As Angela Carter says somewhere, it would be a long time before a woman in literature could fuck who she wanted without punishment, as she had in Chaucer.

Edna Pontellier is a fine American example of the genre – landed with a husband who looks at her ‘as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property’, and surrounded by a social circle consisting mainly of ‘women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering angels’. Edna herself, growing close to other men and feeling stirrings of physical attraction for almost the first time in her life, is pictured as ‘some beautiful, sleek animal waking up in the sun’.

We know this story pretty well from Zola, Tolstoy or Flaubert. (Willa Cather, reviewing The Awakening for one of the papers, described it as ‘a Creole Bovary’, which about sums it up.) Zola, Tolstoy and Flaubert, of course, were all men (damn them!), and Chopin does bring much more sympathy and understanding to how the dynamic is described – which makes it all the more annoying that the book heads for the same punitive ending, this time involving a fateful encounter with the Gulf of Mexico.

When this came out, Chopin was known mainly as a ‘regional’ writer, and the atmospheric scene-setting is indeed one of the best things about the book: the descriptions of late nineteenth century Louisiana, from the coast at Grand Isle up to New Orleans, are lush and evocative, and her characters – mostly Creoles – switch often between French and English, which gives the dialogue a nice multi-dimensionality. So there is lots to enjoy, even for modern readers who may wonder what all the fuss is about when it comes to Edna's behaviour.

Still, it was not really the content itself, but the fact that a female author was publishing this stuff, and in the American South, that upset people. And the reactions were complex. One British doctor wrote the following to one of his female acquaintances after she lent the book to him:

That which makes The Awakening legitimate is that the author deals with the commonest of human experiences. You fancy Edna's case exceptional? Trust an old doctor – most common. It is only that Edna was nobler, and took that last clean swim. […] The essence of the matter lies in the accursed stupidity of men. They marry a girl, she becomes a mother. They imagine she has sounded the heights and depths of womanhood. Poor fools! She is not even awakened. She, on her part, is a victim of the abominable prudishness which masquerades as modesty or virtue.

Really, it's that prudishness which lies behind the conventions of the story, however satisfying it can be to see them duly (not dully!) fulfilled. Personally, I was vaguely hoping Edna's story would end with an acrobatic MFM scene involving Arobin and Robert – but I trust the fan fiction community have already taken care of that for me.

چقدر این کتاب منو یاد آناکارنینای تولستوی انداخت! داستان یک عشق نافرجام و ممنوعه از طرف یک زن! کتاب خوش‌خوان و روانی بود.

This is supposedly a milestone in feminist literature. It's important on a historical level, but it was impossible for me to for me to get this book. The "heroine" Edna is naive at best, and a selfish spoiled brat at worst.

I love historical romance novels set during the 1800's. While those books are fun, I realize that this situation was much more realistic. Women were married to men they were very distant to and trapped in a world of ennui and as the author put it, a "quiet, vague anguish." I would sympathize with Edna if not for these (numerous) reasons.

1.) She's spoiled. She says ridiculous things like "she doesn't care a whit about money." Of course she doesn't. She's never worked a day in her life and she has a houseful of servants. She'd care about money quickly enough if she didn't have any.

She's also lazy. I would love to be free of responsibilities too. I'd love nothing better to do than have a beach cottage where all I did was hang out with my boyfriend and friends, eat, drink, read, and make art. But that's vacation, not life. Edna thinks that's how her life should be.

2.) She's racist and classist. I know she is a product of her environment but she's just awful. She wants to be seen as a "real" person with independent thoughts and feelings but she doesn't extend the same courtesy or respect towards the servants, white or black. She has one servant that I don't think she ever calls by name. She just always calls her the quadroon. (For those of you that don't know, it was a term in the south for someone three quarters white and one quarter black.) She's ridiculous.

3.) She's a terrible mother. She abandons her husband that she never loved. That's sad but it happens. She abandons her kids and wants a life where she can pop in on them when and if she feels like it. No excuse for treating children like that.

This was an audio book I listened to in my car and the actress was actually very good. The writing itself is good but unless you're into classic literature or the history of feminism this book is a big donut.