In Praise of Messy Lives was a book I hadn’t heard of and
probably wouldn’t have bought had I not received a copy from Canongate as part
of their ‘handpicked’ initiative in which if you bought one book from Canongate
they would handpick another for you. In my case I picked a copy of A Field
Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit, which I’ve wanted to read for some
time, and alongside it I received a wonderfully thoughtful postcard from Louise
at Canongate and a copy of this book.
There will be, no doubt, many American readers of this blog
that have heard of Katie Roiphe, but she was a complete unknown to me so I just
started reading. Then I read some more, and some more. In Praise of Messy Lives
is a collection of essays, loosely centred around the theme of ‘messy lives’,
selling the benefit of living less than perfectly. It’s an interesting theme,
and Katie Roiphe has a strong voice, an interesting perspective and a
perceptive outlook. I can imagine it is a voice that people would quite
strongly disagree with, and I suspect, also, that there are elements of me that
Roiphe was arguing quite vociferously against. Yet this, for me, made it a
refreshing and insightful read.
The book is split into 3 sections which organise the essays
around 3 core themes: Life & Times, Book and The Way We Live Now. Each
section offers a range of perspectives from the behaviour of others following a
divorce, views on single parenting, the life of Jane Austen, the great American
writers: Updike, Roth and Bellow; Facebook (or Fakebook, which is a great name
for it I think), angry commentators and sadomasochism. Roiphe’s themes, I
should point out, are not for the faint hearted. She is challenging,
intelligent and unforgiving. Like here where she talks about helicopter
parenting in the essay ‘The Child is King’:
“In discussing the
disheartening toll babies take on relationships, Badinter writers, ‘A mother
cannot allow herself to be consumed by her baby to the point of destroying her
desires as a woman.’ It occurs to me that in some sense, many of the mothers
she is talking about are using their children as an escape from the imperatives
of romantic life. This elevation and fetishisation of the child over the parent’s
private life is perhaps not always the cause of unhappiness, but rather it may be some sort of escape from the
pressure to be happy, some flight from the demands of romantic connection. If
the child is overwhelmingly central to family life, in all of the much
discussed, anti-romantic ways, then you are delivered from the demands of true intimacy,
at least for a while; it’s a reprieve from the expectation of romantic
happiness, which can, of course, be exhausting.”
I think she’s got a point. There are lots of challenging
views on Roiphe’s book, and I use the word challenging too often here, which
makes her sound like a harridan, yet I think I would very much enjoy the
sharpness of her insight and wit, the way in which she picks words apart, the
ways in which social riskiness has become even more difficult and the ‘enlightened’
way to live casts an oppressive shadow over otherwise perfectly responsible
people. I found much in Roiphe’s essays humorous and perceptive, and I enjoyed
the way she forced me to reconsider some of the way in which I live ‘safely’
and consequently deny myself a more rich and varied existence. I think,
somehow, this was a book I really needed to read.
What Roiphe exposes across the body of her essays is how
much of people’s behaviour is driven by image presentation and cliché, that
true insight and honesty are rare. People play up to a role, and fear stepping
outside of it. Yet they reveal themselves through use of language, through
their ‘concerns’ and interactions. I loved the way Roiphe explains her
experience after she and her husband split up, from her essay ‘The Great Escape’:
“One does have to
wonder about the prurient hunger for unhappy detail. Is there an imperative for
certain married people to believe that anyone existing outside of the
institution of marriage must be suffering? Does the imperative, perhaps, have
something to do with their own discontents? (The happily married couples I know
are noticeably less invested in the idea that I am suffering some form of
collapse. Warwick Deeping, a novelist of the twenties, observed, ‘Those who
have made a success of marriage can be gentler to the failures.’) I have
noticed the couples most interested in the grand tour of my tragedy are often
in couples therapy. They are often in that phase where they hire a babysitter
once a week so that they can sit across from each other at a restaurant and
distract themselves from the vast distance, the dullness, that has risen up
between them with the bustle of menus and waiters. For whatever reason, it is
extremely important for these couples to believe that once you are outside of
marriage, you have fallen into the abyss. Furthermore, they are extremely
interested in watching you, limbs flailing, as you are falling. But what if
you, say, refuse to fall?
I begin to notice that
when I am a little bit happy, there is nearly always someone there to tell me
that I should be serious. That I should be focusing on my situation. That I
should be worrying about my child. There is nearly always someone to deftly
reel any subject I have ranged onto back to the question of whether my daughter
is okay. I am, of course, always ready to worry about whether she is okay. But
I wonder if it is truly in her best interest to embrace the philosophy of
perpetual worry people seem to be encouraging. Wouldn’t it be better to take
her to the zoo?”
I loved this book, I loved its piercing voice, it’s
unwillingness to be humble or uncertain, the way in which it shone a light on
things that people don’t want to talk about, ripping a hole through life’s
daily clichés. I didn’t agree with everything in there, but I don’t think
Roiphe cares too much about that. What she does care about is writing clearly,
perceptively and honestly. Her sentences are not baggy, they’re not weak. She
is brilliant, daring and unflinching. I think she is a person who not only
accepts criticism but takes it gracefully, and yet I think I’d be fearful of
criticising in case she turned that unflinching gaze on me. Somehow I think I’d
be the better for it, and the conversation would be amazing.
In Praise of Messy Lives receives a respectful 9 out of 10
Biis. A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Many thanks to Canongate books, Louise especially, for the excellent choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment