| Title | Little Children |
| Author | Tom Perrotta |
| Theme/Genre | Fiction/Marriage;betrayal |
| Synopsis |
Yet another novel that drives home the point we all seem to have such a hard time truly understanding (read: accepting as a fact) and that Dostoyevsky blatantly declared over a century ago: to live is to suffer. Marriage is mundane. It creates a desire for more (something outside the mundane), for another life-- a new beginning. Yet that new beginning, that ‘new’ life will have its own banalities, it’s own share of boredom and misdirection. And what then? As Todd learns, only after he’s destroyed his marriage and family, is that an affair is only fun for a season. The striking pleasure from the illicit is only striking and it is only pleasurable when it’s illicit. Yet nothing that continues for any substantial duration will one day sooner than later fail to be illicit. Hence, Man finds himself where he was in the beginning: looking for another diversion, another striking pleasure. And when that pleasure looses its sweetness, what then? Another illicit pleasure to fill the void? And so on. My only significant complaint with the novel is that the author glosses the intense pain and destruction that the various characters’ actions do produce. Perrotta’s world is one where adults prevaricate, betray, and abscond, only to find their worlds, and even those around them, relatively unchanged. They all seem to simply ‘learn’ and then move on. For example, Todd’s wife, Kathy, takes the knowledge of Todd’s affair as if she had merely learned that he had been cheating on his taxes. Sarah’s husband is off adulterating on his own to even be interested in Sarah’s affair with Todd. Unfortunately, in my mind, this is all too convenient. And then there are the children. Young children. It is true that they will not necessarily be affected by their parent’s affairs at those tender ages. But later the consequences will surely be, as Perrotta does point out, “the source for plenty of counseling sessions if they can find the money to afford counseling”. Perrotta’s effortless writing makes for a very readable and enjoyable novel. Some might say that it’s simplicity is a lack of ‘showing off’ as an author. I will choose to let that stand, but for perhaps different reasons. These truths that Perrotta points out are already keenly and quite thoroughly portrayed in Dostoyevsky, Dickens, and more contemporarily, though less in degree, in Coupland that it is not his place to try and displace them. |
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| Personal Notes | |
| Publisher | St. Martin's Press |
| Date of Publication | 2004 |
| Sample Quotes | soon to come... |
| Rating | 4 STARS |