About Schmidt

Rebirth is when a character moves from a frozen/hard/dark/sick/decayed state (where your boss is most of the time) to a liberated/warm/awakened/healthy/growing state (where my gf is most of the time). Examples include A Christmas Carol, The Light Princess, Silas Marner, Sleeping Beauty, The Secret Garden , and the Star Wars saga. Rebirth shares many elements of Tragedy, except there's a woompfy miraculous redemption at the end. Perhaps Updike's Rabbit Angstrom novels are Rebirth in long form, but Louis Begley's About Schmidt fits the bill. The first two of the five Rebirth stages show a Hero under the thrall of some dark power even though things seem to be going reasonably well. I hope it doesn't hurt much when I tell you that the dark power that Albert Schmidt is enslaved to is a comfortable, upper-middle class American Dream existence with a wife and kid. The story begins at the tail end of stage three, when the poison has started to show its destructive effect. Schmidt realizes that most everything he has worked for is meaningless—his kid is a greedy pig, the wife he strove for is dead, and his magnum opus of attorney files has been deep-sixed. He has been plunged "into a state of total isolation." Alone and lonely, Schmidt enters stage four, when the dark power has seemingly completely triumphed. But then, ah!, miraculous redemption appears when stick-up-his-butt Schmidt allows himself to be seduced by Carrie, a vivacious young bombshell, and he helps her get rid of her assface of a boyfriend. In allowing him to rescue her, the woman (in the film, it's a child) effectively redeems our imprisoned Hero, and he moves from prisoner to loving father figure. — Douglas Lord, "Books for Dudes," Booksmack! 10/6/11