"The Awakening" by Kate Chopin

Was I the only person in the world who didn't
know how this book ends? Just in case I wasn't, I won't give any spoilers, but... 'NOOOOOO!' I yelled, as I reached the bottom of the final page. I turned to Kathy: 'Did you know that she...?' 'Uh-huh,' she nodded cheerfully. 'It's about the only thing I remember from that book.'

I hope it won't be the only thing I remember from this book, because it was mostly wonderful. But what a terrible ending! Not terrible in a literary sense - I mean, it was beautifully written and had been nicely foreshadowed in the book's early pages and all that - but this was far more than just a literary experience for me. And hey, I'm not even a woman!

Yes, I know this is supposed to be one of those books - like Sylvia Plath's The Bell-Jar - that is immune to male opinion. In fact, its reputation as a feminist masterpiece almost put me off reading it (I was half-imagining some neo-hippie manifesto or how-to guide on yoga and masturbation), but I'm very glad it didn't.

Purely as a work of fiction, The Awakening is superb: the writing is amazingly vivid and sensual, the settings (Grand Isle and New Orleans) atmospheric, the characters all living, breathing creatures, and the story - after a gentle, uneventful first 50 pages - had me in its grip. As soon as Robert left for Mexico and Edna (if only Mrs Pontellier had been given a less old-ladyish first name!) realized what she felt for him, I was really, really unwilling to put this book down.

But it also felt very personal to me. Not because I saw myself in Edna, of course - I may do a lot of housework and know nothing about cars, but I'm not that in touch with my feminine side - but because I saw elements of Kathy, from when I first met her. There were certain passages that might almost have been about her, and the fact that this was written nearly 120 years ago didn't lessen its relevance: in terms of its moralizing views on men, women and marriage, early 21st century Texas is, scarily, not very different at all from late 19th century Louisiana.

So I loved it, but I wanted (and even expected - so blindly was I reading our story into it) a happy ending. What I got seemed unjustified, unnecessary, ludicrous, melodramatic, devastating... too much symbolism and poetry and not enough life. But maybe I'll come round to it in time. It was certainly memorable. Now I really want Kathy to read this novel again, because I think it will mean much more to her now than it did the last time she read it, in her previous life.

In the meantime, whatever mistakes I've made in life, I'm just really glad I never wrote anything as stupid as 'Good-by - because I love you'.