So, what do you think about Belle Burden's divorce? Holly Peterson, writing in The Wall Street Journal, has some definite opinions. If you'd like to get her view, click the following link to read Peterson's article, which is titled, "What The Obsession With Belle Burden’s ‘Strangers’ Says About America."
If you are like me, you might first like to know who Belle Burden is. I didn't know anything at all about Belle Burden (in fact, I had never even heard of her) until I started writing out this blog posting and went to the Internet for information.
Apparently, Belle Burden is some kind of high society "somebody." Her mother, Amanda Burden, has an extensive Wikipedia profile (big money and political connections are extensively mentioned). Belle Burden doesn't have her own Wikipedia entry (at least at the time I am typing out this blog posting). However, I invite anyone interested to do a Google search on "Belle Burden, Strangers." Holly Peterson is not the only one who has some opinions about Belle Burden's divorce, and about Burden's description of that divorce in Strangers. After glancing through five pages plus of Google results, I think that "obsession" does seem to be a good word to describe the public's engagement with Belle Burden's book.
Here's a link to information about the book. The cover of the book contains the following endorsement by Joyce Carol Oates: "Riveting... Examines the very nature of intimacy."
I haven't read Strangers, but I did enjoy learning about the controversies it has engendered, and I particularly liked the following observation, found in the Peterson commentary in The Wall Street Journal (emphasis added):
Whenever the topic of “Strangers” comes up, and it does constantly in my professional and social groups, I can’t help but bring up my one crucial question: “What do we think the husband’s side is?”
Suggesting we imagine the husband’s experience during the marriage and subsequent breakup feels like I’ve broken a blood oath with women warriors. The reaction is swift, defensive and many times delivered with the vitriol of an adolescent facing the cosmic injustice of screen-time limits.
“He’s despicable!”
“He tried to take her houses!”
“He never wanted to see the kids again!”
People glare at me as if I’d shot their dog.
I’m not defending anyone’s behavior. I’m proposing a discussion. Why do so many readers I speak to believe they can be a fair judge presiding over every moment of this couple’s dreams and disappointments?
A refusal to sit in the gray area hasn’t just infected how we digest the latest literary sensation; this mode of communicating (or not communicating) has taken over our entire political and social discourse.
"Sitting in the gray area" is something we all need to learn how to do. I am thinking, particularly, about political polarization (not divorce controversies) as I say this. Click that link and you will see that my concerns about this are not new.
In order to address the problems that we confront (and we do confront them "together"), we need to get beyond polarized descriptions, and polarized understandings, about how the world works, and is working, and what we need to do about it.
That's true within marriages (and when marriages are dissolved). It's also true - really true - when we think about self-government, and how we can accomplish that, given that while we are "in this together," we do have different experiences and different views.
That "in between" area is, perhaps, properly described as "gray." It's certainly not "black or white," and it's not "Red" or "Blue," either!
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