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On the heels of our conversation about being “bad book girls,” I somehow found myself reading parts of George Orwell’s 1942 essay on Rudyard Kipling. Parts being the operative word because the essay is highly Orwellian, by which I mean to say: while there can be no doubt about his agile, flinty intelligence and discernment, I always feel condescended to, even berated, in the company of his written word. And so I tend to avoid him, or read him in small sips when absolutely forced, and then of course let’s not even talk about Kipling. But there was something that leapt out at me that I had to share: Orwell’s concept of “the good-bad poem,” which he describes as “a graceful monument to the obvious. It records in memorable form — for verse is a mnemonic device, among other things — some emotion which very nearly every human being can share.” He goes on to describe a Kipling stanza as “a vulgar thought vigorously expressed” (!) and makes the case that the vitality of Kipling’s expression does the hard work of imprinting itself on the reader for a long time to come.
I think there is something here to examine. Why do I enjoy “good-bad” holiday movies, and “good-bad” romances? Part of it, riffing on Orwell, might be that there is some kernel of true sentiment in those texts that feels pleasurable to imagine, or that helps me hang my emotions, or desires, in a convenient way. It is the same love story, repackaged for the thousandth time — another “monument to the obvious”; another “vulgar thought, vigorously expressed.” Put a bit more gently: an opportune contrivance for those of us seeking comfort.
I simultaneously rail against the superciliousness of his tone. A monument to the obvious especially. There is a beautiful part in Sally Rooney’s Normal People where Connell is trying to convince Marianne to stay with him. Their fraught, star-crossed relationship is continuously waylayed by miscommunication, and, as a reader, you are keenly, sickeningly aware that you are about to witness another misfire. Connell says something like, “I think it’s obvious I don’t want you to go,” and she replies: “I don’t find anything about you obvious.” Humans can be so difficult to read — we have defenses, and conventions of politeness, and trouble speaking our minds, and wild inner lives, and all of these elements are in constant, rippling flux. Meanwhile, we often choose to hear things that aren’t there, or miss things entirely. To be human is to misread, under-read, over-read. I’m a perennial over-reader. Mr. Magpie often has occasion to say, “you’re overthinking it.” I know some of this comes from a past relationship in which I was often put on trial for saying things I meant simply that were in turn interpreted as deep-rooted, assaultive. (I now worry about the ten ways “I’ll get back to you” might be misinterpreted. Etc!) And also, I’m an over-reader by training: if my M.A. in literature taught me anything, it is that there are at least a dozen authorized, historied “lenses” for reading any one text, and probably hundreds of unsanctioned ones besides. But my point is: who is Orwell to adjudicate and belittle “the obvious”? I am confident that there are many women out there who will read The Idea of You or any of the other wildly popular, best-selling romance books for the first time and find themselves in the midst of a new awakening.
Some of these thoughts feed into my most recent viewing of “Whiplash” starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons, which is one of my absolute favorite films. In it, a talented young percussionist matriculates to an elite music academy, where he is discovered and then pushed to the brink (of his ability, and his sanity) by a demanding instructor. Perfect length, tight editing, excellent acting, and such complexity of narrative. This is a movie that shows and does not tell. It is also, we decided on this most recent revisiting, a sports movie at heart, even though it is about music–and this contributes to its compulsive watchability. (The underdog, the coach, the big final match — fascinating to think about borrowing known tropes from one genre and applying it to another.) But mainly, this movie puts pressure on the notion of greatness. What does it mean to be great, and at what costs, and to what end? Like, jazz is an important cultural art form, and there are standards we expect of professional musicians, and yet — at some point, it is music, which is not life, and certainly not worth losing a life over, and probably not worth losing any aspect of one’s well-being over.
To string these thoughts together, I’ve been wondering how serious we need to be about art, and how straight-laced we need to be about what makes art good, let alone great. Is it enough to say it moved something in you? Is it enough to say it made you laugh, or cry, or just feel good for a minute? And at what point does something become “not art”? I am thinking of massively popular serialized type books. Are those art? Why or why not?
