5 for 5: Quint and Consumerism
Dionne Irving’s book, Quint: A Novel, carefully and delicately examines the inner lives of the Phalene quintuplets, the first set of quintuplets born in Canada, and perhaps the first set of quintuplets that lived through infancy. A spirit child, their sixth sister, watches over them and occasionally narrates. It’s much like Beloved in Morrison–knowledgeable and yet innocent. Calandre is her true twin.
These children are commodified for the gluttonous eyes of the public. The objectification of these babies, children, and finally teenagers, is nothing short of Nabakov’s Lolita except behind glass. We are voyeurs of the growth of five unwitting children and vacillate between obsessing about their lives and feeling shame for being the reason for the spectacle in the first place. Dionne’s definition of shame is beautiful and damning. “This feeling [shame], the sister of regret and the cousin of remorse” (218). The objectification of girls’ bodies is nothing new. The objectification of a group of girls’ bodies is nothing new. (The sheer fact that there is a term called the “cheerleader effect” proves that.) However, what sets this apart is the full scale spectacle, the crafting, and the molding of these sisters before they could even speak.
What does it mean to be internationally famous before the first crawl, the first word, the first step?
This novel takes its time–their lifetime honestly–and there seems to be no clear villain to blame. Mama and Papa Phalene? Anthony Rhys Osborne?
The actual answer is more obvious. We are the villains. We read the story greedily waiting for the big conflict, the explosion. Waiting behind glass when the girls only wanted to live their lives and we’re just waiting for something to happen. Not the quiet that is the reality of their lives–we want a dramatic explosion. So like the guests of Quintland, we tap and tap and tap the glass as we turn the pages demanding they dance, curtsey, cry, or die for us.
Dionne Irving’s 2021 book, Quint: A Novel can be found on Amazon.com and 713books.com.
