2015: The Year of Reading Women discussion
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Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
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Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
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Bloodorange
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Sep 20, 2015 07:13AM
In this thread we will discuss Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson starting with September 22.
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I confess... I started reading it today!
Forcing ourselves to read to schedule can just feel so counter-intuitive sometimes.... I love having a group of folks to chat with about my-currently-reading book, but sometimes the trade off with the lack of spontaneity is difficult!
Tell me about it! Last week I had to return an unfinished novel to the library - I took on so many group reads I had no time left for my "unscheduled" reading...
I'm at 27%, and I'm beginning to have quite strong feelings about this book; I'll write later when I have a comfortable internet connection and can post excerpts. In a nutshell, it screams suffering to me, and trauma, and self-justification, and settling accounts with her mother, very publicly, when the mother is dead (or so I assume).
I definitely preferred Oranges
(Quotations are hidden under spoiler tags.)Starting with what I liked most so far: I know preciously little about what life was like for people in this part of England, in this class and these times, so I really appreciated the opportunity to read the 'documentary' bits: what she wrote about language of the people around her, and how it changed; about their customs and poverty.(view spoiler)
What I dislike strongly about the book may be connected with the fact that I'm very much into Buddhism/ mindfulness recently (because, erm, reasons), and thus Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? reeks, to me, of intense pain and equally intense unforgiveness. (view spoiler)
OK. I understand this was child abuse. Yet for some reason - maybe because Winterson managed to educate herself and become a successful writer, maybe there's some hole in my logic here, I don't know - but I don't think it is fair or reasonable for anyone to air their pain when the person who wronged them is dead, and cannot respond in any way...? (Unless you are, say, Natascha Kampusch).
Umm. Is this called 'misery literature'?(view spoiler)
For me, the person who comes across as pretty awful is the author herself - the fact that she published what she wrote seems mean and little. But I've never been 56, and married to Susie Orbach. Who knows how I would have felt about my mother if I were nearing sixty and married to a psychotherapist/ psychoanalyst. Right now, I see the book as replete with pop psychology:(view spoiler)
Winterson is dramatic, and uses catchy phrases and somewhat manipulative rhetoric (short, incomplete sentences? parallelism? fabricated innocence?): (view spoiler) And in case we didn't get how much Winterson's mother destroyed her as a person, here comes a quotation from Lillian - her father's new wife: (view spoiler)
But the worst moment for me was when this book turned into a self-justification letter. I have a feeling it was directed to someone in particular - a former lover? and this was about as cute way of delivering your message as writing a book about your dead mother. Look here: (view spoiler)
So - a lot of furious highlighting, this time.
Bloodorange wrote: "...For me, the person who comes across as pretty awful is the author herself - the fact that she published what she wrote seems mean and little....."Bloodorange -- your reaction reminds me of mine to Ferrante's Troubling Love. I returned it without finishing it. But I have been learning recently about women who help troubled women to write -- and I am coming to realize -- perhaps -- how powerful the process can be -- both to them and to at least some of others who read their work -- that the "art" produced can be healing. Yet, some of us perhaps are more comfortable with other paths to mercy -- both to self and to others. When to choose burial rites versus tearing an infected scab from a wound to expose it to the air for healing?
Bloodorange wrote: "I'm at 27%, and I'm beginning to have quite strong feelings about this book.... In a nutshell, it screams suffering to me, and trauma, and self-justification, and settling accounts with her mother, very publicly, when the mother is dead (or so I assume)."Oh dear! I feel so sorry that you're having such negative reactions - because I'm loving it.
I was nervous about whether it could possibly live up to Oranges, assuming that without the fantasy elements it would have to be more prosaic. But here I'm finding her life intertwined with history, and geography, and musings on the importance of myth; and I was just so delighted to recognize the same voice!
As far as settling accounts with her mother, wouldn't Oranges have done that already, at 25, when her mother was alive? These are the reflections of a past-middle-age woman, when all the folks with an interest are likely dead. And it is still dedicated to her mother, in spite of everything. I see this as a woman mostly writing about herself and those forces that shaped her.
I love her short sentences, her "collected scraps."
Funny, I saw that last quote as an apology rather than self-justification.
I'm so sad to hear you aren't getting as much pleasure out of this as I am!
I feel some with you Alexa, it's a pleasure to recognise her lovely voice every time I open the book, and I feel that it is about herself, not a diatribe against Mrs WI share a little bit of your frustration though Bloodorange, because elements of this made me think "I understand that writing this was your way of working through it... but I'm not sure I wanted to read it"
I feel compassion towards her, not antipathy, but she doesn't feel like a friend I'd want to have?
But, why should she? What I value most of all in literature is its power to make empathy larger, to broaden and nuance my ethics...
Lily wrote: "..I have been learning recently about women who help troubled women to write -- and I am coming to realize -- perhaps -- how powerful the process can be -- both to them and to at least some of others who read their work -- that the "art" produced can be healing. Yet, some of us perhaps are more comfortable with other paths to mercy -- both to self and to others. When to choose burial rites versus tearing an infected scab from a wound to expose it to the air for healing?"Zanna wrote: "I share a little bit of your frustration though Bloodorange, because elements of this made me think "I understand that writing this was your way of working through it... but I'm not sure I wanted to read it"
To me, the problem was ethical - while I understand therapeutical writing, I'm not sure I fully understand this coming from a professional writer, and someone who - from what I know - did not have much difficulty converting her own relations with people into literature. Also, while I understand she might have felt the urge to write, she did not necessarily have to publish. She did have the right to do it, of course, and she used it. But this book is making me feel uncomfortable; I don't think this sentiment was universally shared by the readers when it came out - apparently, the response was quite positive...?
