If you have ever seen the equally astounding film directed by Robert Redford and starring Timothy Hutton, then you'll find that the screenplay was remarkably faithful to the book however, I would argue that the book has slightly more nuances with regard to Beth's character.
Much of what she does is up to interpretation: is she truly cold and emotionally unavailable? Or is she simply coping with her loss by trying to ignore it? While Guest often allows us into Cal's and Conrad's minds, we never see Beth's thoughts, only the perceptions filtered through others' eyes. The true stand-out, however, is the mother. His grief can be heartbreaking to read, but his desperate attempts to hide it are even more so. Conrad is by turns a normal, sarcastic teenager, a kid wracked with guilt over his brother's death, and a little boy who doesn't know where to go from here. Richly drawn, each of the characters feels real and three-dimensional. Finally, there is Beth, the mother, who comes across as cold and aloof to even her own family, and struggles with finding out that not everything in the world can be perfect and controlled. Calvin, the father, feels as if he has let down both his sons and suddenly feels uncertain, reeling from the fact that he could not protect his own family. Conrad, the surviving child, struggles with his own guilt and pain by attempting suicide and has just been released from a mental hospital. A deeply moving, thoughtful book, Ordinary People takes a brutally close look at the dynamics of a family coping with the loss of a child.
0 kommentar(er)