Why does this matter anyway? I suppose all of these recent musings on being a bad book girl are my small, accretive way of giving myself permission to read what I want to read and not feel embarrassed by it. The worst thing I can imagine is reading something solely because I feel it’s what I should be reading. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and think, “I force-read my entire life.” I had this conversation with a girlfriend last week: she was telling me about an obscure book that she finds herself drawn to re-read every few years purely because it reminds her of visiting her grandmother’s house. It is not a literary masterpiece, but it connects her to some fragile part of her adolescence, and the presence of her grandmother, and you know — that is enough. A book can be a monument, too. It can be a time capsule, a way to access an earlier version of yourself. There are, after all, thousands of reasons and ways to read…!
(Feeling spicy, Orwell!)
Post-Scripts.
+On pursuing English as a major all those years ago.
+We are ourselves in a constant state of rewriting.
+Fishing, writing, and the Roaring Fork.
Shopping Break.
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+Doen is running a great sale this week — my Thanksgiving dress is included and would be chic for the holiday season ahead paired with black velvet heels. The Rosenda dress is also sure to be a wardrobe staple. I find their dresses easy to wear yearround — you could pair this with a chunky knit and suede boots now and sandals in the spring. Same goes for the Romina (under $200!)
+I waited and waited and finally Crown Affair dropped a sale into my lap! You need to add three full-priced items to “a bundle,” and then they appear 30% off in cart. I ordered three dry shampoos to gift three loved ones in my life (and was able to select a travel mini for free at checkout). Hurray! If you are just shopping for yourself, the three items I’d urge you to try using their bundle discount: the dry shampoo, the leave-in conditioner, and the quick dry hair towel.
+Some great new arrivals at J. Crew Factory — I have several pieces I absolutely love from this brand! — including this sweater polo and these studded booties. They also have a great pair of feather trim pants that remind me of the ones from Tuckernuck and/or Sleeper (I own the Sleeper set! — divinely comfortable and so cute paired with velvet heels for a holiday cocktail party. I wore mine to a martini night we hosted last year!)
+The feather pants would be such a good match with these pearl trim mules.
+We have early access to Goop’s sale with code CYBERVIP! I love their Microderm Exfoliator and Scalp Scrub – both great gifts, too. (I wrote detailed reviews of my favorite Goop products here.). And I’ve been a longtime STAN (did I use that correctly…) for their house label knits. Some of my favorite sweaters are G. Label! Consider this gorgeous crewneck!
+Linnea is running a BFCM promo: Spend $100 get $15 off (use code HOL15) Spend $150 get $25 off (use code HOL25) Spend $200 get $45 off (use code HOL45). I just ordered a few of their winter offerings, including their staff favorite Tinsel scent. I know many of you (including those of you with sophisticated noses in “the scent enclave”) love this brand, as do I, for its sophisticated scents and relatively reasonable price tag. I often give these as gifts because they come beautifully packaged with little matches tucked inside. I just put in a cellophane wine bag and tie with a big satin ribbon!
+While we’re talking candles, a reminder that we have 20% off this week at Hotel Lobby with exclusive code JEN20. I love both of these candle brands so much — use them almost exclusively in my home, with the occasional introduction of the spendy and exquisite scents from Cire Trudon (actually 25% off at the moment!).
+I’ve written a lot about the denim brand Pistola. It’s my favorite “less expensive” (but not cheap) denim/pants brand on the market. The styles are SO good and I almost always find my true size is a perfect fit. I especially love these cords, these utility pants, and these jeans.
+Great investment: these Emme Parsons suede wedge heels, currently on sale, especially in black or brown. A perfect transitional shoe you could wear from summer to fall or winter to spring.
+A great gift for a Scrabble lover, or as a “family gift!” Love to give puzzles and games like this — also love the classic games from this brand.
+I have needed to double, and triple, my moisturizer routine. My skin has been so dry. Currently loving L’Occitane for hands, YSE for lips, and InnBeauty for face followed up by this Dennis Gross Blur and Repair Cream, which feels like heaven going on. I also have this rich alpine cream en route to me after I saw someone rave about it online (and I really like my other Ursa Major products!). I really need all the help I can get!
Your friend’s book antidote really struck me, as it mirrors something I read just last night. My grandma just moved to assisted living and I inherited a bag full of her cookbooks. I was paging through Rose’s Christmas Cookies (do bad book girls read cookbooks for fun of an evening??) and in the intro, Rose asked a friend for her favorite cookie recipe. The friend replies “Oh yes, I have a wonderful recipe I used to make with my mother. Well…maybe it isn’t all that wonderful; maybe it’s just that it makes me remember my mother.” I think that is an excellent reason to read/bake/cook something, regardless of its merit otherwise! And I vote that the popular serialized books ARE art, anything that involves the creator using their imagination counts as art to me (she says while sneaking piles of construction paper art created by her children into the trash. I do keep some of it!!). I’m in awe of anyone who can compose a book, painting, song, etc, out of nothing. Here’s to owning our bookish preferences!
