Wise-Ears

Here is another novel about a woman in search of herself. Sophie, the protagonist, is 58. The schedule for her life up to the point at which the novel begins has been set out for her: “School until she was 22, raising children until she was 56. Now at 58 she had to invent her own program, and the freedom that opened out made her nervous.”

One never feels that Sophie really grasps the occasion and develops a vital program for her life. She is not challenged to inventiveness by hard times: she is happily married, in touch with her family, and with enough money to fund hobbies and self-expression in the form of home decorating. Although Bauer seems to set out to prove that the new program need not be adventurous, Sophie’s is depressingly inert. She rejects a career, turning down the position of director of the halfway house where she does volunteer work. Thwarted in her desires for grandchildren (her grown children remain single, divorced, or dedicate themselves to careers) and in her dreams of travel and adventure in foreign parts, she embarks on several rather idiotic home decoration projects and finally resigns herself to filling the gap in her life with imaginative invention and day dreams. Bauer’s recipe for combating the doldrums of middle age is to listen to one’s inner self and be creative. Sound though the philosophy may be, it is unconvincing as it is fleshed out in the rather tiresome heroine of Wise-Ears.