【读书笔记】How to make an American Quilt （女性小说）

美国作家Whitney Otto 于1991年出版的小说，以手工缝制棉被送新娘的传统为切入点，主要讲述6个女性的故事。故事背景设置在50年代到80年代末的虚构加州小镇。故事内容很丰富，涵盖了很多典型的女性主题。有亲姐妹之间的亲密与背叛，有母女两段人生的差别与重叠；有个性淡泊又喜爱孤独的女人，有屡次面对丈夫出轨无法分手的女人；有黑人与白人的混血母亲，在对她十分patronising的白人中产家庭帮佣。她的女儿努力考上大学，前往法国工作，陷入另一轮“我究竟是黑人还是美国人”的身份寻找。

今天重读，对于过于浪漫抒情的叙事口吻缺乏一些共鸣。前阵子读钟晓阳的90年代出版的《哀歌》也是这种感觉。不过小说里很多细节的心理描写、对生活的感悟如今依然适用。

On living in a close-knit town where you feel like somewhat a misfit:

“Actually, I like living someplace where I don’t feel quite comfortable or welcome because it goads me into travelling or reading. I guess you could say that Grasse brings out the urge to ‘quest’ in me. I’m not sure I’d have that if I lived elsewhere. Any other place I may love,”

On inevitably follow the route your mother had taken:

Contemplate crumpling the paper pattern of the pictorial quilt. A pattern, by its very nature, should repeat. It is your nature as well. To do as your mother did. As much as you hate it, as much as it grieves you.

On useful life advices given by your mom:

“Follow his lead or, at least, give the appearance of following his lead. Just to be on the safe side—men are funny that way.”

IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE for a mother to separate the reality of her child from the abstract idea of her child, and some women never do this at all.

“No one expects you to live an exemplary life, only a truthful one.”

On in search of love/marriage:

Now think about the perfect marriage or the ideal lover union. It is as uncommon as any wondrous thing. Yet everyone expects to find it in her life, thinks it will happen (just a matter of time), feels entitled. Sit with the other women and express confusion as to why a mutual friend, so deserving of love, is living without it. Think of a million reasons as to why this is so, except the true reason, which is that it is an unusual and singular thing, having nothing to do with personality or worth. If it was so commonplace why would artists find themselves obsessed by it, churning out sad paintings and torch songs?

People are confused by women who are neither exceptional nor married; they seem to feel you should be one or the other.

The best men tell you the truth because they think you can take it; the worst men either try to preserve you in some innocent state with their false protection or are “brutally honest.” When someone tells you the truth, lets you think for yourself, experience your own emotions, he is treating you as a true equal. As a friend. And the best men cook for you.

MARIANNA REMEMBERS being told that she will know she is in love because she will feel elation in his presence. Or perhaps it was something that she read. In any case, that is her definition of love: elation in one another’s presence. She likes that idea; waits to experience it.

I know our marriage has just as good a chance of being wonderful as it does of missing the mark.

On the reason that men cheat on you:

He had taken advantage of her understanding of nature. Dean did not fight her off but shielded himself. Em had tried to give him what he needed—understanding, forgiveness. Having satisfied those needs, he created more needs and turned to someone new for satisfaction. His personal needs were greater than her understanding, greater than the sum of their marriage.

On the dilemma women face:

Why couldn’t Anna have both things? The quilt and the telescope; her history and her future? Why were their lives always a series of choices that seemed to cancel each other out?

Everything in her life is at war with everything else: her mixed-blood; her Americanism transplanted into French soil; her attraction to catastrophic love (she can love more than one person at a time); being a woman working a man’s job. She cannot be made whole, cannot be joined together with herself—or with someone else.

最后我觉得最“好玩”的一句，Corrina 看到儿子朋友的 Will 抽大麻，她说了一句：

“I know it’s illegal,” she says, “but there are legal things that are much worse.”

她的儿子在越战中丧生。