RUSSO'S BRIDGE OF SIGHS: NAMES, PART TWO

Too Toney
To Be Thomaston?






Bobby Marconi becomes an esteemed artist, but by the time we find him in Italy, he has, ironically, exchanged his father's Italian name for his mother’s Noonan. What does all this amount to? Is he shining the light of High Noon on the subjects in his work? But his paintings tend to be grim; so maybe he just seeks the light of noon. Maybe he wants nothing more symbolic than dodging his father's shadow, but when you begin with the name Marconi and end up choosing Noonan, it's hard to call it casual coincidence.

Big Lou Lynch’s brother is Dec, short for Declan--pronounced deck. I’m glad I first encountered “Deck” from the audio book, or I'd have been distracted by the way I was supposed to hear it. Even so, I always choked on it just a little. It's a short, tough-sounding word, which is apt. I suppose it also looks like the abbreviation of December, the onset of winter, season of death; but at the same time it's the traditional birth of Christ (and except for the Bergs, these are Catholic families). How does Dec as a character amount to December (or a deck or Christmas or anything else)? Should I stop wondering? And if there's an answer, is the symbolic name worth the attention-seeking oddness and the questions about pronunciation?

Here and possibly elsewhere, Russo seems to be stretching for something like allegory that is neither clear nor necessary. Nan Beverly has one of the most fitting names in the book; the casually abbreviated "Nan" is at once more youthful and more stately than Nancy. Combined with the surname "Beverly," it smacks of aristocracy, at least a little, without forcing some cosmic symbolism in her character or the narrative as a whole.

Jerzy Quinn. Is he a football jersey? A Jersey cow? With or without symbolism, surely we can’t say that somebody named Jerzy Quinn is just some guy; and in the story line, he is indeed more than a prop. But why the self-conscious name for him?

So, combined with yesterday's post, there's a primer on name symbolism or something along those lines in Bridge of Sighs. Are there other examples? What have I missed in the names of characters and perhaps places? With such evocative character names, why a town with a boring name like Thomaston? Maybe the oridinary name belies a complex reality. Are there any votes for doubting Thomas in the Bible? If so, how would that be relevant?

Notice that I haven’t even touched upon Tessa (Contessa? was it—a contest?) or Sarah (again a biblical possibility), or Owen (is he “owing” someone or something?). I'm reaching, I know, but Mr. Russo has opened that door.

So before you call me one more hair-splitting, anal-compulsive English teacher, ask yourself: even if I've forced the issue here, can all those names be accidental? And as for my modestly New Critical bias, I offer this: whether or not it was the author’s intent, those names have crept into the text, and there they beg for us to do something with them.

Finally, I wonder if the author is wise to infuse a realistic story with such teasing--and some might say, relentless--symbolism. Doesn't it all feel somewhat mechanical, forced, formulaic? It makes a fun game for English majors (or is it math majors who especially like this kind of thing?), but such symbolism might also imply that the characters and events don't carry enough depth and complexity in the real world and thus need an artificial, imposed scheme to become important.

My internal jury is still deliberating, but I suspect it will find that these lives and personalities have plenty of gravitas on their own, without the author's parental over-protection: "I shall enlarge my children's place in the universe by bestowing grand labels upon some of them." Besides, interference from the father is not the way one becomes a character of consequence.

On the other hand, how can you quarrel with the wit and the implications of a town character named Gabriel Mock? Do we trust his philosophizing, or is he mocking himself as well as others? If he's holding himself up to mockery, are we laughing with him or at him? How does our laughter affect our sympathy and respect for him, for surely we have some? There might have been times when I cared more about him (and his son) than any character in the book.

Why do my juries seem to be in eternal deliberation? It's tiring. In any case, a novel that raises all these questions, plus the topics I brought up last summer--surely such a work is no trivial matter and deserves much more praise than criticism.

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Russo's Bridge of Sighs: Name Symbolism

The Streets of Thomaston, NY?


















Bobby Marconi Runs to Daylight?

Should anyone use any of the following as part of a paper for a course, please ask your teacher if any footnoting is necessary or appropriate.

My comments on Richard Russo’s Bridge of Sighs continue to be of interest to readers over the last few months. So here are a few notes I jotted down concerning names and their potential symbolism. I thought they were for my own interest, but who knows?

These are a bit like a study guide, and for that, one The One Hand, I say, “Shame on me.” But that equally famous Other Hand says, “What’s wrong with questions about possible or actual symbolism for serious readerss of the work in question?”

In reading and listening to Bridge of Sighs, I began to notice at some point the nature of the names. The following thoughts crossed my mind, pretty much in this random order. I’d be interested to hear additions or challenges to these:

Karen Cirrillo: she’s fond of, or addicted to, Parliament cigarettes (the brand of a fine old girlfriend of mine, by the way). So might Karen’s surname suggest cigarillo? And if so, so what? What else might it suggest?

