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Though
the title of Catherine Ryan Hyde's latest novel refers to
an army of energy-generating windmills in the California desert,
Chasing Windmills itself seems more like a reference
to Don Quixote. It is not merely the idea of some poor,
pitiable soul running toward the windmills, thinking they
are more than what they are, either; there's a quixotic sentiment
to this story that dreams big but accomplishes far too little.
Sebastian
Mundt is just four months shy of 18 and is sequestered from
the outside world by his father, a former college professor
who spends his days homeschooling his son and teaching him
that people betray and disappoint each other. At night, Mr.
Mundt listens to opera records and depends upon sleeping pills
to fall asleep.
To get
away from his overbearing father, Sebastian sneaks out of
their New York City apartment late at night and rides the
subway. One evening, he meets Maria Arquette, a 22-year-old
mother of two trapped in a physically abusive relationship.
They lock eyes. They feel electricity. They decide they're
in love. It's all very romantic—so romantic that Maria
nicknames Sebastian "Tony," making them the star-crossed lovers
in her favorite movie, West Side Story.
The writing
alternates from Sebastian to Maria's first person perspectives,
but their voices are difficult to differentiate; only their
situations mark Sebastian as the occasionally whiny, socially
inept teenager and Maria the timid, seemingly uneducated victim.
Neither seems capable of narrating in full, grammatically
correct sentences, and the fragments stunt both the book's
flow. An example:
I
booted up my computer one last time. Deleted all the Internet
history. So he couldn't see that I'd been looking up Mojave.
If he got smart enough to check, and found someone who
knew computers well enough to help him. None of which
was likely. But I did it all the same. Then I shut it
down for the last time. Ran my hand over the top of the
monitor. Feeling sad. But then I realized the reason I
loved it so much. Because it was my link with the world.
But I wouldn't need a window onto the world where I was
going. I'd be a part of it. For real.
In both
plot and approach, the novel seems to be geared towards teens,
but given the strength and complexity of modern young adult
fiction, even teens would find the characters predictable
and one-dimensional. The good-or-evil approach is too conventional
and slapdash, and Hyde seems determined to make the bad guys
forever bad, not even granting them a chance for remorse,
as West Side Story does. Instead, she calls both Maria's
boyfriend and Sebastian's father cowards and bullies while
consciously neglecting to explore their mindsets. Without
question, Mr. Mundt has done wrong by locking his son away
from the outside world, but he is also suffering himself,
as evident by the sleeping pills, his cynical self-reliance,
and his helplessness. That she neglects to explore this seems
stubbornly narrow-minded.
What's
worse, Sebastian refuses to hear out his father's explanations
and goes so far as to destroy his father's beloved opera records.
Though Hyde intended this act to be an emotional catharsis
for Sebastian, she has done little more than perpetuate the
cycle of abuse by pouring salt on the man's wounds. Despite
Sebastian's childish claims that he is nothing like his father,
he is exactly like him: He seeks retribution through pain.
In another
book, this facet of Sebastian would make for an excellent
character study—a chance to explore the many layers of
a character and blur those lines between right and wrong.
Unfortunately, Hyde makes her characters impervious to their
own faults. Maria, as a mother, does not think "what is best
for my son?" but rather "what will my son think of me
if I abandon him?" There's a selfishness to this mentality
that makes rooting for her a little difficult, despite the
abuse.
Sebastian
and Maria may flee from their oppressors, and they may encounter
new experiences as a result, but they act very much like children.
They romanticize their relationship, both so desperate for
freedom that they form the chivalric notion that each is the
key to the other's escape. But the windmills are neither giants
to be defeated nor demons to be exorcised. Beyond their escape,
there is little action, suspense, or even character arc. The
subways, buses, and cars taken on their journey seem to move
more than the characters do themselves, and when the rides
end, there is little reason to commend their progress.
Perhaps
most frustrating of all is the realization that, despite all
of these criticisms, Hyde isn't necessarily a bad writer.
The story has some interesting ideas, and Sebastian's upbringing
makes for some endearing moments. Had the characters' personalities
been explored more, Hyde could have had a wonderfully rich
story about relationships, communication, and how both can
fall disastrously apart. As it stands now, however, Chasing
Windmills is underdone, infatuated more with romantic
notions than proper execution.
(May,
2008)
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