Carmen Maria Machado’s In Her Body and Other Parties was a difficult book to get through. I’d say half of my poor experience with this book was caused by my lack of attention when I plucked it from a library shelf. I simply just liked the cover. The other half of my poor experience was a result of Machado’s unfocused and superfluous writing.
Summary/Analysis:
Oh boy . . . well, I finished this book and I immediately realized that I could not regurgitate any kind of concise summary. I read the final page, set it down on my bed, and said, "I have no clue what I just read."
Below are my rough summaries for each short story that is included in Machado’s compilation (so then you don't have the same detached confusion that I had when I finished this book):
"The Husband Stitch" – A woman wears a ribbon around her neck and her husband doesn’t know why. She has a very mundane life with interludes of explicit sexual experiences.
"Inventory" – Short, vignette narratives of a woman’s 'body count,' at the forefront of a curious pandemic.
"Mothers" – A woman is in an abusive relationship with her wife; they magically conceive a child.
"Especially Heinous" – A retelling of Law & Order: SVU with supernatural themes.
"Real Women Have Bodies" – Two women fall in love while the women around them turn transparent.
"Eight Bites" – A woman gets gastric bypass surgery and thereafter must only take eight bites of each meal.
"The Resident" – The protagonist revisits her Girl Scout stomping grounds while attending an artist residency; she discovers a lost part of herself.
"Difficult at Parties" – A woman doesn’t like social situations and is semi-addicted to pornography. (I’ll be honest, I kind of checked out by this point in the book.)
All these stories were ‘on par’ as far as Machado’s goal of describing the queer, female experience. In those terms, Machado gets an A++ in my book. However, my issue with the book arises when, at times, Machado’s writing feels SO avant-garde that it comes across as condescending (i.e. ‘Lookie here . . . I’m a better writer than you are’).
For example, on page 47, our nameless protagonist in “Mothers” says, “Her mouth is an endless cavern, into which light and thought and sound descend, never to return,” when describing her child. I get the metaphor. I understand what Machado is describing; however, it is simply too much. Considering that a few pages later (page 53), Machado gives us this gem: “On the dresser rolls a light bulb that, if held close to the ear and agitated, would reveal the broken filament rattling in the glass.” Again, I get the metaphor. But what is the point of describing the lightbulb in this way? Why is Machado continuously taking us to microscopic levels in this story (arguably, where description is necessary) while the overarching theme/plot/pace is SO inflated that it is nearly impossible to reach a concise ending by the end of the narrative?
I found each story toed a strange line where the protagonists were incredibly introspective, and yet, completely co-dependent. I found this aspect the most interesting part of Machado's storytelling. However, though this dichotomy was unique, it didn't make up for the fact that Machado's characters were dull and flat.
A minor gripe of mine occurs on page 53 when the protagonist states, “A nightstand that, when opened, reveals—shut that, please. In the bathroom, a mirror flecked with mascara from when Bad leans in close, the amoeba of her breath growing and shrinking.” This example not only shows the avant-garde-ness that I had an issue with, overall, but it also creates a 'fourth-wall-breaking' moment that was strange and unnecessary. I don’t think our narrator can just nod at the camera (like Jim from The Office), and say ‘don’t open that nightstand,’ without some necessary explanation. Why does our narrator care about the nightstand? Why should we care? In the end, readers never get that explanation.
I felt that "Especially Heinous" was simply a fan-fic that got hyped up as literary fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I like reading weird stuff (especially fan-fics), but sixty pages of an SVU fan-fic was not a vibe. It was definitely weird, which fit well with the rest of the collection. But the entire story was constructed as episode descriptions, with only flimsy consistent plot threads for readers to follow. Below is an excerpt from page sixty-seven, which briefly shows how this story was structured:
“DISROBED”: A disoriented, naked, pregnant woman is discovered wandering around Midtown. She is arrested for indecent exposure.
“LIMITATIONS”: Stabler discovers that even New York City ends.”
And the story continues like this for SIXTY PAGES. I was flabbergasted that an editor thought it was a good idea to include all sixty pages. I could have dealt with a few pages of an SVU fan-fic, but surely not sixty. Right? Am I wrong? Oh well. I digress.
So, I’ve criticized this book enough, so I will end my review here (though I could continue). I believe that Machado is a skilled writer, and perhaps I just wasn’t the right person to read this story. Still, I don’t think I will be recommending this to my friends.
My StoryGraph Rating: 3.0 (Machado's writing--though exaggerated--saved this rating from being a dismal 2.0.)
Comentarios