2023 #39: Glassworks (Wolfgang-Smith)

 

Glassworks by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Honestly, this book is absolutely between 3 and 4 stars for me. I could give each part of the book its own rating. Like Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days, the book has separate sections that almost alone, but are also interconnected. While I appreciate what Wolfgang-Smith tried to do in terms of style (adjusting the narrative style to the time period/circumstances of each section), I did not feel that approach was terribly successful.

In the first section we meet Agnes and Ignace. While slow to build in plot, this is where Wolfgang-Smith's gift for language is on full display. Written with a beautifully archaic elegance, there are moments of stunning simile: "If Ignace heard the menace in her voice, he did not signal it. She curdled in it herself--the spite she had absorbed and music now express to survive, like some blind and slimy subterranean creature." Like a gothic novel, we gain tremendous insights into the dark nights of the character's souls, whether driven by depression, abuse, or just the murky trenches of human existence. Agnes, in particular, is an astoundingly robust character who transforms with a self-consciousness that is honest: "She understood the appeal now, of this brand of abuse. There was an evil comfort in it." While the book could not have ended with the first section, I do wish we had simply extended the story of Agnes and Ignace because what followed really diminished my love for the book.

The second section does tie directly to Agnes and Ignace, who, for reasons not fully explained--but implied--have undergone a transformation from people we might care about to aloof artisans who are terrible parents. That in and of itself might have been interesting, but the section focuses on their son Edward. His lack of self-esteem, obviously a symptom of his upbringing, began to wear thin. At least initially, his love interest Charlotte was a far more engaging character, and just seemed to make Edward's self-disparagement and impulsive behavior all the more irritating. Then, Charlotte, too, transforms. These change of characters are a theme, as it turns out, and I found myself wanting to just gather them all in a room and take stock of where everyone started and where they wound up. That isn't a criticism and was in fact one of the aspects that kept me going. And even in this section of the book, we get wonderful, highlight-worthy sentences: "It was like Edward had traded his soul for seventy-two hours of tin-pan euphoria." Chef's kiss.

Edward's last years provide a quiet, almost invisible, backdrop as we meet his legacy in the third section. Wolfgang-Smith skillfully retraces her steps just enough to answer some questions that are important for everything else that comes later. It is when the character of Novak attends a Broadway play and meets Cecily that I felt things started to unravel a bit. Novak goes from a slightly grouchy realist to an obsessive savior figure and while there are enough psychological clues as to why, I didn't care enough about the focus of her obsession to want to keep following. The end of that section just went a bit off the rails for me.

Finally the book ends with the story of Flip. Here there are some very well crafted "hints" where Wolfgang-Smith drops something in passing, and we only later realize the significance. I loved that part of this final section. Flip and Tabitha are twins, and relate to the other three parts in a less direct, but interesting way. The problem is that Flip is even less likeable than young Edward, so again I was faced with a pathetic and tiresome "protagonist." By the time she transforms, it really didn't feel like enough, and the last section of the book was hard to finish.

Ultimately, however, I'm glad I did finish. I suspect other readers might resonate less with the first part, and more with the last, or the middle two sections. And I applaud the effort here, particularly since I believe this is a first novel--it is a hugely ambitious undertaking to write across four generations, shifting both style and plot directions. I will eagerly pick up Wolfgang-Smith's next novel, because her capacity for crafting beautiful sentences is some of the best I've encountered. The title of the book is fitting on many levels, and the book is very strong in some ways, but even a beautiful kaleidoscope can become too dizzying.

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