Review: Commencement

by: Erin Gold

J. Courtney Sullivan’s Commencement can be found in the “chick lit” section of your favorite bookstore. Maybe in your least favorite bookstore if you’re still getting over the shock that chick lit is now an official literary genre-it’s own labeled section near the “staff picks” and everything. Thankfully, Sullivan’s heroines are not your usual boy hungry, shoe-loving chicks in a city bar discussing sex. Commencement is a novel that finally amalgamates chick lit with feminist literature, without delving too deeply either way.

It’s a story about four women who meet at the infamous, female only Smith college. It’s about their college years and where they go from there. Sullivan studied at Smith and took her inspiration from there, showing readers what really goes on at a women’s college.

The language is a little unfortunate. It’s oversimplified and lacking in the everyday eloquence of some of our favorite contemporary authors. At times, I was tempted to get in touch with my school residence days of drinking games by taking a shot every time Sullivan said a character “willed” something: willing the elevator to move faster, willing herself not to cry, willing for someone else to stop talking.

However, there is some merit here. Despite her mediocre narrating, Sullivan is able to inhabit her characters’ thoughts and expressions. April’s thoughts are described with a lot of swearing, while Sally’s thoughts are cute and worrisome. The main characters (four best friends) differ in many ways, have things in common, but each express a very real complexity.

Yes, the girls party, talk girl talk, have sex, bond, but this book is not just typical chick lit. The girls also deal with serious feminist issues, more visceral than the usual theory of gendered power struggles of greater society. Each issue of feminism and what it entails comes up with gutsy individuality.

Sally is the girl who joins feminist organizations, volunteers with women’s centers- and puts her career on hold to marry a man. She is sometimes the basis of critique of her friend, April.

April joins with a radical crusader of rights and puts herself in dangerous positions, robbing files from the military and infiltrating illegal sex rings of violent pimps. Yet Celia, who does not do much for “the cause”, is called a “feminazi” by a bad date, merely for praising her all-girls alma mater.

As the characters move through feminist politics (and the contradictions of), each in their own ways, the novel never feels like feminist propaganda– just stories that are worth telling.

In an interview published on Amazon.com, Sullivan said that she was not out to promote feminism, but in parts of this novel, she wanted to show how feminism is alive in many different forms. She said it was unfortunate how women can often view feminism as something negative or passe. Through Commencement, we see that stereotypes of feminists, all-girl colleges, and stereotypes in general are rarely real. This is a fictional novel, yet it is more real than common assumptions and high-school movie-type labels that we still sometimes use on each other. Has anyone called a radical dreamer a “crazy hippie” lately? Or called someone who cares more about fashion than social causes a “yuppie”?

The only disturbing aspect of Commencement is that certain events are based on true facts. In the same Amazon.com interview, Sullivan said that she did research and conducted interviews. The problems that April battles in the novel, involving sexual abuse in the army and violence involved with sex trades, are actual recorded crimes. For any change to come about, attention needs to be drawn to such things, without stereotyping activists as “feminazis” or brushing it off as general feminist concern. These are serious crimes, and statistics show that 60% of women in the military have reported sexual assault, but very seldom are their attackers brought to justice. Sullivan’s novel explores issues with the forward-moving attitude that asks “we know the problems, what now?”

Though some parts of Commencement are necessarily heavy and dismally adventurous, most of it takes the reader through the regular lives of four very interesting women. There’s gossip, partying, and the self discovery that comes along with moving away for school or degree-related careers. The reader is often treated to funny anecdotes about the ridiculous situations that ladies encounter just by doing the things they do.

As summer comes to a close, your summer reading doesn’t have to. Should you choose to read Commencement, it may be the easiest, yet most simply insightful book you come across this year. It might inspire you to check out a women’s studies course, attend a poetry slam known for lesbian writers, or walk in a “take back the night” march. If you’re not in school, you can always skip the classes and pick up some feminist social theory (Simone de Beauvior comes highly recommended), then just call a close friend to reminisce about the fun of school life, maybe over a beer in an Annex pub, suddenly busier because of the returning U of T students.