PS – thinking of you as I prep the Daniel Boulud carrots for our thanksgiving feast tomorrow! Such a gem of a recipe, thanks for the rec. Hope your own feast goes off without a hitch 🙂
Stephanie, this response is just brilliant. I completely affirm that reading cookbooks is reading/art *and* that the culinary arts of cooking and cheffing are art, too.
The idea that something’s good because it ties in to someone we love is definitely resonant as well. In Australia there’s a beloved cookbook called The Australian Women Weekly’s Birthday Cookbook that is unequivocally one of the most important parts of society’s fabric. From 1980 onwards, Australian kids have chosen a birthday cake each year from the book — both the choosing and the memory of the cake is a precious childhood memory. Believe when I say that a common conversation had among Australians is the different cakes they had throughout their childhood *and* the riffs their family put on the cake.
I’m not sure if there’s a version of this book in the U.S. but I do think that art across its critical and unifying forms is part of how we communicate with each other and find shared territory. In this art is its own love language.
Here’s the book — it’s a really fun, somewhat retro flick through:
https://www.amazon.com/Australian-Womens-Weekly-Childrens-Birthday/dp/174245058X
Oh my gosh, I love this convention and hadn’t heard of it. So special. Interesting the way it both forges a sense of national identity and also gives space for familial tradition, the idiosyncrasy of each child’s tastes, etc! Love this.
xx
Aoife, I have in fact heard of that cookbook! I think of it every time we watch the “duck cake” episode of Bluey 🙂 I love the idea of kids picking out a bd cake every year. I’d say we don’t have an equivalent in the States, but I’m willing to bet most peoples’ moms and grandmas had a version of the red and white checkered Better Homes & Gardens cookbook.
I love the example of the cookbook — such an interesting point about literary merit (or cooking / food merit) vs personal importance. This reminds me a little bit of our chat awhile back about the foods that transport us to our childhood tables. Sometimes the simplest and unfussiest meals and preparations stick with us. I think often about a Magpie who wrote about how her mother would always order Chinese food one night of the week “for girls night.” The way that forged a tradition and connection. And yet it wasn’t some heirloom family recipe OR something culturally/regionally resonant. Just such a good reminder that we can think outside the box here.
YAY for the Boulud carrots! We are making those as well :). I just finished prepping the cornbread stuffing. Feels like Thanksgiving in here! Brings me joy you cannot imagine that you are creating that carrot dish in tandem across the country (where are you?)
xx
Hi from Michigan! We’re hosting 25 tomorrow, should be an adventure!!
OMG!! How’d it go?
It was a success! But I think if we continue to have such large numbers, I’m going with disposable plates, cutlery and napkins. As much as I love using my great grandmother’s china and glassware, the cleanup is just too much. And we don’t have that many settings anyway! Also, got to snuggle my cousin’s baby, always makes my day.
Sounds so special. Yikes, cleanup after so many people sounds like a nightmare! We had only six adults this Thanksgiving and it still felt like a lot!
xx
I agree that we should all read what we want and not be embarrassed by it. I have a similarly schooled literary background to you, and I still love to read the genres that tend to be overlooked (fantasy, sci-fi, and ya in my case). But I also read a lot, and very quickly, and at the end of the year I look back on what I’ve read and think about which books have stuck with me– have given me something to take forward, not just something to occupy me during the reading. And I can get carried away with Libby and keeping up with the books that everyone else is reading, and not spend as much time on the ones that will stick with me. So that’s the distinction that I try to make for myself (and it doesn’t at all map onto literary fiction– I have my own judgments about what’s good, and I find my opinions are often much tougher than the critics!) But for me, it’s about making sure I am not just reading the ephemera, but also the stuff that changes me, even in just a little way. There’s a radio talk that Virginia and Leonard Woolf give, as a debate, called “Are Too Many Books Written and Published?” and Leonard argues yes, and it’s diluting good literature, and Virginia says no, that most books are like candy, and that’s ok, and they should be printed on cigarette rolling paper that disintegrates quickly, and that way the form would mimic the lastingness that most books ought to have. She describes the little piles of dust that would accrue on bookcases, to be swept up and disposed of–and the books get read when they should, and then they disappear without a trace. I love that idea, but also, want the balance of what I spend time on to be the things that are most likely to leave a lasting mark.
