I watched the excellent film adaptation of ‘The Wife’ by Meg Wolitzer recently (currently available to stream on Netflix in the UK) and still had Glenn Close’s performance in mind when I read the book which was first published in 2003, so this week’s blog post is more of a joint review of both. Joan has been married to celebrated novelist Joe Castleman for forty years after meeting in the late 1950s. She was his student in a creative writing class at Smith College and they began an affair which ended his first marriage. In the present day, they are travelling to Scandinavia where Joe is due to receive a literary award – the Nobel Prize for Literature in the film, the fictional Helsinki Prize in the book, which is said to be slightly less important than the Nobel Prize for Literature but prestigious nonetheless. However, during the flight, Joan decides that enough is enough and plans to end their marriage after years of putting up with Joe’s philandering.
In the book, Joan’s rage is shown in the caustic wit of her candid first-person narrative. In the film, rather than conveying her anger directly by allowing her character to break the fourth wall or explain her feelings via a voiceover, all of the emotion is depicted in the minute changes of Glenn Close’s facial expressions. The impact in both forms is equally devastating.
The satire of the literary world in the late 20th century is excellent. Wolitzer sends up the much lauded reputation of Great American Novels and their almost exclusively male authors, in the context of the sidelining of female novelists and “women’s fiction” in general. This has been discussed more in recent years but not so much when the book was first published. The full extent of Joan’s role is made explicit a little sooner in the film than it is in the book. I don’t think it was intended to be a “big twist” as such, just something that is there if you choose to see it.
Much of the book focuses on the early days of Joan and Joe’s relationship whereas the flashbacks are less prominent in the film. This allows Close’s performance to remain at the heart of the film, but I liked that Wolitzer focused on Joan’s background more in the book. The period in which Joan and Joe met was a unique one in terms of the huge amount of social change happening in the United States at the time and the challenges and opportunities this presents in their personal and professional lives are thoughtfully explored.
‘The Wife’ is a short novel at just over 200 pages. Its scathing tone is perfectly pitched in both the original book and the film adaptation and I highly recommend both.
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I read The Wife some time ago and loved it so felt a little apprehensive about watching the film but loved that, too. They complement each other well, don’t they.
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They really do – I thought Close’s performance was stunning.
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I’ve just read The Interestings, effective, but just a bit long. Great to have a new suggestion of something to stream too
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I haven’t read any of Wolitzer’s other books but may read The Interestings at some point.
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I just watched the film (since you pointed out it was on Netflix) – and Close is masterful – I’d definitely read the book too. Glad they are equal of each other which is rare in film adaptations.
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Yes, both brilliant – it’s still quite rare for both a book and film adaptation to be equally worth reading/seeing, but The Wife definitely is. I can also see why Olivia Colman mentioned Close’s performance in her Oscar acceptance speech!
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The only book I’ve read by Meg Wolitzer is The Interestings, but I’d definitely like to read more! It seems like she tackles a lot of important social issues and I do love her writing. This book sounds like it would be an enjoyable read and still timely.
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Yes, I haven’t read any of her other books yet but would like to read The Interestings at some point.
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Excellent review. Now I want to see the movie. I enjoyed, and reviewed, the book.
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Definitely worth watching – they are both brilliant.
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I’ve really wanted to watch the film, but I definitely want to read the book first. You’ve inspired me to move it up on my TBR list.
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They are both excellent, whichever order you read/watch them in 🙂
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