Nancy Salvatore, Karen’s mother: Surely her surname implies something related to salvation of some kind, but so far, I can’t take it further than that. Whom or what is she saving? Might she be the one being saved? How so?

Gabriel Mock (and son): Holy cow. How symbolic can you get? Gabriel was a biblical, horn-blowing, heralding angel in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. If that’s relevant, how so? And how could it not be relevant? In life as well as art, you don't get to name someone Gabriel without some awareness of the symbolism. It would be a bit like naming someone Shithead or Freckle-Brain and claiming you didn't mean anything by it.

And Gabriel “Mock”? A mocking trumpet? A mocking archangel? Still more holy cows. Dozens of cows blowing trumpets. At least two pastures full of holy, horn-blowing cows! What could be more symbolic?

But how? Who is mocking whom about what? Surely there’s a racial overtone, and the elder Gabriel does, in an affectionate (but also disgusted?) way mock Lou-Lucy’s comings
and goings . . . .

Lynch, the surname of the hero family. Shall we stop at its Irish heritage? They are Irish-American. So what? (Then again, Mrs. Tessa Lynch is not Irish-American . . .). Shall we go on to talk about hangings and strangulation? That kind of Lynching? If so, how might that be relevant?

Bobby's surname is Marconi, like the co-inventor of the radiotelegraph system, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in 1909 (Wikipedia). Of all the Italian names possible, does someone want to persuade me that Marconi is an accident, whether or not Russo intended to involve the inventor?

Stay tuned. More on all this in a day or two.

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RUSSO'S BRIDGE OF SIGHS: THE WOMEN

Thomaston, NY at left ???

Banjo GPA on Bridge of Sighs: 3.7

To follow up on the Banjo52 post on July 22, here are some questions about the female characters in Bridge of Sighs. I suppose these amount to study questions for a course including The Contemporary Novel as a topic, but to me it's not just an academic exercise; I'm really interested in any responses--which is to say, I'm not positive about my own answers.

Do Tessa and Sarah amount to a pair of (almost?) kindred spirits?

If so, are Noonan’s mother and Nan Beverly their foils, or at least a very different pair? What is the basis for comparison? Is it the characters’ strength and integrity as women and as humans?

How do Sarah’s mother, Owen’s wife, Brindy, and Karen Cirillo fit into the scheme, if a scheme is what this amounts to?

Is Tessa a strong woman who does what’s necessary, or is she a simplistic, stone-hearted wench? If there is tenderness in her, where and how do we see it? Does it balance the scale against her hard, sharp edges?

When I use the term "sympathetic character" below, I mean a character with whom the reader sympathizes; in literary lingo, sympathy, unlike pity, includes respect for an equal. We might not admire or approve of the character's every action or word, but we are interested in, drawn to, her or him more than we judge, or recoil from, or are bored by the character. Also, a sympathetic character might appeal to us against our better judgment, might challenge our preconceptions, especially in a moral way.

Sarah's conflict concerning romantic love, which includes other major choices about how she'll live her life--does that conflict make her sympathetic or weak, or duplicitous, or some other bad thing? At any point in the narrative, but especially at the end, has she made the right choices?

Are the male and female characters about equally sympathetic?

Are male and female readers likely to respond differently to any one of the female characters or the females as a group? (Ditto for the male characters).

Although questions remain about the role of destiny in the novel, or, in psychiatric terms, "repetition compulsion" and the shaping power of parents, I might now be finished with Bridge of Sighs here, depending in part on visitor interest.

Despite some reservations, I’m glad I invested time and thought in a novel that provokes so many questions. One of the best mentors in my career claimed that no English teacher should ask a question for which he already has an answer. That's bolder than my own view, but I absolutely believe in the spirit of his remark.

RUSSO’S BRIDGE OF SIGHS: A REVIEW, PART 2

Thomaston, NY???




Like you, I need for Banjo to shut up about Richard Russo’s Bridge of Sighs. Before I can let it go, however, I’ve got to touch on a couple of subjects that have planted themselves in my mind and won’t let go.

My July 22 review was more positive than this addition might sound, but I don’t think there’s a major inconsistency—I still consider the book a notable achievement. However, the introduction of an important new character toward the end, along with the denouement as a whole, raises a question about Russo’s world view as a whole: is it too cheery to fit the facts of setting, plot and characterization he’s given us in the course of 500 pages?

And at the end of this post, I also want to re-address the novel's portrait women--regarding which, I hope you’ll look at the July 22 visitor’s comment here from istop4books.

(By the way, the comments at istop4books are the only other responses to Bridge of Sighs I’ve read, and I saw those shortly after my July 22 post. All other points here are straight out of Banjo Brain, and any resemblance to other reviews, living or dead, is purely coincidental). Now, onward.

