I'm not totally sure if I liked Revolutionary Road. In a weird way, it reminds me of my feelings on Wuthering Heights: On one hand, I hated it because the characters were despicable, but on the other, there's no denying that the author knew what he/she was doing. So I guess my verdict on this one is interesting. It's an interesting, infuriating book and be warned, I am going to SPOIL, SPOIL, SPOIL ahead.I have to give serious props to Yates, though; I think Revolutionary Road is one of the most well-crafted books I've ever read. The story is about Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple that lives out in the 'burbs on the titular street in the 1950s. They're out there doing what they think they're supposed to be doing - raising kids, mowing the lawn, being prosperous - but they feel unfulfilled. And the main reason for that is they feel they're extraordinary people, destined for great things, better things that the mindless routine that everyone else is participating in. Eventually April comes up with an intricate plan to move to Europe so that Frank can "find" himself and his calling, and they can live a life of culture in Paris. But for all his talk, it turns out that Frank's afraid - of change, of himself. He starts quietly sabotaging the plan until a gift arrives in his lap: April's pregnant. He pushes her and manipulates her until she agrees to stay on Revolutionary Road and stick with the status quo, but never realizes that he's pushed her too far until it's too late. And the book ends just as it started, as a hot depressing mess.
In looking at the Amazon reviews, some people blamed April for the Wheelers' problems, calling her stuck-up and pushy. More people saw them as equally responsible, both holding unrealistic and over-inflated visions of who they were. But as I read the book, I realized that we really have no idea who April is, because she doesn't get to represent herself until the very end of the book, 40 pages from the end, when she commits her terrible deed. She's always seen through the eyes of other people and even with dialogue, the episodes are recounted from the other person's point of view. She's literally the last character who gets to direct the scene from her point of view; even her children get a turn first. During scenes with Frank, April's generally seen as mean because he both hates her and is afraid of her; during Shep-the-neighbor's turn at the wheel, April comes across as haughty, but yet he's also frustrated by his fixation with her. Once I realized this, it really made me question what was real with April and what was being put upon her by her suitors.
For example, one of Frank's great fixations is how April may be incapable of love (because he can't accept that she just might not love him), and he's disturbed by something she once said to him. The quote from the book is: "'I love you when you're nice,' she'd told him once, before they were married, and it had made him furious.'" (p. 49) But the thing I realized is, we don't actually hear her say it. Frank says that she said it. And we know that Frank is both an embellisher and a liar. He's very good at transforming situations into stories that work for his personal narrative, and we see that throughout Revolutionary Road. The most obvious example comes during his lunch meeting with Bart Pollock. Frank works for the same company that his father did and he's particularly haunted by a city lunch he had as a kid with him and a man named Oat Fields. So when Pollock takes him out to lunch, he's reminded of it - and then he turns the story into something that he sees as better. "He couldn't be sure - there were several hotels of this size and kind in the neighborhood - but the possibility was strong enough to please his sense of ironic coincidence. 'Isn't that the damndest thing?' he would demand of April tonight. 'Exactly the same room Same potted palms, same little bowls of oyster crackers - Jesus, it was like something in a dream. I sat there feeling ten years old." (p. 206) As a result of incidents like this, I think you have to question what was actually said and what Frank has decided what April has said. And thus, start to wonder if April is really this person we've been lead to believe she is.
So yeah, I really started to question whether April was actually as mean and withholding as she came across. (I doubt it.) And that feeling, more that anything, really made me see her as trapped. Frustratingly, depressingly trapped. I kinda knew that something drastic was coming at the end, because it seemed fairly obvious that she had to snap, and I have to admit, I really, really wanted her to poison him. Isn't that awful? But I seriously just wanted her to do him in and escape. Alas, it was not to be...
I can't end this though with talking about Frank, her horrible, manipulative little husband. He is truly awful because he was just obsessed with impressions, control, and his manhood (or, more correctly, how other people saw him as a man). He also uses the most deluded logic to make decisions, and there were moments in the book where I wanted to reach in and smack him. Like, for example, he takes a boring job at Knox Business Machines because he doesn't want to get sucked into an interesting job that he won't be able to leave when his life takes off. As a result, he spends years doing nothing at a job he hates. Huh? But the worst is his explanation near the beginning of the book of why he decided to marry his pregnant girlfriend, April. He doesn't actually want a baby but when she wants to get an abortion, his manhood feels threatened. So he manipulates her and guilts her into having it, because he simply can't bear the idea that she doesn't want to carry his seed. Which is what leads him to getting the job at Knox.
Frank is one of those people who is just all bullshit. Near the end of the book, when April wants to terminate her third pregnancy, he fashions himself to be a psychologist like Freud and tells her she has penis-envy. Of course, he knows zero about it but eventually convinces her that she needs to start seeing a psychiatrist because she has deep mental issues. And it's just so ridiculous because he manages to convince her that she's crazy - and she's not. Arguably, he is the one that's crazy. He doesn't want another baby; he just wants an excuse to stay in his comfy life and get out of going to Paris. Instead of being honest about his feelings, he concocts all this bullshit so he can still feel like the man. Okay, I need to breathe - can you tell that this book made me angry?
In the end - and this really is the end - people start to see beneath the veneer. John the crazy man realizes and confronts Frank about his cowardice in a painfully awkward social setting. In the last few pages, Shep realizes that Frank drove April to her demise because he was always playing a game. But I sort of had to wonder if it mattered, because April was still dead and Frank deposited his kids with relatives, allowing him to start playing the sad but worldly widower.
And the thing is, I think Yates intended all of these things. You're supposed to see Frank as this delusional idiot and I think you're supposed to see April as trapped in an image. In that respect, Revolutionary Road is genius. It just also happens to be as depressing as all hell.
