AUTHOR: Nuria Pradas
PUBLISHER: ‎ Columna CAT
GENRE: Novel
READER’S NAME: Maria Julia Rossi
DATE: June 1st, 2021

This is a historical novel with a rom-com rhythm where Sophie Simmons, the protagonist, faces typical limitations to following her dream because of her gender—hurdles that are tied to the historical period she lives in: as a teenager in the 1930s, her dream to be an animation professional in Los Angeles seemed very unlikely even for a New Yorker like her. Her story could be read as an inspiring tale of personal fortitude and perseverance through an economic crisis (the aftermath of the 1929 collapse), a convoluted personal history of love affairs, and professional challenges. This novel is an authentic page-turner for readers who enjoy historical novels with strong main characters and movie-like atmospheres.

A female lead as Sophie Simmons engages readers from the first moment and keeps us all wondering about her fate. As a good best-seller book, Tota una vida per recordar [An entire life to remember], presents a generational breakthrough, where Sophie is unlike other women from her mother’s generation.

Tota una vida per recordar is rich in descriptions that immerse readers in the atmosphere of its settings, both emotional and physical. The intimacy of the inner Sophie, her deepest thoughts and fears, are combined with the impact of the historical, political and economic context that surrounds the characters. Her personal story is embedded in the world’s history from the 1929 Crash to the Second World War, as well as with Walt Disney Studio’s path of creative journey and union-centered fights.

Dialogues among characters are animated, involving all these issues, and give the novel a fast pace that make it very entertaining. In its cinematographic succession of scenes, characters and dialogues, Tota una vida per recorder could enrich a publisher’s catalogue of female leads and entertaining readings.

Brief summary of the argument

1932-1934

Sophie’s traditional family is portrayed in somehow broad strokes that help explain Sophie’s decision to leave them (and all they represent) behind in search of her dream. Her mom does not support her in her desires (Vera is somehow part of a different generation) and blames a high school professor for them, but her father Joseph is her biggest fan (and gives her some extra money when Sophie heads to Los Angeles).

Upon her arrival in Walt Disney Studios and being the beneficiary of a scholarship at the prestigious Chouinard Art Institute, Sophie is rejected as a part timer due to economic restrictions at the studios. However, she meets Jules Beck, an animator from Texas who works at the studio and is the first person Sophie talks to at Los Angeles. He suggests other places where she might work, while also distracting her from her initial disappointment.

Through Tyler, Jules’s brother, Sophie meets someone who is looking for a person to share her place. Lissette, Sophie’s bubbly and beautiful roommate, is also driven by ambitious dreams: originally from San Francisco, she arrived in Los Angeles to succeed as a fashion designer. Later on, Sophie meets Marion Altwell at Graphics Studios, who introduces her to unionist ideas.

Sophie’s character is also that of a typical young woman with less grandiose concerns, such as what to wear to her first date with Jules, her curiosity about the Beck brothers as mysterious and handsome men, and her concerns about Jules’s faithfulness to her. In parallel, the novel tells the story of Walt Disney Studios’ development, through projects, movies, and members of the design team, a fascinating growth Sophie witnesses from afar and with dreamy eyes.

In a class at the art institute, Sophie meets Art Babbitt, who invites her to private drawing classes. In these classes, she meets Martin Locke. While Sophie was less and less invested in her relationship with Jules due to her suspicions, her friendship with Art Babbitt grows stronger. During a party at his house, they have a fascinating conversation about Snow white, a movie that is in the making and plans to change the animation industry for good.

1934-1940

After a brief history of Hazel Sewell, Lilian’s sister (the latter married to Walt Disney and provider of ideas for many of his projects), as a feminine icon in the industry, Sophie gets an interview at Walt Disney Studios. After a very successful first performance, Sophie gets the job and not only works at the production of Snow White but also joins a team of women artists at the studio, where she gets to meet and work with many talented women like herself.

In this all-women environment, dialogues turn to non-academic or theoretically sophisticated feminist critiques but as they were lived by artists and working women. While Sophie struggles to thrive in the industry, Jules gets a promotion, and their relationship weakens (while Lissette’s and Taylor’s also turns sour due to his lack of commitment).

