The Member of the Wedding Author:Carson McCullers The novel that became an award-winning play and a major motion picture and that has charmed generations of readers, Carson McCullers"s classic The Member of the Wedding is now available in small- format trade paperback for the first time. Here is the story of the inimitable twelve-year-old Frankie, who is utterly, hopelessly bored with lif... more »e until she hears about her older brother"s wedding. Bolstered by lively conversations with her house servant, Berenice, and her six-year-old male cousin — not to mention her own unbridled imagination — Frankie takes on an overly active role in the wedding, hoping even to go, uninvited, on the honeymoon, so deep is her desire to be the member of something larger, more accepting than herself. "A marvelous study of the agony of adolescence" (Detroit Free Press), The Member of the Wedding showcases Carson McCullers at her most sensitive, astute, and lasting best.« less
I thought this was excellent, kind of melancholy. I could really identify with the young main charater, feeling like there had to be something more exciting than her life right around the corner. The way her thoughts are revealed is so raw and believable.
This southern fiction classic is a dreamy, hazy meandering walk through an unnamed southern town in an unnamed southern state (although I suspect it to be the author's home state of Georgia) through the eyes of an imaginative 12-year old during World War II. The characters were developed superbly and the use of language was creative and unexpected. With all the focus on The Help these days, it is hard not to pay attention to the characterization of Berenice, the family's black maid, and her relationship to Frankie and John Henry. These relationships were central to the story. McCullers presents Berenice with a genuineness and honesty that would have been difficult to achieve in a contemporary work of southern fiction. McCullers was writing about her times at the time and this results in less cliche and, instead, feels very real.
Delightful! The main character, F. Jasmine, reminds me in many ways of the heroine of To Kill a Mockingbird. Not as dramatic a novel, it is of the maturation of a young girl in the deep South.
