THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 14, 1994 TAG: 9408120520
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
OLIVIA
(Or, The Weight of the Past)
JUDITH ROSSNER
Crown. 334 pp. $23.
CAROLINE FERRANTE has just taught her students the art of making Ligurian fish stew. But what is about to unfold in Olivia (Or, The Weight of the Past) is no light-hearted kitchen romance like those so much in vogue.
The tentacles of this tale reach deep into the psyche of mother-daughter bonds to a place everyone who qualifies as mother or daughter has been. It even looks at the twisted knots that link men and women. The resounding message is that one can't escape the past. Always, it circles back, bringing despair and some measure of hope.
Olivia is Judith Rossner's latest effort to explain the world. In Looking For Mr. Goodbar, Rossner took us into the '70s single scene. In August, she taught us about psychoanalysis.
Her new novel is a bitter story about regrets and missed opportunities. It is a reminder of the conflicts between a child's and an adult's memories of the same events. We realize the truth is suspended somewhere in between. We feel the pain, the ice. Some readers may find it too true to life, too grating. In places, it is familiar to the point of being dull. But Rossner can turn a phrase:
``Her memories of me are of a kitchen monster, a whirling dervish who never turned from the stove except to scream at her. Nothing I can say can make her believe the pleasure I took in her, what wonderful times we had,'' Ferrante says of her relationship with her daughter Olivia.
Rossner also crafts parables that live long beyond their initial reading.
``How much easier it is to deal with food than with people,'' Ferrante says. ``The difference between people and food is that if you take identical pieces of food, and treat them identically, they will turn out the same way .
Ferrante grows up in a home that is quiet because her academic parents are always writing or reading. She marries her Sicilian lover when she becomes pregnant and vows to do motherhood right. Their house will be filled with laughter and love.
Instead, she finds herself divorced from Olivia's father and estranged from Olivia. ``I could get accustomed to being miserable, what I couldn't get used to was feeling weird. Disembodied. It wasn't just missing my daughter. I missed myself,'' she says.
Rossner is no stranger to the depths of the bonds between parent and child.
``I was beginning to suspect that the business with your kids was never over,'' Ferrante says. ``That they hold your life in their hands, no matter how remote from you they seemed to be.''
Ferrante returns to the world of dating and the task of finding a man willing to blend families and to let her have his baby. Although there are moments of sweetness, Rossner does not describe that world as a pretty place. It's just something to settle for.
``As the summer passed and I failed to meet another man I could imagine sitting through a movie with, much less enjoying in bed, I managed to convince myself that Leon (the man she is dating) and I could have a lovely, secret affair that went on for so long that it sort of seeped into all of our lives, the kids got accustomed to it without even thinking about it,'' Ferrante says.
One distraction in reading Olivia is that the book contains a lot of cooking talk. It mimics such books as Laura Esquivel's Like Water For Chocolate and Michael Lee West's She Flew The Coop. Yet, it does not share their fun-loving banter, and the details of Ferrante's recipes get tedious.
Olivia requires patience. It's a somber book that explores the depths of human emotions. Rossner leaves us with an image of the human spirit as resilient. Yet, a haunting question remains: How can the next generation ever escape the weight of the past? MEMO: June Arney is a staff writer. ILLUSTRATION: Jacket design by HONI WERNER
by CNB