Cast Away

My older son is learning about homophones—words with the same sound but different meanings. What word describes both a shiny object you wear on your finger and the sound a bell makes? Ring. What refers to both a drink and the last name of a fool-pitying, gold-chain wearing, Rocky-punching, over-exposed 80’s cliché? Tea/T. You get the idea. So, it occurred to me as I was helping him with his homework, that the word “cast” has multiple meanings. According to dictionary.com, it means, inter alia (sorry, that’s a fancy schmancy law school Latin phrase for “among other things” that has become part of my lexicon): (1) to throw off or away; and (2) to allot a role to (an actor). When I started this blog, I intended to discuss the intersection of movies and books. “Cast” in “Cast That Book” carried the second meaning. But a book I recently finished has prompted me to explore the first meaning . . . to throw off or away. I’ve read a number of books over the years that I wanted to “cast” into the trash can, off my bedside table, out the window of a moving train. Lately, I’ve been lucky in my literary explorations; maybe because I tend to read books recommended by trusted friends or reviewers. I also feel safe dipping back into the well of an author I know and love, an author who has proved himself or herself to me before, an author like Pat Conroy or John Irving or Amy Tan or Barbara Kingsolver or…usually…Isabel Allende. Oh Senora Allende, how it pains me to complain about one of your books, especially after recently spending a glorious week immersed in Zorro. But complain I must. I just finished Portrait in Sepia, the companion book to the marvelous novel, Daughter of Fortune . . . and it was . . .uh . . . not good. That’s harsh, I know. I originally wrote, “and I didn’t enjoy it,” but that’s not accurate. I’ve “not enjoyed” my fair share of books, but still appreciated and even recommended them. Pillars of the Earth, in all its paternalistic and violent glory, comes immediately to mind. Portrait in Sepia, on the other hand, felt lazy and chaotic, the literary equivalent to making an entire second movie out of deleted scenes. It’s a slim novel by Allende standards, and yet it never seemed to end. I didn’t identify with any of the characters (thrown together like reheated leftovers), because none of them had a strong voice…even the narrator. In fact, the narrator was . . .well . . . boring. She was a witness to murder, orphaned, and stuck in a loveless marriage and yet . . . boring. She didn’t move the story forward; rather, the story happened to and around her. Further, the translation seemed clumsy. (The only good parts were, well, the “good” parts, if ya know what I mean….Allende knows her way around a fictional bedroom). Had I read this book first, I’m not sure I would have picked up another Allende novel, which would have been a travesty. If you are new to Allende, please, cast this book aside and pick up another (Daughter of Fortune, Zorro, House of Spirits). You’ll thank me.