As part of the preparation process for Snow White, the team visits the zoo; many pages are spent on how the movie is made, what the artists do to improve it, and how their creative processes contribute to the final result. In the meantime, Sophie ends her relationship with Jules and Lissette obtains a job at Paramount Pictures as a costume artist (while still unhappily dating Tyler.) Their professional and artistic life gains importance at the expense of their love affairs.

Sophie travels back to New York, where she reencounters her family and considers going back to live there. Her father convinces her not to do it because he really trust she will succeed in LA. While struggling with her feelings and hiding from a long-due conversation with Martin, Sophie meets Ginni, described as a “volcano,” a colleague in the studio and an extrovert full of laughs who is married to Claude, a former Chouinard student. Shortly afterwards, during a party, she runs into Jules, who asks her to marry him. He then finds out about the sudden and tragic death of his brother Tyler in a car accident.

After long days of full-time work, the opening night of Snow White comes and it is a complete success. Sophie, however, discovers the bitter reality of her marriage: her husband is not at all interested in what she thinks or what she has to say. Her wedding had been very businesslike and Ginni had helped Sophie decorating Jules’s apartment; Lissette’s life, in the meantime, was more tumultuous than that since Tyler’s death, and she ends up meeting a man named Gabriel and moving to Mexico.

After a long time not talking to her friend Art (because of the mutual dislike between him and Jules), they have dinner together where they discuss the growth of the studio (already working on three mega-projects) and the need of unions and rights, something Art is more convinced than Sophie about. Things between Jules and Sophie were not going great, and she receives news of the passing of her mother in New York. During her trip there, she finds out she is pregnant, something that makes her embrace domestic life over her professional dreams. Her daughter, Eve, dies while still an infant.

1940-1945

After a painful mourning in Mexico with her friend Lissette, Sophie decides to divorce Jules and reengage with her original dream: to become the first female animator in the industry. She interviews with Walt Disney, to whom she presents a Frida Kalho-influenced portfolio of her work, and obtains a contract to join the animation team working on Dumbo. In the meantime, Babbitt’s involvement with unionist work evolved; they meet again, she shares how her dead daughter influences her drawings and he shares with her his real name and conflicted origins.

They end up talking about union politics, which becomes an important issue in the novel since Sophie’s participation in it. She also reencounters Martin, who confesses his love for her during the same conversation that he states he married a month before. They become lovers. Sophie slowly comes to agree with Babbitt’s politics. Martin initially disagrees with it. The distance between Babbitt and Walt Disney because of the union’s claims grows bigger, and Martin ends up joining the strike too. Jules asks Sophie to return to work.

After tense negotiations, the strike ends but so does the glamorous times for the studio and the good times for the activists, whose jobs at the studio were severely impoverished. Sophie asks Martin to divorce his wife, which he does not, and the war begins. She decides to go back to New York. In the city, she founds out her sister needs her because she is pregnant, and she goes back to some texts she’s been writing, and that Babbitt had praised.

She gets published in a series for children and gets a job working for the government. Finally, Sophie gets some letters from Martin and Babbitt, where they tell her about their years in the war, and Martin confesses her love for her. In a very cinematographic scene, the novels ends with a very improbable encounter between Sophie and Martin, to which both had arrived thinking they have had lost one another forever.

Criticism

Sophie Simmons is mostly a strong woman with today’s feminist ideas, for the most part. But, as a woman of her time, there are some details that a reader today might find conflictive. For such a feminist character, there is a somehow problematic line, where Sophie asks her friend and colleague Art Babbitt why, being a womanizer as he is, she was never a target of his advances: “—Per que? no has flirtejat amb mi? Crec que ho has fet amb totes les noies de l’estudi, amb to- tes les models, fins i tot amb les menors d’edat, i en canvi, amb mi...Tan lletja em trobes?” (213) [Why haven’t you flirted with me?

I think you’ve been doing it with all the girls in the studio, all the models, even when they were underaged, but on the contrary, with me… You find me so ugly?]. This can be understood as a very much in character kind of question but also raises the concern about her measurement of beauty in this man’s terms. Overall, this is a tiny piece of criticism for a strong and valuable female lead character.