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Original poster

I need to talk about We Need to Talk about Kevin (warning - for people who've read it - spoilers possible)

51 replies

hatwoman · 04/05/2007 13:56

I have just finished it and thought it was fantastic. I had so many conevrsations with myself about the relationship between mother and child, about the old nature v nuture thing, about father and child, siblings etc etc. it was moving and thought provoking. and there was something like an uplifting irony about the end

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Blandmum · 04/05/2007 13:58

Did yu get the feeling that Kevin's behaviour was driven by the need to kill everyone who was loved, because he wasn't loved by his mother? And also that he had to 'prove' that he was totaly unlovable.....so as to make his mother 'right' to reject him?

I didn't enjoy it at first, but got pulled into the book. I can't say that I liked the book but it was interesting

ahundredtimes · 04/05/2007 14:05

Nasty, nasty book I thought, but uncompromising too in a good way. MB you're being too kind, the point of the book is that the mother wasn't wrong, what Shriver is saying is that he was born bad and is bad. Honestly, I really think that! Is telling I think that Shriver hasn't had children -

ahundredtimes · 04/05/2007 14:08

The mother's ambivalence about her child isn't meant to be telling about how he turned out. She's a good liberal american, and she liked her daughter. The point is, how if you gave birth to a murderer, and he was a murderer because he was horrid from day one rather than as a result of his uprbringing.

Original poster
hatwoman · 04/05/2007 14:10

I'm not entirely sure - I thought it was less about love, more about an emotion - any emotion. I don;t think he cared that much what his mother felt about him - just as long as it wasn;t nothing. I think he adored her.

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Original poster
hatwoman · 04/05/2007 14:11

I'm not convinced Lionel Shriver tried to give quite such a prescriptive answer. The books more nuanced than that

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mckenzie · 04/05/2007 14:15

I'm with MB in that i found the book gripping but can't say I enjoyed it. I still haven't decided if the son was born bad and the mum had some sixth sense of this and therefore distanced herself from him or if her distance from him caused him to behave the way he did. I find it hard to get my head round how one person (ie the mum) can have such a huge impact on another person (ie the son) to make him do the things he did.

Original poster
hatwoman · 04/05/2007 14:18

I agree that I possibly wouldn't describe it as "enjoyable". but I would call it very very good.

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ahundredtimes · 04/05/2007 14:23

Is it nuanced though? I worry that we're giving it the benefit of that doubt, because it's so well-written. All I'm saying is that as a reader one searches for evidence of Kevin being the way he is because of his childhood, we are looking - rather typically - for the fault to lie with his parents. And I don't think it's there. I think it is prescriptive actually, rather brilliantly so. It just wrong-foots us because she's suggesting that he was born a sociopath. And lots of sociopaths love their mothers don't they.

mytwocents · 04/05/2007 14:27

The first time I read it I found it uncomfortable but gripping too. I've recently read it again, from a literary point of view i think it's very well written, i also challenged my initial thoughts on why kevin did it and who for...
I agree that he worships his mother, possibly he feels unwanted from birth and tries to get her attention his whole life - negative attention - however he can.

mytwocents · 04/05/2007 14:32

I kept switching between thinking he was always going to do something dreadful, born evil etc .. to thinking that he's a spoilt, depressed, mixed up kid..that he has a desperate desire to be infamous..shock and hurt his mother..

I think this is becuase it's so well written

anyone read her new one?

ahundredtimes · 04/05/2007 14:35

Disagree! Not because it's well written but because her premise is flawed......

Blandmum · 04/05/2007 14:37

at the risk of induging in wanky pop psychology....

......I think that he adores his mother. She disliked him, from birth really.

Becayuse he loves her so much, subconciously he has to prove her 'right' in her lack of love for him. So he becomes the moster she fears he is.

Actually I have seen similar behaviour (though less severe) to this in several children who have been abandoned by parents (and I do mean abandoned....not simple separation)

noddyholder · 04/05/2007 14:37

I lovd it and found it so sad at the end.I have an only son and it really made me think.I don't think people are born bad

pudding77 · 04/05/2007 14:39

I've read double fault recently, it's ok, not as shocking as Kevin in some ways but interesting.

