On Green Dolphin Street
As seen:
By Sebastian Faulks
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1 review
Set in America in 1959, this is the story of Mary van der Linden and her family, comprising two children and her husband, Charlie. An American newspaper reporter, Frank Renzo dramatically enters the van der Lindens’ lives, and through him Mary is forced to confront the terror of the Cold War that is the dark background of their carefree existence.
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St Just Thursday Evening Reading Group 2nd April 2019.
On Green Dolphin Street. Sebastian Faulks.
The reading group had a mixed reaction to this book. While some enjoyed it, others found it left them unmoved, felt 'tepid' about it, or alternately liked and disliked the characters and the narrative. Comparisons were made with John le Carré.
Positive points were that the background was very believable; and that the author is writing with great sensibility about people trying, or wanting, to live in different worlds.
Negative criticisms were that the ending was designed so that the characters were prevented from doing the 'wrong' or immoral thing by circumstances, rather than by their own will (Frank set off for the airport to stop Mary from flying home but couldn't get there because of the traffic; Mary rang Frank to change her mind about flying home but couldn't reach him because he was on the way to the airport), and that therefore the ending was ambivalent; the Cold War element of the story failed to materialise; there were too many 'flashbacks' about the war in SE Asia; local detail was questioned (references to Tylenol, Martinis, and the GUM store in Moscow); and there was too much description of everyone's clothes.
We discussed the setting and atmosphere of the book, and agreed that it was about a group of privileged and talented people living in a fairly bleak social and political situation. Mary, we thought, is depicted as a 1950s wife and mother with few interests outside the domestic sphere, perhaps a little vacuous, who didn't set out to have an affair and didn't really know what to think when she found herself having one. The description of Charlie's very understated reaction to his wife's affair was admired for its subtlety. We also talked about the amount of alcohol everyone apparently consumed, and why they might have found this necessary – Charlie, we thought, was trying to find his 'alternative world' through the chemistry of alcohol, but it didn't work very well. Finally we discussed how the press, even in this earlier era, influenced the result of the election (of Kennedy versus Nixon in 1960).
