to be sorted later #40
in which we celebrate the madwoman
“As I hear myself repeating my ideas to various librarians and friends, I soon grasp that I will never write the book I am busy describing.
I’m not a scholar. I’m not an academic. I’m a madwoman.”
— Rachel Eliza Griffiths, The Flower Bearers
It’s mid-March, and yet I’m still waiting to feel “rested, caught up and human” like Sylvia claimed she’d be that one March. (Did she, ever, feel that way, I wonder?)
Speaking of Sylvia: my algorithm informed me this week that Billie Eilish is set to star in a Sarah Polley adaptation of The Bell Jar, to which I respectfully respond, no thank you.
Of course, like the great contrarian I am, I will immediately follow up that response with: Yes of course I will go see it if and when it comes out!
Who knows, maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised, like I was last weekend when, early into “The Bride!” I knew I was going to love this wacky ride. Believe me when I tell you I felt thrilled — and validated — to see Glynnis MacNicol felt the same! She wrote:
“Talk about unarrested development. I saw The Bride! this weekend and I loved it so much I may go back this afternoon and see it again. It is a hot mess. All over the place. Rare is the film where I’m willing to strap myself in and say, let’s go, just take me with you. But this was a great ride. I loved it.”
Meanwhile, David Sims bemoans the film’s “overwhelming goofiness” and says he had “hoped for something similarly subtle, a meaningful twist on a well-trodden formula.” Too bad! We’re not being subtle today, David. He sets up his review for The Atlantic:
“Jessie Buckley stars as Ida, a gangster’s girl in 1930s Chicago. At the beginning of the film, Ida eats an oyster so slimy that she reacts violently to it and becomes possessed by Mary Shelley herself. Soon enough, she’s been murdered by the lowlifes she hangs out with—but fear not, because across town, Frankenstein’s monster (played by Christian Bale) is trying to find a suitable mate. He and a mad scientist (Annette Bening) dig up Ida’s corpse and zap it back to life.
The plot doesn’t get any simpler from there. But every time a viewer might begin to investigate a hole in the story’s logic, there’s another distracting plot development or act of violence to grasp. How does Shelley exist in the same world as her fictional beast, one might ask? The Bride’s answer: Don’t worry about it!”
I share all this to say, I have been known to be a grump like Mr. Sims here when it comes to the movies, but I’m delighted to have surprised myself with how much I enjoyed this, yes, rather uneven feminist fever dream of a film. And not just because I recently also had such a violent reaction to oysters that I wonder if I, too, was possessed by Mary Shelley. (It’s true. I may never be able to eat an oyster again.) I make no apologies about cackling alongside Phil and the other guy who was joining us laughing loudly throughout the movie, no matter how much the women behind us at the theater were put off by it. (Overheard in the bathroom after: “What were they even laughing about? It wasn’t, like, a comedy.” They then mocked our laughter! On International Women’s Day! Rude!)
I’m not convinced they were watching the same movie we were. Also, hate on my witch cackle all you like, ladies, but anyone who can’t appreciate Phil’s booming laugh is a sad person indeed.
Anyway: my only real critique is that I could not look at a few of the overtly graphic scenes. I’m not in the camp of believing that violence against women needs to be shown on screen as violently as Maggie Gyllenhaal insisted upon, here (I’m more of the “Sorry, Baby” approach) but I am firmly in the camp that women should get to tell stories as weird and wacky as we want, so indeed, “don’t worry about it!” Sims and co.
Hey, when I’m not talking shit, cackling at movies that are bombing at the box office, and being poisoned by oysters, what the hell am I even doing?
What I’m Sorting Through, Currently …
On Repeat
The reality is I still have Mitski’s new album on repeat, but this morning I was also hanging out with Peter Gabriel, and I highly recommend that as well.
Also, just for fun, here’s an exceptionally unserious playlist I made last fall, prompted by Logan suggesting to Brad and me that we make a silly mix greeting the aliens on 3I/ATLAS. Don’t tempt me with a weird time!
Abandoning Edith
I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t make it through all 880 pages of Hermione Lee’s acclaimed biography of Edith Wharton, even if I did have 13 remaining renewals at the library.
Instead, I moved on to Tayari Jones’ new novel, Kin, and then raced through The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths yesterday.
Though one is a novel set in the 50s and the other is a memoir recounting her life mostly in the 90s and through the present, the through-line is that they are two moving stories centered on a sister-friendship of two Black women. I highly recommend both — as well as Tayari Jones’ previous novel, An American Marriage, and Griffiths’ poetry and photography collection, Seeing the Body.
Griffiths’ poems about her mom’s death have been incredibly important and relevant to me, especially as I relate to her experience meeting her mother in the mirror. From “Seeing the Body”:
Now mine or ours, I
stare in the mirror while everyone sleeps
the aggrieved sleep of the living. Behind my eyes
a dead woman looks back at me with no trace
of recognition. I say ‘Mother’ & my own
feral mouth opens. Closes without any light.
previously:
