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Loading... Cassandra at the Wedding (1962)by Dorothy Baker
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Cassandra At the Wedding by Dorothy Baker was originally published in 1962. It has now been re-published by the New York Review of Books Classics Series and made available to today’s audience. This is an intense story about the relationship between two twin sisters, one of whom is about to get married. Cassandra has returned to her childhood home to attend her twin’s wedding to a nice, young doctor but she is determined to make her sister call the whole thing off. The book has more than one narrator and I really enjoyed Cassandra’s voice. She’s intense, funny and smart with a definite dark side to her personality. Although her selfishness can seem cruel at times, she was quite likeable. When her twin, Judith became the narrator, I was surprised that I also enjoyed her thoughts and words as well as she definitely has the calmer, more sober personality of the two but she knows and recognizes Cassandra’s darker side. It is obvious that Cassandra is a lesbian although that fact is never definitely declared in the book. The lesbian overtones are quite subtle which I suspect has a lot to do with the times that the book was published. The family seems to acknowledge and accept Cassandra as she is although Cassandra herself seems to be struggling at times. Cassandra at the Wedding is beautifully written, darkly witty, clever and atmospheric. Dorothy Baker strikes me as a very accomplished author who knows how to write comedy. She also trusts her readers to understand and draw their own conclusions and so doesn’t lay everything out on a platter. Cassandra and Judith Edwards are identical twins with two very different personalities. This short novel is a character study of their disparate personalities told from their two points of view. Cassandra is a graduate student at Berkeley, who returns home for Judith's wedding to a seemingly ideal young doctor. Cassandra's hope when she returns is to sabotage the wedding. Cassandra seems to be very self-absorbed and hates that the other half to her whole is going to be someone else's half. Her ultimate attempt to interfere with the wedding is a remarkable example of her selfishness. Their mother died two years before the wedding day, and their father is a pompous, alcoholic philosophy professor. Their maternal grandmother lives in the home, and adds a gracious, if slightly unaware presence. This beautifully written book will stay with me for a while. Written in 1962, it contains elements of that era as represented by the wedding gifts and the grandmother's insistence on public perception. It is short on plot, but very long on character development. The interactions of the family members are fascinating. no reviews | add a review
Cassandra Edwards is a graduate student at Berkeley- gay, brilliant, nerve-racked, miserable. At the beginning of this novel, she drives back to her family ranch in the foothills of the Sierras to attend the wedding of her identical twin, Judith, to a nice young doctor from Connecticut. Cassandra, however, is hell-bent on sabotaging the wedding. Dorothy Baker's entrancing tragicomic novella follows an unpredictable course of events in which her heroine appears variously as conniving, self-aware, pitiful, frenzied, absurd, and heartbroken-at once utterly impossible and tremendously sympathetic. As she struggles to come to terms with the only life she has, Cassandra reckons with her complicated feelings about the sister who she feels owes it to her to be her alter ego; with her father, a brandy-soaked retired professor of philosophy; and with the ghost of her dead mother. First published in 1962, Cassandra at the Weddingis a book of enduring freshness, insight, and verve. Like the fiction of Jeffrey Eugenides and Jhumpa Lahiri, it is the work of a master stylist with a profound understanding of the complexities of the heart and mind. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.52Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1900-1944LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. NYRB Classics3 editions of this book were published by NYRB Classics. Editions: 1590171128, 1590176014, 159017612X |
Also I love books that are about incredibly specific parts of California, which this book delivers perfectly. ( )