Review: On Borrowed Wings

How badly did you want to go to college? Did you crave it? Did you go only because it was expected or because it seemed better than working or joining the military? Did you day dream about college? Did your parents share your dreams or did you have to fight your way there? If you never went, is it a regret you hold deeply, like never seeing Paris, or is it a relief when others complain about student loans and useless degrees? Chandra Prasad's new novel, On Borrowed Wings,which I'm reviewing as part of Mother Talk's book tour, is ideally suited for two groups of readers: those who have yet to go to college, and those for whom college carried a special mystique.

I fall into the second category. I started reading college guides and college catalogs in junior high. I gave the mailman a hernia once I realized how easy it was to request information. I daydreamed constantly about college and how much better my life was going to be there. I graduated early (yes, again with the impatience) because I was in such all-fired hurry to get there. And while college fell short of my lofty expectations, it also defined me. I am still intimately connected to that former self who stayed awake reading catalogs, who crafted lengthy stories about life on each campus.

Adele Pietra, the narrator & heroine of On Borrowed Wings captured my heart because not only does she crave learning even more than she craves approval, but she does so at time when few women dared to dream. Today, women outnumber men on many campuses, and women who choose an all-girls school do so out of choice, not necessity. Even blue-collar girls have a shot at, and are encouraged to dream about college. We've become so divorced from the feminism that got us here that we tolerate "My Super Sweet 16," and the Gossip Girls, the Bratz subculture that defines tweens and teen girls.

Adele doesn't have the option of being a spoiled brat. She's working doing laundry for quarrymen alongside her mother. Her mother tells her that the best she can hope for is to marry a quarryman. In 1930's America, with the great depression stealing jobs, even that future looks uncertain and bleak. Then her brother dies in a quarry accident, and Adele's greatest tragedy becomes her salvation. Adele will enroll at Yale as her brother. Her grief stricken, manipulative mother casts aside her previous condemnation of education for Adele, and embraces  Adele's transformation into Charles.

Think about that for a minute. Going to college was so important to Adele (and her Mother) that she was willing to give up her identity to do so. She binds her breasts, slices off her hair, lets her hands grow callused and rough, adopts a lower toned voice, and suppresses all traces of feminine affectation just so she can join the Freshman class of Yale. I think about all my yearning and day dreams, and how much I sacrificed to earn my scholarships, and I'm pretty certain that that's one sacrifice I wouldn't have been able to make.

That Adele does, and does so convincingly, even while remaining endearingly female to the reader is the heart of this book. To say I fell in love with Adele really tells you nothing--I fall in love with good heroines all the time. It's why I read.  I like books too much to have just two categories for books: good and bad. No, my literary universe is shadowed with gray, and good encompasses a wide range of books. There's "perfect for this moment" good (enjoyed, but easily forgotten, just like fast food), "goes on the keeper shelf" good (also appears as "sorry to return to library" good, "recommend to friends" good, "book club" good, and "classic" good.

Classic good books are those that you think should be mandatory reading, that instantly command their inclusion in the same canon of To Kill a Mockingbird, Separate Peace, Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I read about 300 books a year. In the last five years, I've encountered maybe four books that I judge to be "classic" good. 

I tell you all this so that when I rave that On Borrowed Wings is a classic, you'll understand that I don't use the term lightly. On Borrowed Wings is everything a classic should be: a hauntingly beautiful coming of age story delivered by a memorable narrator. Although, it's not marketed as a "YA," Prasad's novel could hold its own in Honors English Classrooms across America.

Despite three very brief references to sexual activity, I'd feel comfortable recommending this book to a mature 15 or 16 year old. In fact, as much I think adults will love this book, it's the young women who desperately NEED this book. College is not about keg parties and laugh-track movies, it's about a path to a better future, a better self. Adele is willing to wear the Charles facade indefinitely, in order to get to eat with the sons' of Senators and businessmen in white linen dining rooms, to walk across marble instead of washing it out of everything, to get access to the library. She understands what she stands to gain from the instant she adopts the charade, but it is only once she falls in love that she understands what it is she stands to loose.

