Word: nora
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ELLEN SCHWAMM's How He Saved Her, the fictional autobiography of a New York socialite, may well interest fans of the 19th-century Gothic romance. Her Nora Ingarten is, enviably enough, the Gothic heroine of the '80s. Admittedly not young and violable. Nora is already married, the mother of two chic and witty Amherst-bound offspring. But her marriage to a conservative tax lawyer has stunted rather than matured her, and she has persisted as confused, dogged and sensitive as a teenage heroine. How He Saved Her tells the story of Nora's enlightenment through her elusive and brutal seducer...
...Nora as heroine is defenseless and lovable but tries our patience. She hasn't an ounce of spunk--an unfortunate deviation from the Gothic tradition. Asking for a joint bank account becomes a crisis of independence. After being robbed of her wedding ring and wristwatch, she wonders whether the event was unreal or surreal. Our sympathy for Nora is further lessened by Schwamm's emphasis on Nora's contradictory and oppressive wealth. It is hard to feel for the frenzy of the poor little rich girl when it is described in terms of "her pulse...beating against the hammered gold...
...NORA's autobiography is that of a disciple, but one senses that she as narrator has still not understood the ideal towards which the novel pushes, the grasping of Lautner's particular ideology. Her struggle is therefore simply a document, neither cast into perspective nor interpreted incisively. This results partly from the limitations of Schwamm's technique: the author frequently displays such annoying faults as complacently explicating the dialogue she has just penned. Nora's attitude towards her father, for example, is summarized: "She loved him and regarded him as wise-after-all. Sometimes she was ashamed...
...dialogue is extraordinarily real. The novel does offer an unparalleled portrayal of the life of New York's leisurely class in the '80s; Schwamm's setting includes Max Ernst dresses, original Bauhaus furniture and Balducci's. The snubs and gossip at the parties and charity auctions which so bore Nora furnish some of the most absorbing information we receive, and here the narrative commentary finally achieves the appropriate level of irony...
...girls' bodies. After a sexual initiation, Mortimer inquires, " 'How on earth did you manage?' 'Manage?' 'About the breasts, of course.' 'Perfectly all right.' Oliver gave a smile of satisfied achievement. 'You hardly notice them at all.' " But Nora Ephron's A Few Words About Breasts notices nothing but: "What can I tell you? If I had had them, I would have been a completely different person...