"I'm not, at heart, a jumper; it's not my sort of thing...I think I knew all the time I was sizing up the bridge that the strong possibility was I'd go home, attend my sister's wedding as invited, help hook-and-zip her into whatever she wore, take the bouquet while she received the ring, through the nose or on the finger, wherever she chose to receive it, and hold my peace when it became a question of speaking now of forever holding it." It is the hottest June on record and the longest day of the year. Cassandra Edwards ...
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"I'm not, at heart, a jumper; it's not my sort of thing...I think I knew all the time I was sizing up the bridge that the strong possibility was I'd go home, attend my sister's wedding as invited, help hook-and-zip her into whatever she wore, take the bouquet while she received the ring, through the nose or on the finger, wherever she chose to receive it, and hold my peace when it became a question of speaking now of forever holding it." It is the hottest June on record and the longest day of the year. Cassandra Edwards -tormented, intelligent, mordantly witty - leaves her graduate studies and her Berkeley flat to drive through the scorching heat to her family's ranch. There they are all assembled: her philosopher father, smelling sweetly of five-star Hennessy; her kind, fussy grandmother; her beloved, identical twin sister Judith, who is about to be married - unless Cassandra can help it.
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Add this copy of Cassandra at the Wedding to cart. $6.61, good condition, Sold by ZBK Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Woodland Park, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2018 by Daunt Books.
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Add this copy of Cassandra at the Wedding to cart. $7.53, like new condition, Sold by Magers and Quinn Booksellers rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Minneapolis, MN, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by New York Review of Books.
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Beautifully and wonderfully written book, very much of its time (style reminds me of Shirley Hazzard's Transit of Venus), early 1960's. Cassie is on her way to the family home to attend her identical twin sister's wedding, full of clashing emotions and motivations. This is a highly accomplished writer, brilliantly constructed story. My 6 person book club was unanimous in our praise. Just ordered Baker's book Young Man With a Horn.
T. M. Teale
Apr 19, 2007
Cassie is an extraordinary modern portrait
The novel, Cassandra at the Wedding (first published in 1962), starts out simply enough; the first-person narrator, Cassandra Edwards, tells us that the spring semester has ended at Berkeley, California, where she is writing an M.A. thesis on the contemporary French novel; and she's packing a bag to drive to her parents' ranch near Tipton to attend her sister Judith's marriage to a truly lovable man. Not only is Cassandra a budding scholar, she's a talented pianist, and competitive swimmer, and she loves her sister more than anyone--even more than her sister's fiancee--so Cassie thinks. For this is the point: Cassie cannot bear to part with her nearly identical twin sister and will do almost anything to stop their wedding. As the author takes deeper into Cassie's thought processes, the reader will find that--as learned and cultured as she is--Cassie isn't aware of the effects she has on others and on herself: Cassie is often cynical, passive aggressive, and wantonly perverse in her refusal to "get it," i.e., to love and let love. Her insolence towards the people she says she loves is an astonishing dismissal of their emotional lives. The fact that Dorothy Dodds Baker makes it easy for us to see Cassie without Cassie seeing herself is testament to the author's mastery of irony and understatement. Without a doubt Baker has created a character whose persistently irritating personality provides the reader with a recognizable portrait. It's Cassie's youth and intelligence that makes her inability to let her sister go such a riveting contemporary drama. Also of note: The NYRB book cover is an appropriate painting by David Park; Deborah Eisenberg's "Afterward" is informative.
