Review: The Custom of the Country

"It's business, nothing personal."

Recently I read the wondrous book The Custom of The Country by Edith Wharton. It was my first taste of Wharton and it was  like eating a good sandwich. And I don’t use that analogy in any sort of demeaning way, I use it because I honestly love sandwiches. Edith Wharton was my delicious sandwich. Just the right mixture of crunchy greens, not too much sauce and bread that adds flavour. It’s the type of creation you wish would never end.

The meat in my proverbial sandwich is the ever adaptable Undine Spragg. How I love her! Do I like her though? No, not really.  She’s not maternal. She’s incredibly vain. She is selfish. However the cherry on the cake is the fact that she is all of these things but absolutely unashamed of herself! How dare she?!

She is who she is and whether or not you agree with her motives and actions, that’s something you have to respect. Often heroines are endowed with flaws, but their “saving grace” is the fact that they become aware of them and at least try to change. Not Undine. I mean with a name like that why would you ever want to change? Okay, so that's not entirely true. Throughout the course of the novel Undine does undergo change, but it is the kind of change and the motivation behind it that makes her so fascinating. Undine changes not for others but to further herself. If it happens to be in someone else's best interest too, then that is mere coincidence. She is so brilliantly imagined and drawn by Wharton that it is such a pleasure to see Undine's mind at work and her amazing ability to adapt .

What I really like about this book is the fact that there seems to be no moral judgment laid upon this character by the author. She is of no less value because she does not fit into the mold of "traditional womanhood"*. What we are introduced to is a woman who is incredibly adroit at her chosen field of interest, which itself has been shaped by her gender and class. I couldn’t help but think what a brilliant, feared business woman she could’ve been, but that’s what Wharton does. She takes the domestic and reveals it to be the business arena that it is for so many people.  

We’ve seen it with Jane Austen’s heroines, who like Undine are very flawed, but altogether likable. They have their value too. In representing normal, well-meaning individuals negotiating one of the most important contracts of their lives. However, Undine Spragg is at another level altogether. She is a masterful negotiator and tactician. She makes me think of a more sophisticated Lucy Steele. I can only imagine what Austen would've thought of this heroine had she had the pleasure of reading this novel. 

Last week I had the pleasure of being introduced to Blanche DuBois, also a very flawed but incredibly fascinating character. Someone who you may not like on a very deep level, but who, at the same time, you can't stop watching. It is these characters not just the "good" ones who I believe are so important in representing woman at all levels of class, likability and intelligence. All of which are deserving of respect. Undine Spragg is a  favourite of mine now, precisely because she is  full of flaws and doesn't give a fuck about it.

*I myself do not even know what this is!

The Good Guide to Remaining Single

So, today I am putting up a story that I have been working on. I started with it when I was still in South Africa. When I had a look at it here I felt it worth pursuing further. The idea is to put it up as installments every week. At the moment I only have a completed Part I and a partially completed Part II. So, like the rest of you I don't know what's going to happen next or how the story is going to end! I hope it's happy though. I've decided on doing it this way because I think it will be good practice for me. I am terrible at completing any piece of writing if I don't have a deadline and some sort of authoritative figure to uphold it and to disturb my sleep with guilt for missing those deadlines!

The Good Guide to Remaining Single

Part I

Before tomorrow came Sue had to figure out a few things. 

 1)      What would she wear to her date?

 2)      How would she do her hair?

 3)    Should she arrive before or after him? Did she want to see him first or did she want to be seen first?

She was slightly flustered. Even though she was 27 she had never been on a date before. Yes, she had gone out with guys, but it was never labelled as such. It was just hanging out; but going on a dating site you could not escape the term. It was a rite of passage in a sense.  When dating really wasn’t just for fun, it was about survival. It was one of her least favourite things about growing up. Reaching the age where the want of a companion seemed to be really pressing.

It was known that she did not need a man in her life. It wasn’t a death sentence. But what she had come to realise was that there was a part of her that longed to be with someone. A deeper yearning for a someone.  The shock of that fact was that she could never have imagined that such a part existed in her.  This was a dilemma, because it was something she knew she wanted, but something over which she had very little power, or none whatsoever. The truth is that she had signed up for the site, because it was really the only thing she could think of doing at this point.