I thought Kevin was well-written though I read it when I was pg & it scared me! The first time I read it I thought the ending was a bit of a cop-out, but when I reread it I thought that perhaps he did have a little bit of remorse at the end because he realises that his mother does have some kind of feeling for him, iyswim? She doesn't give up on him as such.

ahundredtimes · 04/05/2007 14:41

No neither do I, but that is the idea of this book. It is, it is, it is I'm sure of it. And that's why it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth afterward. Honestly, Shriver's narrator isn't intended to be as flawed as we all recognize her as being.

ahundredtimes · 04/05/2007 14:50

Though I suppose Eva and Kevin are the same really aren't they? She was ambivalent about having a child - especially one who seemed to reject her from the first - whilst Kevin is ambivalent about society generally, isn't he?

Blandmum · 04/05/2007 14:52

Don't sure if he is ambivalent, he doesn't like to conform, that is for sure.

An initial 'in born' behavioural trait, causes her to 'reject' him, his behaviour changes as a result, downward spiral?

mytwocents · 04/05/2007 14:53

Yes! They are the same, I think so too. I did'nt recognise eva's character as flawed though, and i did change my mind about Kevin being born bad the second time i read it...

mumto3girls · 04/05/2007 14:58

I hated this book. And as the book was written I believed the mother was usingthebenefit of hindsight too much to explain her relationship with him.

I also thought the father was immensely annoying and i would have left him and the child if i hated being a mother that much.

mummycan · 04/05/2007 20:01

I hated it as wll and I thought it was written very self consciously - did not read like a diary at all. Also hated the fact that he was completely demonised - he appeared to have no human qualities at all.

filthymindedvixen · 04/05/2007 20:14

I was prepared to hste this book, having read some interviews with the author and thought she was a twunt. So it was a shock to love this book. I have read it three times now and I get a little more each time. I still weep with shock when it all 'happens' though.
I actually feel now, after 3rd reading that he was just born that way, and nothing his mother did would have had much effect - though there might be some attatchment issues.
There are children who have had worse upbringings and not turned into sociopaths.
I love the paranoia and build up of suspense - even though you 'know' about Thursday. I think it's a superbly well-structured book.

pointydog · 04/05/2007 20:21

"Also hated the fact that he was completely demonised - he appeared to have no human qualities at all."

I agree with you, can. I disliked her psycho chucky doll description of Kevin. And I also disliked the description of the sappy, wet, personality-less daughter. Just felt this was a book written by someone who had no interest in, or like for, children.

filthymindedvixen · 04/05/2007 20:25

see, I liked that (she really doesn't like children much, does she!?)
But I am one of those wierd people who does pretty much like children -though I completely understand why people don't - so I'm fascinated by such a polar life view from my own.

amateurmum · 04/05/2007 20:27

Have to say one of the parts I liked best was the gradual deconstruction of the father. I started off feeling quite positive towards him and ended up feeling he was a hopeless parent (think of his blindness to Kevin's personality, his behaviour towards his daughter and his unwillingness to listen to his wife).

Not sure if he was really flawed though, or if, as the narrator is the mother, she is exaggerating his flaws to justify her own behaviour.

DixiePixie · 04/05/2007 20:49

My sense from the book was not that the author does not like children very much, but that the character Eva does not particularly like children. She is presented as someone who is very bright and successful, but pretty self-absorbed. The child that she bonds with is her daughter, who is the child who is adoring and pliable. There is also the account of when Kevin is very ill and they have some really lovely time together.

However, although Eva is not presented particularly sympathetically, she is not a monster. She is just very human with normal human faults. There is also love for Kevin throughout all this, and it also transpires that Kevin really loves her too.

One of the things that I like best about this book is that it does not offer pat reasons for why Kevin commits mass murder. Yes, it could be that he was "born bad", but then I think martianbishop has got a good point about him feeling he had to 'prove' himself to be bad because of how he interpreted his mother's attitude towards him. There is also the anger towards his father and the lack of proper boundaries and reaction from his father to anything he does.

I didn't come away from the book thinking 'Oh, it was all his mother's/father's fault' or 'oh well, nothing could be done because he was born bad', because I don't think the book gives reasons or answers, which is why it offers such a rich topic for debate.