Alexa wrote: "I was nervous about whether it could possibly live up to Oranges, assuming that without the fantasy elements it would have to be more prosaic. But here I'm finding her life intertwined with history, and geography, and musings on the importance of myth; and I was just so delighted to recognize the same voice!"Zanna wrote: "I feel some with you Alexa, it's a pleasure to recognise her lovely voice every time I open the book, and I feel that it is about herself, not a diatribe against Mrs W"
I love the writing and the voice, though, she represents people, situations, places in a very vivid manner... The book IS esthetically pleasing. I'm not going to quesiton that:)
(I got to chapters 9 & 10, and I like it better here.)
I must admit chapter 12 is ***splendid*** !
The book IS esthetically pleasing. I'm not going to quesiton that:) ..."So your problem is not with the writing. I was going to ask if it was the writing that bothered you. I don't know Winterson but I'm curious and will likely try her. I'm puzzled by the talk about ethics. Is the unsparing portrait of the mother what makes this book of questionable ethical value? (Charlotte Bronte's portraits of Brocklehurst and Mrs. Reed are pretty unsparing.) Or because it is her mother who is dead? Someone who's suffered abuse has also been silenced because they know they would suffer worse abuse if they spoke out. Free that particular prison, and maybe it would take that person's death to free them, they express their thoughts and feelings about the abuser and we could say that this is part of a process of detaching from that abuse and being a victim by looking at what happened from more of a distance. If they write about this artfully (another sort of detachment) yet in a way that feels real and believable rather than sentimental and dripping with self-regard, my hat's off to them.
Kallie wrote: "The book IS esthetically pleasing. I'm not going to quesiton that:) ..."So your problem is not with the writing. I was going to ask if it was the writing that bothered you. I don't know Winterso..."
Kallie, thanks for encouraging me to systematise my thoughts on why I feel bad - at least partly so - about this book. For those of you who are not interested in reading it again in more detail - the main part of the post is hidden under spoiler tags.
I would like to make two disclaimers first, though:
Firstly, I like Winterson's voice and her writing style. There was a period in my life when I was in love with her fiction, and I still love her essays. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is really well written, with moments that are downright beautiful.
Secondly, I know my opinions may be considered old-fashioned or irrelevant; from what I know, the book met with a positive response. And I'm OK with being in the minority.
(view spoiler)
Having said that, I will keep reading until the end - it reads well, and I want to find some more splendidly written moments.
Goodness! I just finished this - I had no idea that we were going to be heading into that territory! Having finished it, I just want to go back and read Oranges all over again and then this too, back-to-back. First let's look at how the mother-child relationship shapes us through the lens of fantasy, and then thirty years later through the lens of psychology. Wow!
The later part of the book really surprised me
Yes. It turned from misery literature to literature of detection; she turned her anger from her adoptive mother (at least temporarily) to adoption authorities (more productive). Chapter 15 (The Wound) contained one of the most beautiful quotations on suffering I know. In the end, much to my surprise, this book affected me much more than Oranges. Thank you for bearing with me and my ranting! :))
Yeah I'd go so far as to say my opinion changed when I reached the part after her father died
I loved the bit about how she may have been a monster, but she's MY monster. We're all allowed to criticize our own mothers, but god forbid if anyone else does!
Yes, that was memorable..
To call her relationship with her mother ambivalent is an outrageous understatement, yet I don't know a better word! On the one hand, she clearly blames her mother for her own inadequacies in loving/being loved. Yet there is clearly a sort of love there, and in her journey towards being a more easily-able-to-love person, she needs and wants to recognize (and celebrate?) the love that was there between them - yet she won't allow herself to sugarcoat anything.
As you would expect she has a lot of very strong emotions about her mother. She obviously felt sorry for her, but maybe she resisted that because she felt manipulated into having that emotion. She recognises Mrs Winterson's need as a bottomless pit and she protects herself from falling it...
Yes. I feel the author began to understand her mother better as she began to understand herself. It kind of showcased the whole nature versus nurture argument. The author begrudgingly began to realize her own inner strength and resilience was because she was forced to forge those qualities in her childhood. She became very protective of herself because she had to but at the same time she realized that same protectiveness of self was holding her back from developing real lasting deep romantic relationships. You give up a little bit of control of yourself when you fall in love. This was probably why she felt standoffish with her birth mother. She just wasn't emotionally used to that kind of familial relationship. It will take time for her to open her heart.
Well said, Sandra!To mention sth else: I was surprised when she wrote, considring her potential life, had she stayed with her birth mother, that she would have been uneducated. A strange thing to say, considering she was a "working class experiment" at Oxford, unless she meant she would have felt no need to escape in reading first, then education.
2015: The Year of Reading Women
Books mentioned in this topic
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (other topics)Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (other topics)
Troubling Love (other topics)
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (other topics)
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Viktor E. Frankl (other topics)Susie Orbach (other topics)
Natascha Kampusch (other topics)
Jeanette Winterson (other topics)
