something about “Revolutionary Road” by Richard Yates

American author Richard Yates gives voice to friends of loneliness. He made an extraordinary debut in 1961 with Revolutionary Road. The novel’s aching pulse beats loudly, softens, then redoubles louder than before. Characters struggle to make sense of the feeling that they will never live the life they imagined. Yates once said, "If my work has a theme, I suspect it is a simple one: that most human beings are inescapably alone, and therein lies their tragedy."

Revolutionary Road plays out in East Coast suburbia, 1955. Frank and April Wheeler think they are in a rut. Frank, a charismatic intellectual in his college years, no longer finds ironic amusement in the nine-to-five workaday office life; April, an attractive, artistically inclined woman, is home with the kids and a growing sense of desperation. April persuades Frank to relocate their young family to Paris, where the promise of real life now awaits. This promise of change gives new spark to their relationship—but the spark dissolves in a thread of smoke.

One dampening force is the neighbor’s adult son, whose borderline personality and candidly delivered, jaded insight depicts the Wheeler's problems plainly. Then April discovers she is pregnant, conceiving reckonings. The desperation buried in the Wheeler’s unsatisfied lives surfaces for air, and change comes.

Yates once described Revolutionary Road’s subtext:

I think I meant it more as an indictment of American life in the 1950s. Because during the fifties, there was a general lust for conformity all over this country, by no means only in the suburbs—a kind of blind, desperate clinging to safety and security at any price.

This quote surprises me in a way, though, because Yates sounds like he is criticizing people like Frank Wheeler because he could not leave the security of the suburban life and office job; but in reading Revolutionary Road, I thought Yates was criticizing Frank because he thought he deserved anything else.

Notes:

• Quotes from Boston Review, October 1999, and Ploughshares, Winter 1972.
• Revolutionary Road, the 2008 movie directed by Sam Mendes, stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, but Michael Shannon owns it, of course, with his performance.
• Previous posts: something about Richard Yates and something about "The Easter Parade" by Richard Yates

about imagining

I peek outside, then I am drawn through a French door onto the patio. My eyes pull left to the neighbor's house. Through its large bay window I find the eyes of an obese killer, more monster than man. He is a horrifying blob stationed at a breakfast table. He wears women's lingerie—a black teddy. He wants to take my life now.

I briefly lose sight of him as he rushes out the back of his house and exits his garage. But, then, he is all I can see. Because he gushes into my yard and is closing in at a paralyzing speed. The impulse to run takes me.

Roaring nearer, he warns me that he will now begin asking questions, and if I answer correctly, I can live a few seconds more. Here's how it will go. First he will sing, and I must finish the lyrics. So he begins singing "Hallelujah."

I scramble onto a trampoline in the yard, and he corners me there. He is singing, and I think, "She tied you to her kitchen chair, and she broke your throne, and she cut your hair." He is at the edge of the trampoline now. I jump left, he moves left; I jump right, he is there. He is unbelievably fast, and he is singing, and his voice grows incredibly loud. I am in the air, and his singing comes out now in two voices—a high, loud shriek and a low moan. He disappears under the trampoline as I begin coming down, and he is right under me. I try to will my body forward, a lunge unpropelled, an attempt made weak with terror. I wake, bolting upright in bed, hearing my own pitiful, last groan.

something about placelessness

Bending off the highway is an unremarkable, two-lane road that aims toward the river. Going that way you pass a guileless elementary school; a fire station; a frayed church; a pasture (often harboring horses); and another church (this one sturdy and featureless). Then you drive amid woods, turns, and threats of deer crossing. Driveways that draw up to the road fall between these filmy landmarks, and my attention flits down to the houses as I speed this way. House after house withholds the greeting I wish would welcome me, and a low-scoring shame fills the void of no warm memories.

about being attached still at the roots

The blonde-headed young man slides self-consciously into frame. His eyes are pulled twice to the camera, furtively each time; he nods hair away from his face. He knows he is being seen but denies the seer. Finally, a casually intentioned look toward the camera's eye--mutually frank, unwise, and uninvested.

Recording themselves downtown, the boys were making memories, however forgettable in the grand scheme. It is that association between memory and place, time and space, that now leaves me missing home. My hometown: flawed but well planned grids of city streets; tree-heavy suburban neighborhoods where kids get excited about spending the night at friends'; where the beginning and the ending last until I die.

about being attached still at the roots

The blonde-headed young man slides self-consciously into frame. His eyes twice pulled to the camera, furtively each time, he nods hair away from his face. Knowing being seen but not acknowledging the seer. Until he does acknowledge with a casually intentioned look toward the camera's eye--mutually frank, unwise, and uninvested eyes.

Recording themselves downtown, the boys were making memories, however forgettable in the grand scheme. It is that association between memory and place, time and space, that now leaves me missing home. My hometown: flawed grids of city streets; tree-heavy suburban neighborhoods where kids get excited about spending the night at friends'; where it began and the ending lasts until I die.

Pictures