In the novel as a whole, I wonder if anyone else hears echoes of Dickens, as Russo offers a realistic, sociopolitical study of an ensemble cast in an economically struggling town. Like Victorian London, it’s a place significantly influenced by industrial issues and class divisions. These characters in upstate New York might have it a little easier than Dickens’s folks, but life in Thomaston, NY is rough enough; the personal and economic struggles feel legitimate.

However, Russo might love this town and its people too much to allow any genuinely menacing darkness to dominate. He tries to see something bright among the litter and loose ends, the poison and disease, the constant psychological complexities and tensions in human experience. Russo’s bottom line, like Dickens’s, insists upon a positive, sympathetic view of human character, human experience, though predators, bad luck, and character flaws rip at souls. Maybe the label optimism fits Russo’s view.

But have the characters earned any hopefulness we might want to bestow upon them? Is there good reason to think they're bigger, better and brighter than the map of their lives or the landscape of Thomaston's citizens as well as buildings and its river and bridges, or do we simply like these people and thus hope for happy outcomes, whether or not such outcomes are likely? I feel affection and respect for these characters, but I don’t trust the legitimacy of my responses or how I’ve been led to them. It might have been a worthy vehicle, but I'm uneasy about it.

Now enter that new character, late in the story. She has charm, perhaps in excess, but she's also flawed and full of baggage, which portends still more complications for the core characters. Yet that whole episode probably feels rather good about itself, perhaps better than our rational selves could explain, and I wonder if Russo is playing fairly.

Still, even as the book winds down, I would not call it saccharine or simplistic. From beginning to end, the losses and serious complexities and traumas in relationships have made me wince with empathy, and I feel the potential for a more wounded future than these folks deserve.

So what troubles me must be the novel’s somewhat sanguine world view in spite of all that, a view that's been seeping in and tugging at me, or has been forced in while I wasn’t looking. It’s a perspective that’s improbably sunny in Thomaston. So are these just Russo’s and my wishes for people, for our prospects, the possibility that our inklings of better angels and good luck are not naïve or downright stupid?

If the novel’s outlook is as mysterious or ambiguous as I’m suggesting, is it a purposeful ambiguity--which I usually like and respect as a realistic, defensible way of seeing human experience. Does the book make a legitimate and satisfying statement that we cannot pin down the way people’s lives or most single actions should be seen?

Or does it imply something like, "There . . . . Got it. Life is more good than bad, more smiling than sad. That may have been several bridges and quite a few sighs, but it's right that we have a genuine, deservedly good feeling about people--at least these people--as they try to cross." Can we say that? Does the novel say that?

Within the ensemble cast, Big Lou and Lou-Lucy Lynch, would say, “Yes, that’s it.” Sarah would probably go along too. Even that cantankerous Tessa—maybe she’s not such a terminally tough cookie, after all. And those good Thomaston folks wouldn’t lie, even to themselves. Would they?

Tomorrow or soon: the women in Bridge of Sighs

* * *

Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs

Has anyone out there read Richard Russo’s Bridge of Sighs? What did you think? I’d be especially glad to hear women readers responding to Russo’s female characters, who strike me as fascinatingly complex and individual, yet fulfilling certain archetypes of womanhood. I think he keeps them constantly above the level of stereotype, but I wonder what the other gender would say.

As usual for long novels that I finish (in this case, I have about 100 pages to go, so don’t tell the ending), the architecture of the main plot and its subplots and the interplay among its main and minor characters create a structure that gives me the shivers. I cannot imagine anyone’s planning and then accomplishing this. Applause, applause.

For what it’s worth, in terms of plot(s) and main characters, I’ve come to think of the whole as a river with dozens of tributaries, or a freeway with many entrance ramps. So it's astonishing that any mere human can make sense of so many factors, the wiggles of each stream. Not one of Russo's events or characters takes an unrealistic turn, yet very little in plot and characterization is predictable.

I’m pretty sure I see sentences better than I see chapters, trees better than forests, and I must add this: Shame on Mr. Russo and his editors for not taking better care of his syntax or otherwise clunky sentences that pop up too often. Is this what the computer age has brought us? Speed reading over careful editing? Deadlines over details? And I don’t mean typos; I mean phrasing, diction rising above cliché, and deletion of unnecessary words and phrases that over-explain.

But I cannot, would not, quit reading Bridge of Sighs, with its complex characters, almost every one sympathetic in one way or another, as are their relationships. I’m impressed by Russo’s avoidance of simplistic solutions to complex moral, sociopolitical, and psychological issues. I care about every character and what will, or has, become of them.

I guess this is the bottom line: I rarely, rarely, finish a book this long, but these people have become part of my life, as do the characters in other compellingly realistic novels. I will miss the folks in this irrelevant, yet essential upstate New York town fed by its contaminated river.