The Member of the Wedding

Amazing

How many 24-year-olds could write a novel like this today? Having read 'February House,' an account of the year 1940 in which McCullers moved into a house in Brooklyn with W. H. Auden, Paul and Jane Bowles, Gypsy Rose Lee and other famous artists of the time, my book club decided to read everything that had been written in the house during that year. Carson's work was perhaps the most astonishing. Nervous as she was about following up on the great success of her debut novel, 'The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter,' she dived right into this very different story of a young girl coming of age in Georgia and yearning to meld her own identity with that of her grown brother and his fiancee as they married. Her novel was influenced by the poet Auden's lectures on literature every night, by the stories she overheard her housemates telling, and by her own desire to surpass the unexpected triumph of her first novel. McCullers is a true treasure of American literary history, neglected until recently. Even if this book isn't your favorite of all she wrote, it's certainly worth reading, not only as a work of art but as an example of a young writer challenging herself to the limit of her abilities. Highly recommended.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

it's okay

This book is about a girl named Franie. One day Frankie finds out that her brother is getting married. Her brother, Jarvis, is in service. He is stationed in Alaska. Frankie has always wanted to go to Alaska. She gets an idea that when she goes to the wedding she is going to go on the honeymoon with her brother and his wife. Frankie does not like where she lives because she is always bored and lonely. Her only friends are her maid, Berenice, and her coursin, John Henry. Shes tall and feels like shes a freak. All Frankie does is stay in the kitchen with John Henry and Berenice. She then decides that she wants her name to be Jasmine because her brother and his fiance's names both begin with j's. So her new name is F. Jasmine. The day before the wedding she goes out into town and looking for people to tell her plan of leaving to. She then meets a soldier and they go out for drinks. He then asks her on another date. She goes to see Big Mama and asks for her fortune which is that she will attend a wedding, that there will be a journey, and that there will be a return. On their second date the soldier buys her drinks and then asks her if she'll go ot his hotel room. She goes and he trys to kiss her but instead she bites his tounge and hits him in the head with a pitcher. She then wonders if she killed him but she decideds to leave. F. Jasmine changes her name to Frances. The day of the wedding her brother and his wife leave without her. Big Mama's fortune was right. She goes home and then trys to run away. Frances got caught by the police and she got picked up by her dad. She meets a new friend named Mary Littlejohn and they both have the dream dream, traveling the world. John Henry died of meningitis after having it for ten days. Frances recieves a letter from her brother saying that he is in Luxembourg.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

High School Student

What else is there to say? A young teenage girl going through a time in her life where she questions her very own existance to why she is there. Death wasn't even an answer. One thing was for sure, John Henry will no longer be there for Frankie.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Great coming of age story

This book is a great coming of age story centered around a tomboy named Frankie Addams. In her attempts to find her place in the adult world, Frankie searches for ways to grow up, changing her childish name to F. Jasmine and then Frances. The entire novel takes place within two days in August, and Frankie feels acutley aware of this turning part in her life- saying she can divide her existence into three parts: the past, the immediate present, and the future with her brother and his bride- when she is a member of the wedding. She hungers so desperately to become a member of the wedding because she is experiencing a sense of being alone and disconnected from others. She is at a turning point in her life, and will mature greatly by the end of the novel. This story takes on lofty themes including invisible divisions between people, that affect both Frankie and her caretaker Bernice, an African American over 40 year old woman who envisions a world without race. This novel is a good read for those who can look past the simple events and plot to uncover the substantive thematic implications of Frankie's story. Set in the 1940's, Carson McCuller's story The Member of the Wedding is still relevant today.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Confusing

Had to read for school. Very boring. You have to really think about whats happening. But confusing and hidden meanings.

What i think about this book

I read this book at school and i think that this is a reallygood book but then again i feel bsd for her that frankie or F.jasmine what ever you wanna call her was really young to make a big desion and on top if that she said kill herself if her brother didn't take her this is a crazy book but it was really good

