Certain Women

Sometimes I like books without any idea why. Madeleine L’Engle’s Certain Women is about an actress who returns to attend to her dying father, a stage actor who reviews his life through the lens of a role he longed to play, but never did — that of the biblical King David. If you ask me to tell you what I think about this novel, I’ll say:

• It’s pretentious
• The characters are flat and unconvincing
• The play about King David constantly percolating in discussions among the main characters seems like an interruption rather than an enhancement of the plot
• The characters are fascinated with King David, yet the basic plot of his story is something they’re just learning… so why were they fascinated to begin with?
• The pseudo-theological discussions irritate me
• The book’s conclusions about life and faith are ambiguous

YET… I read it. I finished it. I enjoyed the experience.

Perhaps I’m just a massive hypocrite. Perhaps the book makes sense at a level not yet accessible to my plot-charting analytical side. Perhaps L’Engle’s strengths — strong, rhythmic writing, willingness to deal with hard things in family relationships, a perspective that embraces faith without making her works into thinly-veiled sermons (most of the time) – are enough to outweigh the irritations.

This is kind of a strange book review, isn’t it? But it’s all I have to say about this book.