Gosh, this essay is so wonderful, Jen, and you’ve covered so many different things that have simmering in my mind for months and months. In the spirit of conciseness, I firstly wanted to share the note I made for myself recently that the greatest rom-coms manage to centre pathos in a way that both captures the characters’ individuality while summoning forth our relational commonalities. I think there is a universal truth that we can find in almost all great art that — even if context or subject matter is played with or subverted or appropriated — makes it recognisable *and* casts a striking illumination and deeper sensation of what the truth is.
Secondly, in the scope of revisiting, I’ve found that the permission slip of loving what we love brings us closer to our truest self. Or comparatively, it is a hewing step in the life journey of releasing ourselves from the stone of performance that settles in through the dice roll of circumstances, survival, and fate. In a spiritual sense, I believe that we can move in closer alignment to who we really actually are through prioritising what we love as opposed to the masquerade or pretense of liking something that’s not really true to our taste or what our hearts want.
Accordingly, the experience of people knowing us well enough both to encourage and celebrate the things we really love feels essential in this, too! I remember visiting Prince Edward Island because of how much I love Anne of Green Gables, then irrationally dithering on actually going to the Green Gables museum and house. My husband insisted that we do this and was so engrossed in the whole experience with me. I felt so loved and like this childhood self that still exists within me was being given oxygen and light. All of which to say: people that let us be us and want that for us are green flag people through and through.
Finally, all of the discourse in all of this ties into The Artist’s Way which I think you’d really like! xx
Sorry for the reply, Aileen! I hit the wrong button.
Nevertheless I’m so fascinated by what you’ve shared and wonder if it applies across art forms? Like somehow we need the joyride of a blockbuster and other times we’re ready for the meatiness of an auteur-type film. I definitely find that sometimes I’m really able to engage with critically-acclaimed and other times I’m gobbling down The Idea of You.
I am the same way – all balance!
These are such gorgeous insights, Aoife. I love the notion of reading for pleasure / pure interest as a way of moving into closer alignment with our truest selves. Become an expert in yourself! What we read, why we read, how we read are parts of that enterprise for sure.
And I was absolutely swooning over your commentary on the visit to PEI. I think you shared that tidbit before and I just think it’s the sweetest thing that your husband encouraged you to go, and immersed himself in that micro-literary-niche with you. “I felt so loved and like this childhood self that still exists within me was being given oxygen and light.” Oh my gosh – just gorgeous. Thanks for sharing that beautiful moment with me.
xx
Love the way you approach your TBR / reading — I do something similar, but maybe a little more free-form. I let myself read whatever appeals to me at the moment (often thrillers, romances, short fiction, and a lot of poetry actually, not all of it good), and then I find myself thirsting for something really substantial that I can wrap my mind around for a good long month. Sometimes I think I need a full month (or longer) to really process something “high literary” or whatever you want to call it. I am still throbbing with the after-effects of both “My Brilliant Friend” and “Intermezzo” (Rooney). I can feel those texts still positioning me, shaping me, asking something of me! And so I’ve been sort of enjoying the candy wrapper type books for awhile here. Now I am beginning to look for something else meaty…but I’ve learned to really listen to myself and what I feel I need/want. It feels a bit like paying attention to what I’m hungry for food-wise. Every few weeks I have an all-consuming need for a burger, and I listen to it, and it’s probably because I’m anemic? And the same with fruit — any time I am truly craving it I know I am probably on the brink of getting sick. It’s always what I crave when I’m down with a cold / bug of some sort. Anyway, rambling here, but thanks for weighing in. Loved the Woolf reference!
xx
Yeah, I hear this. My issue is that I read about something, think, oh that sounds interesting, and throw it on my Libby list, and then when it comes in, I feel like I have to drop everything to get it read before it is due and moves on to its next reader! But I agree that a well-rounded diet, listening to our bodies’ needs, is what to aim for. It’s just the library app is doing me in sometimes.
And Aoife, yes, my movie and tv preferences are wildly different than my book preferences! Some of my neighbors, who are retired college professors, were asking me for tv recommendations the other day and they seemed truly bewildered by my answers (I tried to sell them on Physical 100 on Netflix).