Jane Mendelsohn uses shifts in POV to create alternative realities for the title character in I Was Amelia Earhart . Ostensibly, I Was Amelia Earhart is about what happens to Amelia after her fateful plane crash, but implicit in the story is the question of whether the internal or the external world is more real. Through her choice of words and syntax, description, rhythm and beat, Mendelsohn creates shifts in perspective. The more subtle shift in perspective is juxtaposed on top of a more obvious shift of person. Mendelsohn uses four points of view for her narration and the dialogue of her two primary characters, Amelia Earhart and her navigator Noonan: I, we, he, and she. This technique illuminates the inner and outer world of Amelia and Noonan. The character’s various perspectives acquire voice. “She” is the pronoun used to describe Amelia’s outer self — the self the world sees — the Amelia Earhart. “I” is the pronoun used to describe Amelia’s inner being, the personal Amelia. Mendelsohn also uses shift in POV — person, distance, perspective — to create mood and flesh out scenes. “But they always make up by the end of dinner. . . .” Next paragraph, “It takes us all evening to make dinner.” Third paragraph: “He sets out every afternoon to catch fish for dinner. . . .” (86-7). Why can’t the reader move through this dinner? The characters finish dinner, only to begin it again in the next paragraph from another point of view. And then again a third time — not erasing the reality of what went before, but creating anew, adding to the bulk of what’s already been given. The effect is to create a variety of worlds — alternative realities, if you will. Discourse and dialog is normally more linear; in “real life” we don’t normally re-present the same facts over and over from various points of view. Mendelsohn’s ineffable connections are made by association, by a relational communication between the parts — the scenes that make up the chapters. The result of the story’s structure is that the reader can’t feel smug or sure of herself. The shifts in POV fracture the reader’s normal perception of how the world should work, preventing the reader from settling into habitual reactions. The structure of the book demands that the reader think — about the story and life, the dichotomy between the inner and outer worlds, and the question of which is more real.
“It’s the last sky,” is one of the opening lines in this fictionalized story of Amelia Earhart and her mysterious disappearance over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. A thought provoking line, as are many in this amazing book by Jane Mendelsohn. I am so glad I read it. Lyrical, insightful, and imaginative; the suspense is rather drifting, much like flying a slow plane at low altitudes. We are on Earhart’s wings in so many ways as the story unfolds. “Love is so transparent that if you are unprepared for it you will see right through it and not notice it.” So says the ambitious and sometimes cold-hearted Amelia. The essence of this story is not so much about flying or courage or tempting danger, but more about Earhart’s discovering love. Love for life, love for a person, a being without wings. There is much to be admired in this story for its metaphoric aerial and ghostly flights of the heart and mind. Even Earhart’s plane The Electra wore a shining symbolism. What I didn’t like about this novel is the mechanics of the writing. There is a constant mix of points of view, first person vs. third person narration (sometimes within the same paragraph); one chapter of 15 pages had the POV change 10 times from “I” to “she”. Also, there is a mix of present tense vs. past tense, which I found to be jarring. And, the dialogue is presented without quotation marks that added to the chaotic reading. I suppose this kind of styling might be considered artistic by some, or progressive, or gimmicky, or maybe faulty on the part of the author or editors. For this reader, it became disorienting, annoying, and purposeless.
Do You like book I Was Amelia Earhart (1997)?
I enjoyed reading this short, experimental novel. I liked that the author departed from the facts about Earhart's life gradually, first by creating an emotional inner life for Earhart before her final flight and then by going on to fantasize a entire post-crash life for the characters. I even liked the way the POV switches between 1st and 3rd person at will, and the way the book moves away from a narrative altogether by the end.That being said, I struggled to connect to this book. At times, the atmospheric, dream-like nature of the prose felt strained and I lost emotional connection to the characters. The book is lovely, but it feels more like a work of art than of storytelling. It was beautiful and full of wonder, but not warm or engaging. In the popular imagination, Amelia Earheart is more of a symbol than a human being, and the author did not rectify that problem for me.Absolutely recommended, though, if you have a high tolerance for abstraction.
—Sarah B.
The first third of this novel had me rolling my eyes. The main story picks up during the preparations for Amelia Earhart's final trip and it is mostly told from her point of view. And it is a depressed point of view. From what I've read about Amelia Earhart, she was tough, not moody. I was kind of miffed that the author would attempt to make her into some kind of angsty, suicidal Virginia Woolf-like character.Once the plane took off though, I could barely put the book down since from that point on the story took on more and more elements of fantasy and I was totally sucked into Amelia's character. She was strong and independent the whole way through the rest of the book and in Part 2 especially, her reactions to what was happening around her are completely riveting.
—Emily
There is something a little bit 'college lit mag' about Jane Mendelsohn's "I Was Amelia Earhart", but minus the few little quirks that reveal her inexperience as a novelist, the book actually holds up rather well.Mendelsohn definitely has a poet's sensibility and the fluid and ethereal manner in which she guides the reader through Earhart's life is engaging and beautiful. As short as the novel is, the author uses only half of her page count to paint a portrait of Earhart's actual biography, deftly portraying the aviatrix's passion and obsession with flying and her complicated releationship with navigator, Fred Noonan.The second half of the novel deals with a fictitious account of Earhart and Noonan's life after an emergency landing in a tiny Pacific island where they are unlikely ever to be found. Again, in a very small space, Mendelsohn creates a dreamlike existence for the two explorers, inserting their factually based personalities into more fantastically exotic circumstances, then extrapolating from them a hasty yet believable love/hate relationship which she then carries out to an almost-logical end.As mentioned above, there are a few little glitches. The switching from 1st to 3rd person, for instance would not bother most people, as it fits nicely with the dreamlike qualities of the narrative. But the author draws undue attention to it at the outset by trying explicitly to explain the shifts in point-of-view. There is also a bit of repetition with some of Mendelsohn's pet imagery which feels a bit like an undergrad showing off a neat line they wrote.But these little niggles are minor in what is otherwise a beautifully written short novel that blends a little fact and a little speculation into a refreshing portrait of a complicated woman. A cool breeze on a warm summer day.
—Chad Bearden
