Faith
A trip to see the Rockettes line-kicking at the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show is enough to bring about a philosophical meditation on the fundamental nature of spiritual belief. Actually, it is not so much the Rockettes—who turn out to be a disappointment=but the show that follows which moves the spirit in those mysterious ways attribute to God:
“Maybe that’s what religion is, hurling yourself off a cliff and trusting that something bigger will take care of you and carry you to the right place.”
Jungle Work
Before becoming a housebound agoraphobic, Bernadette was a genius architect. Literally codified as such: she earned a MacArthur Genius Grant. Things like that are gifts from god or somebody, but they are of little use without ambition. Bernadette apparently was equally gifted in that department as well:
“Bernadette and her enthusiasm were like a hippo and water: get between them and you’ll be trampled to death.”
The Pop Culture Gamble
Antarctica plays a huge role in the narrative even thought not much of the story takes place there. This means it is open to metaphor and simile. In delineating a quick slice of history, the author chooses to go with a pop culture quip that is quite funny if you get it, but the problem with pop culture references is that they often don’t have great staying power. You don’t need to know much about Amundsen but you really sort of need to know the most infamous thing about Vick to get the funny:
“Down here, you’re either an Amundsen guy, a Shackleton guy, or a Scott guy. Amundsen was the first to reach the Pole, but he did it by feeding dogs to dogs, which makes Amundsen the Michael Vick of polar explorers.”
In Seattle
On the other hand, much of the story takes place in Seattle and its position as being far more familiar for most people allows it to be opened up to a rich vein of imagery, allusion, simile and metaphor. Perhaps the single most poetic, however, is one that feels like it is talking about the rain, but turns out to be only slightly referencing that climatic definition of character:
“The sky in Seattle is so low, it felt like God had lowered a silk parachute over us.”
What’s the Deal with Bernadette?
The story seems to be a tale of two Bernadettes and the vamoose by the older one without warning or explanation becomes a mystery. Solve the mystery of why that young Bernadette became the older version and you probably explain the runaway, right? Not really. Because the answer to what’s the deal with Bernadette is fairly straightforward. So much so that even she has a firm grip upon it. Hey, it even explains the second meaning in the title:
“everyone knows I am an artist who couldn’t overcome failure...Failure has got its teeth in me, and it won’t stop shaking.”
