Her Fearful Symmetry Book

My initial reaction was that I really disliked this book. On reflection, I still really dislike it but for a different reason than I thought! I think what Niffenegger was trying to do here was present a group of deeply dysfunctional characters & put them in a ghost story & let nature take its course. Why anyone would want to read such a thing is beyond me, but there it is.

Elspeth Noblin dies & leaves her London flat, which overlooks Highgate Cemetery, to her nieces, 20-year-old American twins Julia & Valentina. The only conditions of the bequest are that they live in the flat for a year before selling it if they wish to; & that their parents (Elspeth's sister Edie - these two are also twins - and Edie's husband Jack) never set foot in it. We're led to believe that there's some deep, dark secret behind this. Much later, we find out what it is. By that time we a) don't care and b) realize the people really affected by the secret are Edie & Jack - two "side" characters who appear in the first 74 pages of the book, & then not again until page 333 of 400! And Jack knew the secret all along, of course - AND NEVER SAID ANYTHING?! Wait while my head explodes…

Elspeth, of course, returns as a ghost. I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to feel about her until close to the end of the book. Am I supposed to like her or hate her? Was she good or bad? I'm OK with ambiguity & a willing suspension of disbelief, but if a writer is doing a book about a creepy cemetery; ghosts; weird twin girls who dress in white; twin-swapping; & grave-robbing - it really helps if the writer gives us some clues as to who is good and who's bad! Niffenegger beats us over the head with some of the plot points (see below), but doesn't lead us into the motivation behind her characters' actions. This is the writer's job.

Julia & Valentina are the freakish twins. They're 20 & they still dress alike - mostly in a lot of white. Oh, because they're weird and ghostly! I GET it! They're pathologically dependent on one another. Julia is the dominant twin who has, throughout their lives, decided where they should go & what they should do, while calling her sister "Mouse" & telling her that she'll never be able to exist alone, blah blah blah. There's about 300 pages of Julia & Valentina being snippy with one another, or depressed, or floating aimlessly about making tea, or bothering the neighbors. No wonder Robert doesn't want to meet them!

Robert is Elspeth's boyfriend, & why Ms. N. would want to make this guy her male lead, I have no idea. A more ineffectual character you will never meet. I'd like him better if he was evil, but he's just Nothing. Ms. Niffenegger pushes him here & there on the page, but he never comes to life in any way that makes sense. He's writing a research thesis on Highgate Cemetery & has been doing so for years. (He can't finish it.) He also leads cemetery tours. He's obsessed with Elizabeth Siddall - he says, "perhaps because she was beautiful and died young." Oh, & Siddall was a woman who ended up being dug up after she was dead by her lover, OH OH OH foreshadowing! I can't possibly see what's coming next!!

He's having trouble getting over Elspeth, but her specific directions in her will were for him to meet the twins when they arrive & help them out in their new surroundings. If he's so besotted with Elspeth, why doesn't he do what she wanted? We don't know - except that the twins really are insufferable & I wouldn't want to meet them either! So he stalks them for what seems like a few hundred pages. Why?! Why?! Oh, so that he can meet them IN THE CEMETERY where they finally show up for a tour!

Page 171 literally begins a chapter with, "Days went by and nothing much happened." (Wait while my head explodes again.)

Robert finally begins to get over Elspeth, thanks to his growing attraction to Valentina, though Valentina of course looks like Elspeth. At this point, Ghost Elspeth figures out a way to "appear" to Robert & the twins & talk to them. Then there's a few hundred more pages of Robert & Elspeth talking, the twins & Elspeth talking, & the twins being increasingly annoyed with one another as Julia tries to exert more control over Valentina. Elspeth realizes she can (wait for it) take the soul from a living being - which kills that living being - & if she's quick she can put it back. She finds out she can do this BY ACCIDENT. Even though her ghost can't so much as push a door shut. Hmmm. OK….

So then there's animal death (but Niffenegger makes it OK by ACTUALLY HAVING THE TWINS CALL THE CAT "LITTLE KITTEN OF DEATH" when they adopt it so you know it's coming!) - & then Valentina & Elspeth cook up a crazy idea which makes no sense, & even Elspeth doesn't want to do it at first, & Robert thinks it's a bad idea but oh, he goes along with it, because….why? He doesn't know but he tells Valentina not to trust Elspeth because "she wasn't very nice, even when she was alive!" Wait wait, I thought this was the couple who had a love beyond death for one another….????!

On page 316 Robert finally "brings himself" to read Elspeth's diaries which she's left to him. Oh, big secret is revealed….and….that's that. Seriously. Nothing happens, because the secret has nothing to do with what's been going on for the past 250 pages!! And then, 30 pages later, you find out Jack (Edie's husband, father of the twins) knew all along. What the….?! No kidding, this whole part of the book could have been left out & you'd never know it…except Niffenegger needed a plot device that would keep the girls' parents out of London for a year. Oh, and then the inevitable happens & we get past that & then Edie & Jack are going back to America & leaving their daughter behind because "she won't come with us." Ms. N., do you want to make your characters come to life? Parents don't leave their child behind, alone, in a country thousands of miles away, when their other child has just died'even if the child is 20 years old. The parents would drag her off protesting, or they'd stay themselves.

Having firmly established that if you're a twin you must perforce be mentally ill, Niffenegger goes soft on us & lets us know that it must be better to be dead & a happy ghost, rather than alive & forced to deal with your sister. Yeeeccccchhhh.

In fact the next part of the book, where Elspeth has taken over the girl's body & is living with Robert, is interesting to me'but just when it's getting interesting'What's it like to live in a body that doesn't belong to you? What's it like to live with the woman you loved, who died, & who you have also described as "not very nice," who came back as a ghost & killed a 20 year old girl while you stood by & watched, & now you're living with your love's soul in the dead girl's body???!!! But at this very interesting part of the book, it ends! (Though apparently Robert didn't really like the dead/alive thing….)

You know who I really liked in this book, & believed in as characters? Martin & Marijke. Totally a side story'but I loved them.

I also thought a lot more could have been done with the Highgate Cemetery setting - the book felt strangely flat & lacking in atmosphere to me in that way. I've been at Highgate & it's pretty creepy. There was lots of historical information in the book, & lots of description about what it's like to work there, which seems in fact very business-like! I don't doubt that - a cemetery is a business, after all. The flats where all of them were living seemed a lot more creepy than the cemetery!

If you want to read a really good, atmospheric, creepy ghost story with excellent character development, read Sarah Waters' "The Little Stranger."

It also occurs to me - you know who could write a really great psychological mystery about these same characters, only leaving out the ghosts but just going with the facts of their lives as Niffenegger presents them? Barbara Vine. This kind of thing is right up her alley. A bunch of weird people living in an old building in London - & what happens to them. There'd be a death, but no ghosts - and it would be BELIEVABLE. You'd still hate the characters, but with Vine you might understand what makes them tick. Niffenegger doesn't help us out there.

As for Her Fearful Symmetry it was so bad it'll probably be made into a hit movie. Just add vampires. Congratulations.