Rapunzel. . . Redeemed?: Final Thoughts

I realize, finally, having looked over my previous posts, that I did not ever actually review the book.  More importantly, I think I glossed over or misrepresented some points that are fairly important, and lest I seem to have missed it, I do want to give a few last words.

First, the matter of Hermes's homosexual temptation.  I mentioned that it seemed a lightening of the evil of homosexuality since the novel acknowledge implicitly that the temptation to that kind of sin could happen.  Well, in fact, this is most likely an unintended implication, as Hermes is in prison, alone, and very much fallen--in a sinful state that has removed him from God.  He is, like other characters in the novel say, "a slave to his body."  Unable to satisfy his lust with Raphaela, or with another girl (and he does think about the innocent Melissa), he considers yielding to Pinkie.  What I find curious is that he considers a homosexual act--and using another for his lustful purposes--before he considers himself...

The idea that sex in general (perhaps), but premarital sex in particular makes one a slave to one's body is not simply a theme in the novel--the plot, and the experiences of Raphaela, Hermes, and--Dr. Zilberger, in fact--confirm this very Paulian truth.  If I see it as a weakness in the novel and rather unlikely that Dr. Zilberger, educated woman and feminist that she is, has allowed herself to be toyed with by a professor to the point that she had four abortions, neverteless the novel uses her backhistory as an example beyond that of Hermes and Raphaela that sex--the wrong kind of sex, sex without God--is addictive.  (I am not questioning the distinction that sex without God is the wrong kind of sex--that's basic Catholic stuff.)  So what seems to be a flaw is, in fact, the plot and characterization acting in the service of the moral, and while I don't believe that that conflict should exist, I can recognize it as the author's artistic choice to put the moral before the tale.

I decided to write this post after a weekend of moving because I was thinking about a turn in the responses to rape education. The most recent feminist argument is that rape prevention education should be targeted to young men rather than young women, because young women should not have to protect themselves by limiting their own activities.  Rather, young men should be educated to be sure that they are not rapists.  The message is one that Dr. Zilberger and her compadres would approve: that all young men are potential rapists.  This is played out in their villification of Hermes in the novel, but in fact, the plot supports this idea:  in fact, Hermes is a rapist.  He sees himself as a rapist from his first sexual encounter with Raphaela, when he recongizes the power differential and knows that he should not proceed.  He is a slave to sex, and sexual desire makes him a rapist.  While it is not violent rape, the message is clear:  that decent young men can become rapists, and relatively easily.  And I wonder, is this message a necessary one?  Do we want young men or young women thinking that they are constantly in danger from their sexual impulses, either to become slaves, ever seeking sexual gratification, or to become rapists and take what they want?  For me, the novel takes teen sexuality beyond sin and temptation, into sordid crime.  I never recover from Raphaela's age, for one thing.  Making it dark is absolutely intentional, and that's fine--for a particular reader.  But that reader is not me.

Therein lies my problem with Regina Doman.  I am not her reader.  But I want to be.  I am Catholic.  I like a good story.  I like fairy tales.  I like re-visions of fairy tales.  And I get all of her literary allusions.  But there are things that I simply can't accept--and in this case, it's the dark vision of sex.  Perhaps I just don't want a cautionary tale, but I think I could accept a cautionary tale, if it did not rely on types and extremes--but types and extremes are what the fairy tale is all about.  They are not, however, what novels are about, and the novel genre--especially the realistic novel, which this is--carries its own expectations, including more complexity.  At times, Doman achieves that complexity--when she allows her characters to be real, and to deal with more or less realistic difficulties.

There are moments of real beauty in the way people and plot twists come together--as when Raphaela finds her family.  The affirmation of family is also very nicely done, as is Raphaela's gradual spiritual awakening.  Those are the positives.  But I'm not sure the positives outweigh the negatives in my final estimation, and that's because the novel is bifurcated into the fairy tale and the messy reality, and the two halves never mesh.  It is also because the audience that Doman is writing to is the one she does not need to convert--because their ideas already mesh with her own, and all they want is a dramatization of those ideas.  Real dialogue is not possible, because the novel does not allow doubt or dissent a way in--clearly, because I represent a dissenting voice.  (I do not represent a dissenting Catholic, but I am a voice of dissent within the community of Doman's readers.)   Those who are not already convinced that Catholic views of sex are correct, or even who do not fully understand and accept, and instead wrestle with some aspects of Church teaching, will not find themselves welcome in the construct of the novel, because there is no working through of doubt, there is only what is right, and going against what is right.  There's ignorance, but that hardly counts.

As a contrast, I might pose that even unredeemed sexuality has something of the beauty of marital sexuality, and that that, in itself, makes it tempting.  But the reader never sees that.  However, I think it is much more poignant to consider how something that seems good can be an evil, rather than making the sin seem sordid from the start.  But I enter the conversation acknowledging the possibility of doubt and confusion.  Hermes is well-catechized, and even though he doesn't really know what the reality of the temptation will be for him, he has all the answers memorized and feels guilt at all the right moments.  He just keeps going.  Where is the questioning reader supposed to find a place?  Not with the ignorant Raphaela, and not with the well-catechized believer-gone-wrong Hermes.

Every time I read Regina Doman's novels, I want to see her reach for a wider audience--to evangelize, not simply to reassure.  And it is because of her characerization, her storytelling, and her gripping action sequences, and also for her desire to show what faith looks like that I want this for her novels.  But to gain a larger audience would mean to shuck some of the baggage of being right--and that means acknowledging that evil isn't always easy to see, or to label, and that political and social identities don't always signify a villian, or an evil person.  Perhaps I would like to see a truly adult novel that did not rely on a fairy tale trope or motif.  Perhaps then the struggle would satisfy?  I'm not sure.  But I will likely read the next one of her novels that I see reviewed, in the hope of seeing the author's work mature and expand, to reach beyond the type and stereotype to find good and evil in unexpected--and yet realistic--places.