Prasad captures this all of this with haunting imagery. Most classics tend to reflect a particular era. That is, they are written contemporaneous with history, and endure through to the present. Prasad's accomplishment is even more noteworthy because she is writing about events 60 years in the past, and still manages to nail every detail to the extent that I found myself completely forgetting that it wasn't written by someone who lived through that era. Adele's voice feels that authentic.

Prasad's tale also reflects the ambiguity inherent in all great coming of age stories. Adele is both proud and ashamed of her actions, starkly honest with her reader but living a life of lies, and in awe of authority figures even as she realizes her own power. There is no clear cut happy-ending for Adele, and we wouldn't want there to be.

I wish that On Borrowed Wings had been assigned reading in my school, not just because it's a beautiful book, but because I'd love to write more about the myriad of themes that emerge--identity, race, class, parentage, education, literacy. Yes, that's how deep my lust for college is--I see term papers everywhere, only here, there are dozens I'd like to write. I'd love the chance to dissect this book with a room full of others---Adele's experience is both unique and universal. For that reason, I can see this being a great book club read as well.

Heck, I might just have to START a book club just to have others to pick apart the nuances of this book. Care to join me? Pick up a copy and let me know what you think. And let me know your thoughts on my opening questions. What would you have been willing to sacrifice to go to the college of your dreams? What DID you sacrifice?

Comments

[amanda]

I am going to get the book on your recommendation. Pick a time when we can discuss it.

As for college, I sacraficed a bit. I too quit high school early, as in I dropped out during my 6th semester. I gave up a summer's work to take classes at 16. I swam with a messed up left shoulder to get a scholarship (which never happened). I attended 3 schools I did not like becuase I could afford them. I turned a personal injury settlement into three semesters of university at SMU.

Next book, after this, is Kite Runner. Its in the too-good-to-miss group.

-A

[starfish]

I was a good student, but I had to be coerced into sending in applications. And my mom insisted I go away (not too far, just far enough) so that I got the real college experience. It was for my own good, I really did want to go, but I have to be forced into social situations, and it was a biggie at the time. As usual mom was right - best time of my life.

[Paty]

I wanted to go to college, get out of the area where I lived. The only problem was my parents were paying for my college and they picked what I was going to do, I only got to pick the college!

My father believed a woman could only make money in the medical profession. I attended one year of radiology technology and quit. I didn't want a medical career. I wanted an advertising or art career.

Anyway, I moved in with a friend after one year of college and took classes at the local college after I was married. I've never really worked toward a college degree in anything, but I'm loving the writing and the chance to figure out the best way to promote my books.

The book your reading sounds interesting. I'll have to see if I can find it.

[victoria]

Am hoping that this prolonged silence means that you are unavoidably and joyously detained by a new small person in your life. Hope all is well.

[Day]

The suspense is killing me!!

[Barbara Ray]

Great review, Wavy! I, too, longed for college from grade school on, even though I was a working class girl. I slaved over my books through high school, convinced I would earn a scholastic scholarship and was a National Scholastic Finalist, but got no money other than a small state grant to the nearest public college. My step-father didn't believe in college for girls (and, truth be told, didn't really see why my sister and I should go beyond 8th grade like he did). He refused to sign for loans to allow me to go. I worked my way through two years of college, becoming more and more dependent on Jim who had his parents' support and loans for future teachers. He and I married between our sophomore and junior years, and I promptly got pregnant with our son. I had no idea that meant I would have to stop working and stop going to college and was in shock when told. It took 13 years of childraising before I managed to return to college part-time and then full-time, earning my way all the way through to a double bachelor's degree in 1986 at 40 years of age. So, yea, college was important to me, and I'm glad I finally completed it. This book reminds me of my favorite Barbara Streisand movie (Yentel?)where she passes as a boy to get into a Jewish school.