Frankie Addams is a young, confused twelve-year-old adolescent

Frankie Addams is a young, confused twelve-year-old adolescent living in the American south in 1944. The book is framed around her main frustration with feeling like she belongs to no group, that she is disconnected with the world around her. She is highly precocious and stubborn, but also naïve and unaware of the reasons for her own emotions. She spends the main action of the book, which begins on the last Friday in August and ends two days later, obsessed with her brother Jarvis's wedding on Sunday to Janice Evans. Eventually, Frankie has changes her name to F. Jasmine in an attempt to both sound more grown up and to have a name which begins in J A, just like Janice and Jarvis. She tours the town telling people of her plans to run away with the newly-weds the following evening. She expects everyone to notice the sudden change in her and that she has shed her childhood persona. However, her father takes no notice and treats her as the same little girl. The wedding turns out to be a bust for Frankie. She pleads to run off with Janice and Jarvis, entirely in vain. Rejected and depressed, she returns home with her hopes dashed. In the next three months, much changes for Frankie. She finds a new friend, Mary Littlejohn, and she and her father get ready to move.
There are two major components in this, the major theme of the novel. The first is the concept of division between people. McCullers writes that "This was the summer when for a long time [Frankie] had not been a member." This signals to us that Frankie's attempt to find unity with other people serves as the main conflict of the novel. The second element to the theme has to do with life's universal rules. As Frankie attempts to grow up and seek membership into the adult world, she discovers that certain life rules encumber her. The most important rule has to do with the fact that married couples only include two people, shutting Frankie out of her dream of becoming a threesome with Janice and Jarvis. Berenice also helps Frankie to understand with greater empathy what a struggle it is for minorities to deal with the division between the races.
I like how McCullers split the book up into “parts” and explained everything in complete detail. I don’t like how McCullers went back and forth from day 1 to day 3 throughout the book.
Other recommended works: “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”

Grantd Grant likes dick!

Grant likes freddys dick!

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Je chri!

This book is so queer

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

WHY IS EVERYONE GOIN GAY?

Everyone in my school is goin gay! What the hell? Helpp me!!!!!

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

...

I HATE this book. It over explains every little detail and says queer so many times

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book SUX!!!!!!!

Rly rly rly rly rly bad

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Justin is mean

Justin sucks

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I think you read it. Lol. MICHAELA MORGAN?

Did you.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Highly detailed

Frankie Jasmine Addams was a 12 year old girl with a very boring life. Every day in the summer she would sit at the kitchen table with her housekeeper Bernice and her 6 year old cousin John Henry. Desperate for a change in her life, Frankie looks forward to her brother's wedding. She plans to run away with them but by the time the wedding actually comes, it goes by too fast and she forgets what she had planned. Frankie becomes depressed and almost attempts suicide, but when the police find her she is brought home to her father. The ending of the book I find very depressing, as John Henry dies painfully from meningitis and nothing different happens in Frankie's life. In my opinion this book dragged on and on because of all the detail and imagery. For people who like imagining stories in high detail, this book is for you. I would recommend this book for club discussions because there are some confusing parts and a lot of symbolism throughout the novel. Overall, i really did not like this book at all and the ending left me confused and unhappy.

It's all right

Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding is a story about a young girl named Frankie and the jealousy she feels toward her brother's impending wedding. Frankie is a preteen who feels very alone and as a result of her feelings acts out. Her only friend is her cousin John Henry who spends most of his time with her at her house. Frankie changes her name to F. Jasmine and spends the day before the wedding wandering around town looking for people to tell her plan to. Her plan is an attempt to feel like she belongs. Frankie decides she will leave with her brother and his new wife after the wedding. Her plans, however, are destroyed after the leave for their honeymoon without her. I thought the book was okay at best. The book seemed dreary and uneventful. The story picked up when Frankie met a soldier in a bar and later went on a 'date' with him. He later attempted to have sex with her but she was able to get away from him. The book is very boring, drags on and virtually has no plot. The story does presnt a good view of an alienated girl. The feelings that she experiences are similar to those that many children have. Children are often confused about who they are at this stage in their lives. They are starting to become self conscious and wonder where their place in life is. Frankie's point of view really gives the reader a first hand look into her life. It allows the reader to make a connection with Frankie as a person, and not just as a character. All in all, the book was all right. It is definitely not a book for people who like a good plot or development of characters. Frankie does not really change from the beginning of the story to the end. The Member of the Wedding could easily have been a few chapters of a really good novel, but not as a book in itself.

Surprisingly excellent book, if you look deep enough into it

It is a great book illustrating the awkwardness and weirdness associated from the transition from childhood to adolescent. Even though the character Frankie is a strange character, I feel I can relate to her. I think you'll most enjoy this book if you look below the surface of things. I loved the subtle symbolism/foreshadowings in it. A very interesting book.

Worst book I've ever read!

I personally thought the book was very boring. It had nothing in it that would interest me. I think you should have put a boy in it or something. The author should have not described every little thing. You described the kitchen in the beginning of the book, and the author wrote a whole part of the book on just the kitchen. That's all!

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Not so much

This book lacks everything needed for an enjoyable read...the only two actions that happen in the book are downplayed into a sentence or two each. McCullers writes some good books, but this isn't one of them.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Not Bad

I thought this book was pretty alright for reading from the 1940's. I do however feel that the author, Carson McCullers, did over use many words in this book and that if she did more descriptions of the characters that it would be easier to imagine. I felt that she did a pretty o.k job of describing places and relating them to other things. I think the feeling are well expressed but some thigns are difficult to understand. If you interested in this sort of thing then yes I recommend you read it!