Friday, November 11, 2005
Vitriol
I don't have the most discerning standards in the world when it comes to certain things including music, movies, television, and magazines. My taste in food and men, however, is impeccable.
(This is not the time or place to make fun of Hostess SnoBalls or the size of Tom Brady's head, okay? It's just not)
My taste in literature is a little questionable. As an English major, I have learned to appreciate most of the classics, and there are certain highbrow books that I will defend to the death. At the same time, I am not saying that I am above reading fluff as a way to spend the time, because I theorize that reading dense classics all in a row will cause brain damage and lead to an early death. I also think that something like Shopaholic Takes Manhattan is more fitting for a trip to the beach than Anna Karenina is (Let's pretend just for the moment that I actually enjoy the beach. Work with me). Chicklit, as they call it, I guess since cutesy books deserve cutesy names, is generally not worth stressing over.
However.
There are some books that are so wretchedly awful that it actually infuriates me that they were published. Patently offensive and poorly written? SIGN ME UP! I feel the need to rant about some of these books to you because a well meaning soul gave me one yesterday and I nearly had a heart attack when I was finished reading it (in one sitting, as I kept turning the pages in horror, assuming that the author would finally admit to creating a parody).
Elegance, by Kathleen Tessaro seems promising at first glance. The premise is that a woman finds a copy of a manual for achieving elegance from the 1950s, when such a book was all the rage. The narrator, Louise, decides to make it her new bible (and refers to it as such). We then track her progress as she goes from frump to fab. Isn't that exciting?
I wasn't expecting Fitzgerald, you guys, I really wasn't, but I don't understand why any author would create such an unstable, unlikable character and hope that readers will be interested in what happens to her. Louise is frumpy, self conscious and surrounded by models. That's semi-relatable, at least; we all know the feeling of being with people who seem really perfect and make us feel dowdy in comparison. She's emotionally and physically distant from her husband, who, as it turns out, is gay. In their climactic breakup scene, Louise takes what could be righteous anger and turns it into nonstop cruelty. You...go girl? Louise then makes herself over, and reads Vogue in order to get fashion inspiration, becoming both prostitute-like (wearing a micromini and gold glitter to the Ritz) and cruel (being mean to her roommates who only want to help her) in the process. Which you could almost, almost, almost explain away if the character were young, but she is 32. That's the type of age where it's sort of mandatory that you become aware of what is going on around you.
The supporting cast of characters is poorly written and highly stereotypical, from the gay best friend to the shrewish mother-in-law to the dim but pretty new friends that Louise acquires after making herself hot; no pretty person would ever willingly associate with a fattie, don't you know? The character being miserable while fat (we don't know her exact size but we know she's big enough to be mistaken for a pregnant woman in a "hilarious" scene) and only when she loses weight and can wear Pucci knockoffs is she happy.
Peppered throughout are mentions of looking like one has Down Syndrome with improperly applied makeup (that's...what?), repeated references to looking special needs and multiple uses of the word tard. What? I...am I too PC or something? Because that makes me sort of uncomfortable. Perhaps in an effort to combat the chicklit rep, the author throws in deep backstory for Louise, including an eating disorder, her parents unhappy marriage, her mother's suicide attempt and her abortion. And spends two paragraphs, maximum, on them which...why bother mentioning at all? It's sort of jarring to go from twelve pages of searching for a hat to wear to Ascot to "When I was sixteen, I had an abortion". Buh?
But--there's always a but, isn't there?--bad as it was, it can in no way compare to the crime against humanity known as Jemima J.
I say this with all the power I can muster: FUCK JEMIMA J.
If I stop writing in the middle of a sentence, you can safely assume that I have stroked out or something due to the vitriol I feel for this book, its author and the publishing world for allowing people to read this atrocity.
Jemima J is similar to Elegance in that it follows a self conscious heroine as she transforms into a beautiful butterfly. Jemima, the protagonist, is MORBIDLY OBESE. She has at least twelve chins and her ass hangs off of her seat because it is so big. She's huge! And then you find out that she's 5'7" and 217 pounds.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's not Daria Werbowy, but it's also not the mom from What's Eating Gilbert Grape? That's slightly overweight, not horrifically obese. Let me take a deep, soothing breath before I go on.
Jemima is not a virgin, but she might as well be. She lost her virginity in a dark closet, which had to happen because men are so repelled by her obesity that she just can't be seen in the light of day. And male attention? Puhlease. Only if it is of the jeering variety. She spends her free time cutting out pictures of supermodels, hating herself and pining over the suave and amazingly handsome guy she works with.
Then, with the help of a meddling (thin) friend, she discovers online dating. Intriguing! She falls for a man who, as it turns out...is a health guru! LOL! WACKY! But wait...just wait for it. A health god as tanned and buff as Brad (I think) would never hang out with a fattie! So MeddlingSkinny emails a photoshopped version of Jemima to him and he loves it! Then he says he wants her to fly out to California to meet him! HAHAHA! But what will Jemima do???
Obviously, she goes on a crash diet and starts to live at the gym. In the span of three months, she loses 100 pounds (I swear, that's what the book says) and becomes GORGEOUS. It's like diet porn. Readers get a detailed look at how she lost the weight and how her body looks now, with page long descriptions of her concave stomach). Of course, the man who works at the gym is concerned about her (Oh, yes, there are these random passages told from someone else's perspective, I don't know why) but everyone else is just too impressed with HottJemima to care. So HottJemima flies out to California to meet Buff Brad and they have lots of sex...when it's light out! Because she's so sexy!
There's an odd subplot where it turns out that Brad has a fetish where he loves fat women (?) but I am sketchy on the details, because I am too blinded with hate for the fact that the dreamy love interest only notices Jemima when he sees how thin and blonde and beautiful she is. She was a buddy when she was fat and smart (worst combination evah), but she's only worth marrying when she's thin and smart. YAY FOR HAPPY ENDINGS!!!!
I generally don't ask for much, but I am calling upon all of you to go to your local library, find Jemima J and stick a note in it that says DO NOT READ UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. It is our duty as human beings to save people the pain of reading that wretched, unfunny and poorly written book.
And to make me even more angry and depressed, Arrested Development is officially gone. That sound you just heard was my heart breaking.
Mallory at 11/11/2005 01:05:00 PM
2 Comments
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at 7:30 PM
said... You know I just about plotzed when you said 5'7 217lbs. OMG! FATTY! GET OUT OF THE WAY!
That is not overweight. That is so normal it's boring. Thank you, ridiculously stupid books. Is there ever a point in these books where these girls go "waaaaaait a minute! I'm not THAT bad. I mean, seriously." Or is it just "Oh, poor me! My life is horrendous because *gasp* I weigh slightly more than I should!"-
at 5:16 AM
Rayanne Graff said... HALLELUJAH AND PRAISE THE MALLORY!
I re-read Jemima J recently when I was feeling the need as a hate camel to refill my hump with hate, and I actually had to go and punch someone in the face because it's so bad.
(My flatmate owns ALL of Jane Green's books. ALL OF THEM. We will be having words very soon.)