I Repeat – Like a Ticking Clock [Analyzing Eugenides]

            Jeffery Eugenides’ “Baster” (2000), and “Extreme Solitude” (2010) were assigned as reading because, for one, the author will be visiting Ithaca College, but moreover because they are examples of good writing. Eugenides builds a world in each of these stories using invisible tools, but still different tools in each story. By “invisible” I mean that he specifically gives very small, almost common details about a place that trigger the reader’s memories and allows them to fill the gaps. “Baster” is a strictly character based world where all description, from clothes to restaurants, to fertility decorations, is taken in as a reflection of Tomasina and Wally. “Extreme Solitude” uses complex metaphor to pass judgment on the characters. Finally, the choice of perspective of each story is entwined with its emotional impact. Wally and Madeleine are the protagonists and we are left feeling the most sympathy for them in the end, yet the stories told through their voices aren’t about them, but the significant others (Tomasina and Leonard) who in turn defines them.

            “Baster” has a very explicit 1990s tone. Like watching the TV show “Friends”, it evokes both nostalgia and staleness. Smoking inside, fertility objects, and themed parties for educated, city-dwelling yuppies all ring with an end-of-the-20^th-century feel. Even Tom’s anxiety over her progressing age is both a theme of the 90s feminist wave, as well as a nod to Y2K. One particular image that both sends one back to the 90s, but also has an element of believability is the description of Tomasina’s party dress, “This wasn’t skimpy, technically. It began at her neck and ended at her ankles. Between those two points, however, an assortment of peepholes had been ingeniously razored into the fabric…” (436). Even if this brings to mind the Spice Girls and Girl Power, it is something the character of Tomasina would do, and so it makes great, still relevant, fiction. The fact is, Tomasina wouldn’t be the same Tomasina if she were turning 40 today instead of 10 years ago. She needs to smoke in restaurants, gesturing with her cigarette, and wear age-inappropriate clothes to a fertility party (instead of a doctor’s office). I think it’s a testament to using bits of the world around you to create a world of fiction – as both a warning and a suggestion.  

In “Extreme Solitude”, I thought the selection of Semiotics (which I later looked up and discovered was the study of signs and symbols) was particularly genius because it is being used as a stand-in for what love is like. As Madeline says, “It explained how she’d always felt when she was in love. It explained what love was like and, just maybe, what was wrong with it” (5). My point is that Madeline is using a very difficult and confusing subject (one she admittedly barely understands) to clarify another difficult and confusing subject (love). Eugenides is exploiting metaphor here in a very subtle way – as though he is saying three things at once. Unlike a usual metaphor that uses one thing to highlight another, by using a conceit - two confusing things that really can’t (and don’t) make the other make any more sense than it did to begin with – the metaphor is turned into a judgment of character. Madeline wants so badly to understand, to be in love that she grips onto false logic. 

            Finally, Eugenides has a kind of trademark based just on these two stories. We are allowed into the protagonist’s thoughts, and ultimately feel sympathy for them, but all we know about them is based on the characters surrounding them. Madeline’s character is chronologically revealed through her past exploits with men, and her feelings about her roommate. From these simple scenes with these skeletal foils, we learn that Madeline is conservative to the point of repression, but is not judgmental when it comes to men. Likewise, Wally’s fatherly potential is stark against the backdrop of Tomasina – who seems to secretly want a man much more than a child. Eugenides reveals these characteristics through prose and pacing of thoughts.

            From the first page, Madeline is given ten consecutive lines worth of prose without a single period. Doing this quick flow of language is typical of illustrating thought, but Eugenides’ diction reveals her remaining immaturity despite believing she is in love, “…as she often was with boys…after Leonard (like every guy)...if the fact that she’d spent the whole night worrying wasn’t a surefire sign she was falling in love” (1). Further, Wally’s constant side comments that go overlooked by Tomasina give away his feelings, but also his hypocrisy. He spends a lot of time complaining that Tomasina is “hunting”, “hiring”, and being “devious” and says, “Call me old-fashioned but…” (435). On the other hand, Eugenides shows us that Wally is equally conniving and “baby crazy” or in other words, obsessed with being legitimized as a successful adult. After explicitly detailing a negative character, and passing judgment on her choices, Wally actually wants exactly what Tomasina thinks she wants – ending up, not with a stranger’s child, but a child who is a stranger.

            To conclude, Eugenides shows immense strength in subtle detail. He’s very good at combing small significant details, metaphors, rhythm, and mechanics in such a way that trigger the reader to form the world for themselves – and thereby believe in it. His details are so subtle that they appear invisible. His metaphors are not direct, but implicitly meaningful such as, “Tomasina – I repeat, like a ticking clock – was forty” (427), which is doubly significant depending on what angle you look at the story.  Eugenides uses real details surrounding him to build fictional situations, and emotionally heartbreaking themes to draw you into that world.