What I Read: City of Girls, A Man Called Ove and a good cry
October is off to a rough start reading-wise, which in part may be because work is finally picking up. Gone are the days of peak lockdown when reading for 16 hours a day seemed like a pretty doable thing. But hey, I’m not going to complain about work. I did, however, just finish reading City Of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame. Now, I was one of those people who was burnt by Eat, Pray, Love. I loved Julia Roberts in the movie version so much that I went in with a little too much expectation and was bitterly disappointed. I know! This is blasphemy in book circles. The movie cannot be better than the book! But the autobiographical, travelogue-ish book was an exception for me. As a result, I was hesitant before starting City Of Girls, my second book by the author.
However, I need not have been. City of Girls was just my cup of tea. The book is set initially in 1940s New York and follows nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris, who is sent to the city by her upper-class Republican parents after she fails out of Vassar College. She moves in with her Aunt Peg, the owner of Lily Playhouse and the producer of several trashy but fun plays aimed at the working-class neighbourhood. Picking up from there, the story follows Vivian through her entire life as she deals with the consequences of her actions during the first couple of years that she spent in the city. The story is written as a confession from Vivian to Angela, whose identity is kept a secret as the former, now in her 90s, attempts to explain her relationship with Angela’s father.
In my experience, this is the hardest lesson of them all. After a certain age, we are all walking around this world in bodies made of secrets and shame and sorrow and old, unhealed injuries. Our hearts grow sore and misshapen around all this pain - yet somehow, still, we carry on.
Elizabeth Gilbert, City Of Girls (2020)
Right off the bat, what intrigued me was the frankness of the main character. Vivian does not mince her words, and her honesty comes from a place of reflection as she recounts her sins and achievements. Set in the 1940s, the book talks about the repercussions of World War I, the Depression, and the period between the two wars and World War II. But these events are all indicated through Vivian’s story and how these world-changing events affected the small world she inhabited. Time passes slowly as Vivian focuses on the years she spent in New York, partying with showgirls, hopping from one bar to the next and going home with every willing man. As the story progresses, the writing speeds up, too, so in one sense, it plays with the formula used in every bildungsroman, and young adulthood is the phase that is in hyper-focus. One thing that really stood out to me was the way in which it dealt with the topic of sex and sexuality, giving us a character with an outlook towards sex that is very rarely explored in books of this kind.
…at some point in a woman’s life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time. After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is.
Elizabeth Gilbert, City Of Girls (2020)
In many ways, the book reminded me of John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies, a book that I read earlier this year and fell absolutely in love with. Like Boyne’s book, City Of Girls follows a character that does not always do the right thing and is self-aware of their faults. Both books tell the story with a sense of humour while exploring themes like homophobia, grief, repentance and unconventional parenthood. The thing that distinguishes both books is also the thing that stopped me from giving the perfect rating that I gave The Heart’s Invisible Furies, i.e., the writing style itself. In order to incorporate humour into the story, Gilbert made it difficult for me to take the narrator seriously in places. While Boyne’s usage of dry, sarcastic humour made the characters three-dimensional, Gilbert’s use of humour made her characters feel a little flat, especially the protagonist herself. There’s a certain flippancy while talking about major issues right till the very end, and I felt like some ideas were abandoned midway without taking them to their logical ends, like Marjorie’s feelings about motherhood.
Having said that, City Of Girls was a solid read, and I found it so difficult to keep it down that I was reading it while brushing my puppy, cleaning the sink and folding laundry. All difficult tasks to accomplish with only one hand. It is the perfect book for those who have a book hangover from reading John Boyne’s The Heart’s Invisible Furies, Sarah Waters’s Tipping the Velvet, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or Kim Edwards’ The Memory Keeper’s Daughter disappointed you too, not because the subject matter of these books is in any way the same but because it takes you through a similar journey of emotions and expansive life stories.
Finishing City Of Girls meant it was time to pick up my next read. I have a horrible habit of starting six books at the same time. The book that I enjoy the most, however, ends up getting picked the most often, so that’s the one I am going to talk about next. There was a time when everyone and their dog was reading Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove. I, however, did not jump onto that bandwagon when the hype was fresh, but now that his new book Anxious People, which by the way sounds right up my alley, is out, I have the urge to catch up on his previous works. What pushed the case of the book was a recommendation from the bookseller at my local bookstore, always listen to booksellers, and I had to pick it up.
A Man Called Ove is the story of grumpy, old Ove, a man with very particular habits and ideas. When a new family moves in next door, he has to deal with them while struggling to survive a big change in his life. There is something about the way this book is written that feels like being wrapped in a big blanket on a chilly night. I can see why everyone was raving about it on the Internet. But while making me laugh out loud in moments, like the scene in which Ove tries to determine if an iPad is a real computer, it also makes me sigh. It may not end up being my next favourite book, but I have a feeling that it has serious reread potential and can become a book I go back to for comfort.
We always think there's enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like 'if'.
Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove (2014)
Fifty pages into the book, I am getting strong Up (the Pixar film to beat all others) vibes, and I’m not complaining! This can only mean that at some point in the book, I am going to end up sniffing into my pillow. But a book that makes me feel all the feelings always puts me in the mood for another such book. I don’t know what it says about me, but I love books that destroy me emotionally (not the emotional manipulation of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara though). And so I did the only acceptable thing and went onto the World Wide Web to look for a trusty list of book recommendations. Along with gaining comfort from the knowledge that I’m not the only one who actively seeks out sad books, I also came away with several recommendations. The highlight is Boyne’s The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas.
Again a book (and a movie) that everyone and their dog has been raving about for years now. I don't know how I have managed to survive without reading or watching it for so many years, but I think I’m finally going to read it. The premise of the book gives me the same feeling that It’s A Wonderful Life did, and if that’s the case, then I’m in for a treat because that movie broke my heart into a million tiny pieces. However, it is John Boyne writing World War II fiction, and I am a willing volunteer! Hopefully, I will survive the emotional carnage of A Man Called Ove and The Boy In Striped Pyjamas. See you on the other side. And till then, happy reading!