Human Needs and Human Relationships

“By Sunday the wedding would be over, and for that Winn Van Meter was grateful. It was Thursday. He woke early, alone in his Connecticut house, a few late stars still burning above the treetops. His wife and two daughters were already on Waskeke, in the island house, and as he came swimming up out of sleep, he thought of them in their beds there: Biddy keeping to her side, his daughters’ hair fanned over their pillows. But first he thought of a different girl (or barely thought of her—she was a bubble bursting on the surface of a dream) who was also asleep on Waskeke. She would be in one of the brass guest beds up on the third floor, under the eaves; she was one of his daughters’ bridesmaids.”

From Seating Arrangements, by Maggie Shipstead

I admit I had a difficult time liking this novel. I list it only because I think I need to be reminded now and then of the pretenses I and perhaps all of us often wear and how the fear of being human can drive us to respond to life in such wishy-washy ways.

The main character, Winn Van Meter, is a vain, petulant, emotionally immature man with plenty of money and even more angst. At times I fume at him and at other times I feel sorry for him. His oldest daughter, pregnant and silly and self-absorbed herself, is getting married and the book revolves around the wedding preparations and festivities at their New England summer home.

Here we see how the most privileged can slosh about in emotional unhealthiness. Jealousy, pride, rejection, resentment, arrogance, loneliness and fear shadow the lives of these often shallow people and keep them off balance. But there are redeeming and revealing moments and some of the cast in this truly fractured family remind us of our worst and better selves.

Observing this weekend of both joy and confusion shows us that family, marriage, fidelity, aging, siblings, and life itself is often a messy undertaking. Think of Downton Abbey… without the servants.