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?