Now here she was preparing for her first date. Mentally preparing, that is. How did she want to appear to him? Light hearted, carefree, fun? Yes! Light hearted, carefree and fun. She was all those things; sometimes.  However, if she were to examine the underlying emotions, the desire to appear carefree, she would see that it was in fact just a desire, just an appearance, at least in this specific instance.

Anyone who had been ditched two years ago, and had no real romantic attachments to speak of in the meantime, would really be anything but carefree. In fact she carried a big load of care into the whole affair. Even in the emails they exchanged she secreted  a long-standing hope. She could not detect the odour herself.  The whiff of hope and development she recognised in their interaction with one another was merely the breeze blowing her own smell back into her face.  It was what kept her going. It was what made her email him first and eventually ask him to meet her. He had said yes! So, why should it matter who asked who? In the long run such details really are insignificant.

Filled with what she thought was good humour throughout their two week correspondence, she reckoned she was in a good space to go through with this dating stuff, after all. A nervous desperation pressed heavily on her, though. The recipient of all of this undeserved thought and attention was, well, unexceptional.  More so because there wasn’t enough known about the poor soul. He was exceptional because he was the first and because he had responded to her nicely, and that made her feel nice. What she actually liked most about this guy was his very beautiful eyes. And he did indeed have beautiful, big, expressive eyes. On that point she was not mistaken, the photos did not lie. The thing is, beautiful eyes aren’t always the most accurate marker of compatibility. Rather it displays that if one had to choose which eyes to stare into longingly, those would be at the very top of the list.

This entity was quite unaware of the gradual elevation of approval he had gained with her. For him, there was nothing unattractive enough to put him off. She was not his first choice, or a choice, at all. He responded to her email because it did not put him out when he had received it and she seemed nice.  He found that as in life, this virtual dating was heavily stacked against men. So few women to choose from!  Almost always having to do the approaching, at least this one saved him that effort. Although he would have preferred seeing the Indian girl again, who suddenly had to uproot, for a scholarship she had gotten. He was bitterly disappointed. Especially since, before that, the two month thing with the Chinese girl had just really been about sex, and even though the sex was good, he wanted more.  Not more sex, just more.  This new girl did not inspire any excitement, but there was something there that he could not quite define, and it wasn’t at all bad.

The day arrived and Sue found her imagination had adequately supplied knowledge about him, knowledge that no human being had ever been supplied with in a few emails, sent over the space of two weeks.  Although she knew that she could not properly know these things, she was assured that it was just a matter of time before she should know them. Even if they did deviate slightly, or perhaps not so slightly, she believed that on the bigger, more important points her opinions of his opinions would prove true. But really, she had to admit, that she did not know at all, did she? It was just the impression she’d gotten.  Believing herself to be quite objective now, having considered her limitations, she also had to admit that trusting her instincts was overall a good thing.

The universe had made the decision that she should not arrive first, since her train was late. What a relief! One less thing to worry about! She walked to the restaurant, but she found she could not walk fast enough. She was soon to be introduced to the moment that two years of long awaited singleness had come down to. After having almost walked into the glass doors, she shrugged her shoulders, laughed to herself and imagined that he had seen her. That would not be a bad start, it could be endearing, it certainly was a scene worthy of a romantic comedy.

Sue made her way to him and introductions followed.

“I almost walked into the door,” she mused.

“Huh?” he said.

So, he clearly had not seen her, not a trainsmash, “As I was coming in, I almost walked into the doors over there,” she laughed.

“Oh,” he said unenthusiastically.

Okay, so the first point of conversation did not go as well as she was hoping. He was not at all amused or interested it seemed. She would not allow herself to be deterred. This was after all not a dealbreaker. He was to inform her that he was slightly hungover from the night before and tired because he had only gotten to bed at five in the morning. This could have deterred her.  If she were cynical she may imagine that his lack of concern for his constitution on meeting her might have discouraged him from partying all night. She instead thought it was a good thing, because it seemed to prove that he had a healthy and active social life and she had read that one should be wary of individuals who had few friends. Friends he certainly had, five in the morning friends, but what was the difference? 

