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A review by mrskatiefitz
The Loud Silence of Francine Green by Karen Cushman
3.0
Right before I read The Loud Silence of Francine Green, my boyfriend shared with me a selection from Francis Spufford's The Child That Books Built: A Life in Reading, which stuck with me as I read and critiqued this book.
Spufford, in describing his early experiences with books written for adults, writes:
And I was equally puzzled by the strange silence of the authors about their characters. Oh, they described them all right - but who was good? Who was bad? What was I supposed to think about them? I was used to the structure of a fictional world being a structure of judgments, an edifice built to provide you with a moral experience in exactly the same way that it brought you tastes, smells, and sights. I expected to be guided. I thought that reading was intrinsically a bargain in which you turned off your own powers of judgment and let the author's take over, so he or she could show you a pattern made by the interplay of some people who were exactly what the author said they were. (p. 169)
To my mind, this is the goal of children's literature, and the primary reason I read it. I like to be told where I am, who's there with me, and where they're taking me. And I think the challenge of writing good children's books is to do that in a subtle way, without showing every seam and sounding a trumpet every time something important happens.
It is this subtlety that was completely missing from The Loud Silence of Francine Green, and because of that, I found it difficult to enjoy the book.
It is the early 1950's and Francine Green lives in fear of being in trouble. She obeys the rules set forth by her parents, her church, and the nuns who provide her education, and when she has contrary opinions, keeps them to herself, trying to fit the mold provided. Francine's new friend and classmate, Sophie Bowman, on the other hand, lives to challenge authority, and test the limits of free speech, especially when it comes to Communism, McCarthyism, and Catholicism. The entire novel is a portrait of this odd couple's friendship and the push and pull between wanting to speak one's mind and wanting to err on the side of caution.
My first problem with this book is that it doesn't seem to have a clear plot line. Instead, it's a mish-mash of 50's pop culture, stereotypical depictions of pre-Vatican II Catholics, and an endless litany of differences between quiet Francine and outspoken Sophie. I had no sense of suspense, and no curiosity about how things would turn out. The guide characterized by Spufford was present, but it felt like she was an absent-minded curator bustling from exhibit to exhibit in a 1950's museum, with no sense of story, and a self-indulgent interest in showing us only those things she loved most. I think I have an excellent sense of what Karen Cushman finds interesting about the 50's, but I was never fully sold on why those things were interesting.
My second problem was the depiction of the Catholic church as some sort of enemy. I am aware of the humiliation and abuse sometimes implemented by Catholic school teachers during that time period, and I realize that pre-vatican II Catholicism was a very different breed than the Catholicism I have been practicing during my lifetime. But it bothered me that the only sense of balance we get, and the only acknowledgement that not all nuns are abusive tyrants comes in the author's note, outside of the story, in a section that a lot of readers would be likely to skip. Again, the guide taking us through the story seems to have an overly simplified view of what's happening, and stereotypes run rampant.
Finally, I just thought Sophie and Francine were talking heads for two watered-down points of view. I felt as though the book glorified Sophie's disrespectful behavior and criticized Francine's good behavior, and I didn't see much change in Francine at all, even after everything she supposedly learns from Sophie and her dad.
All in all, I was disappointed by this book. I think I would like to try some of Karen Cushman's older books, set further in the past, and see if those are a bit better. I have a feeling they will be, and that perhaps writing about a time period one has never lived in makes it easier to keep personal biases and agendas from bogging down the story.
Spufford, in describing his early experiences with books written for adults, writes:
And I was equally puzzled by the strange silence of the authors about their characters. Oh, they described them all right - but who was good? Who was bad? What was I supposed to think about them? I was used to the structure of a fictional world being a structure of judgments, an edifice built to provide you with a moral experience in exactly the same way that it brought you tastes, smells, and sights. I expected to be guided. I thought that reading was intrinsically a bargain in which you turned off your own powers of judgment and let the author's take over, so he or she could show you a pattern made by the interplay of some people who were exactly what the author said they were. (p. 169)
To my mind, this is the goal of children's literature, and the primary reason I read it. I like to be told where I am, who's there with me, and where they're taking me. And I think the challenge of writing good children's books is to do that in a subtle way, without showing every seam and sounding a trumpet every time something important happens.
It is this subtlety that was completely missing from The Loud Silence of Francine Green, and because of that, I found it difficult to enjoy the book.
It is the early 1950's and Francine Green lives in fear of being in trouble. She obeys the rules set forth by her parents, her church, and the nuns who provide her education, and when she has contrary opinions, keeps them to herself, trying to fit the mold provided. Francine's new friend and classmate, Sophie Bowman, on the other hand, lives to challenge authority, and test the limits of free speech, especially when it comes to Communism, McCarthyism, and Catholicism. The entire novel is a portrait of this odd couple's friendship and the push and pull between wanting to speak one's mind and wanting to err on the side of caution.
My first problem with this book is that it doesn't seem to have a clear plot line. Instead, it's a mish-mash of 50's pop culture, stereotypical depictions of pre-Vatican II Catholics, and an endless litany of differences between quiet Francine and outspoken Sophie. I had no sense of suspense, and no curiosity about how things would turn out. The guide characterized by Spufford was present, but it felt like she was an absent-minded curator bustling from exhibit to exhibit in a 1950's museum, with no sense of story, and a self-indulgent interest in showing us only those things she loved most. I think I have an excellent sense of what Karen Cushman finds interesting about the 50's, but I was never fully sold on why those things were interesting.
My second problem was the depiction of the Catholic church as some sort of enemy. I am aware of the humiliation and abuse sometimes implemented by Catholic school teachers during that time period, and I realize that pre-vatican II Catholicism was a very different breed than the Catholicism I have been practicing during my lifetime. But it bothered me that the only sense of balance we get, and the only acknowledgement that not all nuns are abusive tyrants comes in the author's note, outside of the story, in a section that a lot of readers would be likely to skip. Again, the guide taking us through the story seems to have an overly simplified view of what's happening, and stereotypes run rampant.
Finally, I just thought Sophie and Francine were talking heads for two watered-down points of view. I felt as though the book glorified Sophie's disrespectful behavior and criticized Francine's good behavior, and I didn't see much change in Francine at all, even after everything she supposedly learns from Sophie and her dad.
All in all, I was disappointed by this book. I think I would like to try some of Karen Cushman's older books, set further in the past, and see if those are a bit better. I have a feeling they will be, and that perhaps writing about a time period one has never lived in makes it easier to keep personal biases and agendas from bogging down the story.