Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres

A Thousand Acres is the story of King Lear updated for a modern audience hungry for an understanding of the malady that ripped apart Lear's family. Unlike King Lear, A Thousand Acres has one of the "bad" daughters as its narrator, which provides insight into the bitter conflict that undoes the family in the end. Those familiar with Shakespeare's play may be bothered by the idea that such stately patriarch could unknowingly produce such selfish schemers as Regan and Goneril, and Smiley's novel gives us the back story. In this novel, set in Iowa farm country, Larry Cook's two eldest daughters (Ginny and Rose for Goneril and Regan) have been waiting on him hand and foot since the death of their mother, cooking every meal and washing every stitch of clothing as their husbands (Ty and Pete for Albany and Cornwall) dutifully assist the demanding Larry in the daily operations of the farm. His youngest daughter (Caroline for Cordelia) escapes, at the urging and through the support of her sisters, to become a successful lawyer. Caroline marries another lawyer and lives a sophisticated life in Des Moines. Smiley closely follows Shakespeare's plot lines with the kind of details that fill this novel to bursting, and provide an intense glimpse into the private life of a family whose farm represents a small kingdom surrounded by smaller kingdoms, all green with envy and eagerly awaiting their opportunity to judge as the pillar of the community begins to crumble into decline. Larry Cook is Lear in the modern sense: As a leader of his community, he has proven himself to be wise and has maintained his position and the respect of his neighbors until he decides to assume the role of advisor and retire as his children assume his position. He is the o...

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...ons against their father are mainly wheedling and flattery, not enough to prevent him from feeling the sting of consequence. Caroline, the "good" daughter, is only good because her sisters have protected her from their father's dark side; Caroline is free to remember a father strong and good, and sisters that were less ambitious and independent. Her career and her freedom are possible because Ginny and Rose made sure that she got the most out of her school experiences and went to college, unlike Ginny, who compliantly married early and moved into a house on the Cook farm, or Rose, who taught elementary school for a while before being brought back to the farm when her husband's music career did not provide the steady income they needed. Why does Caroline stand up for Larry? Because she doesn't know what he is like, and what Ginny and Rose sacrificed for her.