quote from William Faulkner—the first chapter of Evening contains three distinct sections. First, there is a conversation between two people, only identified as “he” and “she” in which these entities appear to talk about their relationship. This conversation will appear throughout the book and is never exactly defined or contextualized, leaving it up to the reader to determine who is involved.

Second, there is a straightforward prose section that presents the story of a young woman named Ann who arrives at the Boston train station from New York City and is met by three young men, Ralph Eastman, Buddy Wintterborn—both of whom Ann knows well, and Harris Arden (great name), who is a stranger to her. Ralph is driving, which is a foreshadowing of later events. After three pages describing this scene, the story/narrator tells us:

It was 1954 and Ann Grant was twenty-five years old.

Ann meets Harris, and we are told right away that she is smitten:

She felt as if she’d been struck on the forehead with a brick.

(Please note—she’s not injured here; she’s metaphorically smitten by Harris).

Then after a line break, a third section occurs. Here, we have apparently moved forward in time, although this is not clearly stated. It begins with a voice saying, Have you moved her? And a person named Ann opens her eyes, so was asleep before this section. She is addressed as Mrs. Lord and has a visitor, Dr. Baker. I should mention that one of the aspects of the book’s style is that quotation marks are not used—it must be inferred that characters are speaking.

So we begin to make meaning of ambiguity. Probably, the Ann in 1954 and the contemporary Ann are the same person and the Ann in the third section, Ann Lord, is remembering the 1954 experience where she met Harris Arden. We might even infer that Ann is the “she” of the first section conversation, and just possibly, Harris is the “he.” (This becomes a bit clearer later on). Part of meaning making is making connections, and it makes sense that a story would be about one central character—Ann. It makes sense but is not guaranteed, my friends, but we’ve developed a working way to understand the book.

After another line break, there is a new section that is occurring in the book’s present—the time of a bed-ridden Ann being visited by the doctor. This section is also in third person, simple past tense, and is largely dialogue, like the “she” “he” section. However, this section seems to be the narrator/implied author showing a conversation between Ann’s daughters and an aunt. Here we get a sense of the narrator’s voice explaining family relationships: (For clarity, I’m going to insert quotation marks).

“They’ll be another break, said Aunt Grace…Aunt Grace was an unlikely ally of Ann Lord’s. Her younger brother had been Ann’s second husband.” (The context here is that Aunt Grace is expressing her belief that one of Ann’s daughters should come to see her, despite the daughter’s getting a career break).

And again:

“So different from his father, said Aunt Grace. Teddy was Ted Stackpole’s son. His father couldn’t stand sick people.” (Here, Aunt Grace is commenting on Ann’s son Teddy, who seems resolute in the face of his mother’s illness).

Then we have a new section that begins:

“She lay on her back staring up at the canopy. Her thoughts went round and round and it was like spinning staring up at the trees the way she used to do when she was young.”

This section shows Ann in the story’s present experiencing memories of the day in 1954 that was earlier shown. Then:

“She opened her eyes not knowing where she was. The room had gotten dark. The pain rose in her and she remembered.” (She remembers her current state of being terminally ill),

Gradually, she drifts back to 1954. After another line break, she’s fully back in 1954, immersed in Harris Arden and his importance to her life.

The chapter ends with another “he” “she” dialogue section. These sections have a very “present” feel, and it’s tempting to understand them as occurring in Ann’s mind as she imagines Harris being with her in the present and talking—in the present but as he was when she last saw him, a young man.

‘Kay. I think we can begin to see, among other things, how time is handled in Evening. The present and pasts of Ann’s life are equally weighted.

Till next time.

#Evening #SusanMinot #AlanBray