His first impressions of her were satisfactory. She was pretty, talkative and smiled a lot. When he had woken up earlier that afternoon he was actually dreading this meeting, simply because of the effort he knew a first date deserved. The effort to appear interesting and, more difficult, interested. But as he was sitting across from her as she bubbled away, he realised that a hangover need not be a big problem. It suddenly came to him what it was about her in the emails, he felt comfortable around her. Like one often did in stretched out, fart laden pajama pants. So comfortable that he knew that even though this was a first date he readily shared his past disappointments about the Indian and Chinese girl. She even suggested that he still had the opportunity of rekindling that relationship. Ah! He hadn’t thought of that. This date was turning out to be very enjoyable for him. Not much effort required!

Sue was not encouraged by how comfortable he obviously felt with sharing his past romantic disappointments with her. Even she had to admit this wasn’t a good sign, but somehow she found herself doing the same. The ex that had contacted her earlier this year, the woman who she had been briefly involved with. He really liked that last bit and sympathised that the relationship had not worked out. “It sounds like it could’ve been lovely.” Lovely in part mostly because it was lovely to imagine this pretty girl, with another pretty girl – lovely indeed! Why she told him these things, when she was quite averse to him doing the same, was unclear to her. Really it was just the basic human instinct to compete. She had to show him, that at some point, someone had found her desirable.  Perhaps this would make him find her so too.

Other than this the date seemed to be going well. He even mentioned as much, which in turn encouraged her, where she had been discouraged with his earlier choice of conversation. Even more promising was that on leaving the restaurant she mentioned that she would not need to be accompanied to the train station as she would prefer to take a walk on the beach.  He seemed more than glad to join her and it was his suggestion not hers.  Wow! This was shaping up! Little did she know that it was from a lack of any other pressing engagements that he deemed a spontaneous walk on the beach quite nice, rather than on account of the company that he was sharing.

As their time together progressed and she got to spend more time looking into his eyes, she was convinced that any doubts she may have had earlier where unfounded. This was a good date. He could have gone home, but instead decided to go for a walk with her. What was even more encouraging was him accepting an invitation to her place for tea. He must know that was more than just an invitation. She found that she liked him very much now, even though she had never previously liked anyone with his looks, manners and conversation before. The thought of being liked made her like him more than she honestly could.

For him, he wasn’t completely oblivious that in similar circumstances his behaviour towards her would have appeared as showing interest. But he also did not believe that she had misinterpreted his comfortableness with her. It was clear that if he was interested he would never have mentioned the Indian and the Chinese, he had a sense of decency after all. She was a nice fun friend, nothing more. He dismissed the growing sensation he was feeling, of what, he wasn’t sure.  He was very glad that she was enjoying his company he could clearly see that she was. He was flattered that he handled the situation well.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Last night Erik and I excitedly made our way to watch A Streetcar Named Desire. I was especially keen because Gillian Anderson plays Blanche DuBois and growing up I was a huge fan of the X-files. Scully and Mulder are still one of the best tv romances and I should know; I was raised by tv! In an attempt to be profound I turned to Erik as we were sitting in our seats to let him know that at this very moment Gillian Anderson was preparing herself for the stage. Please do keep in mind that I often mistake profound for ridiculous. To myself I wondered about her "process". Was she nervous? Did she have any rituals? Stuff like that. I thought about how as a teenager I had watched her week after week, on a Friday night, because I loved the show and I wasn't a very popular teenager. For some reason I was turning this into a reunion of sorts. I would be reunited with one of my childhood icons and she in turn would be introduced to a crazy lady from South Africa.

Upon perusing the program we were to discover that this was in fact not a live performance. It was but it was a live broadcast of the performance all the way from England. Our hearts dropped. Really? Instead of seeing Scully in the flesh I would be seeing her onscreen, again. My monologue earlier seemed wholly unnecessary now. It then made sense why the tickets seemed so cheap and why there was nothing on the stage. The latter I didn't even notice, Erik had to point it out to me. But we were there and what else could we do but watch it.

Another reason why I had so been looking forward to watching the play was because I had seen rave reviews about it. I also enjoyed Anderson's performance in Bleak House and was excited to see her in something else. Of course, if I had the choice, I would have preferred to see the show live, but that's the only complaint. It was brilliant and Anderson was enthralling as Blanche. If you have the opportunity, watch it! It was moving, scary and disturbing in the best way, which for me  is having a story that feels so real that it gets under your skin and makes you feel uncomfortable.