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April 22, 2003

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Hi everyone! I hope everyone finished the book. Sorry that I didn't post yesterday, but I was away for Easter and did not return until last night.

I thought I would start the discussion off a bit easy and ask how everyone liked the book in general. What did you think of the format? The "re-telling" of a famous fairy tale? What did you think of the ending? Overall impressions?

I have more directed questions, but I want to same them. Plus, I am spending all day today at Research Day at Drexel, so I will be away from the computer (boo! hiss!).

comments

I'll also start out easy by saying I enjoyed it. I didn't think I would be able to get into it when I first picked it up, but its easy-to-read prose was able to keep me entertained.

The most interesting thing for me was that the author chose to set the Cinderella story in Holland. I assume setting it in a real place during a real time was meant to set up the ending when Ruth explains how the story has been retold and changed. I never think of Holland as being much of a romantic place where a fairy tale could happen. However, it became a little more glamorous for me when I started to imagine the frozen river, windmills, and tulips.

The only surprise for me at the end was when the narrator was revealed. I expected it to be Iris and never considered Ruth as having any part in the story other than being a drooling idiot.

And that Clara? What a bitch.

I agree with everything you said and thank you for bringing up Clara being a bitch.

When you think of Cinderella in the "traditional" sense, you think of some poor, good hearted, girl, who had a crap hand dealt to her. In this book Clara is a bitch. I found myself happy when things turned worse for her. The girl was truly hard to like.

I thought that turning our perception of the character on its head was a great plot device in the book.

Fascinating book. Loved it. Not unalloyedly, though. :-)

I thought the 'switcheroo' ending was a little abrupt; I'd like to have had a few more clues re: Ruth's importance. I also felt let down that Iris wasn't the 'outer' narrator - we'd certainly grown sympathetic to her situation, and to have her relegated to a "and well, as for Iris, she etc. etc." Animal House-type footnote at the end was oddly deflating.

I felt a little bit of Invisible Monsters parallelism happening, too, in the "extreme beauty is an affliction" sense, as well as Ruth's surprise importance, and Iris' fear of becoming Margarethe, and the notion that true ugliness is interior rather than exterior. But only a little bit.

I should step into character a bit and rail against the obvious feminist "empowerment rhetoric" in the book, about how all the negative authority figures are impersonal, drooling men or women twisted by their interactions with men, and suchlike.

But I won't. ;-)

Seriously, though - fascinating book. I'm going to have to read more Maguire.

Is it just me, or did anyone else feel like they were reading a translation? I couldn't find a groove in the writing...the phrasing seemed so stilted and lurching. Maybe I was adversely affected by having to read a large-print edition. (No, I'm not THAT old...but everyone else at my library is....)

Like Mary, I didn't think I was going to get into it (and I'm not quite finished) but I was drawn in quickly...even though it is hard to like anybody.

And Rich....about your decision to pass on the feminist "empowerment rhetoric"....thank you very much. But I like your Invisible Monsters observation.

Interesting; I really liked the tone of the book. Overblown, somewhat stilted, very "Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a prince in a shining castle." It felt very appropriate to me, and quite in character.

Especially for what were supposed to be the years surrounding 1637, the year in which the tulip-futures bubble burst.

Rich probably decided not to get into anti-feminist mode because the author of this book is a man.

I, for one, actually want to know what Rich thinks about the book's feminism and "feminist 'empowerment rhetoric'" (all those quotation marks -- it must be evil!) Tell us what you think, and if we disagree, let's debate. I'm also interested to know on a larger level why Rich seems to imply that feminism is a bad thing, considering its goal is equality.

The book reads well but I found it difficult to approach at first. It's one of those novels that sort of throws you into the deep end of the pool, which is covered in leaves and algae and it's dark out and the pool light is burned out. I don't want to walk down the stairs of the shallow end like an old person wearing a bathing cap, but I need something to grab on to -- to know -- in order to find my way into the story. And I didn't feel like I had that for quite some time.

At first I almost pulled a Rich and bailed on the book because the concept sounds like cheating: I have no original ideas, so I'll just rewrite someone else's book. Sort of like that twit Will Self who just rewrote The Picture of Dorian Gray. It's Wilde; leave it alone. That said, I'm impressed by this story and its prose so far (not quite finished yet). It's imaginative and confident; it doesn't flow like that well, but I think that's part of the point. It's like a hyper-magnified, radioactive version of the original story.

By the way, bitchier portions of this post were brought to you by Mary's request that we be more contentious and less harmonious than we were last time. While I'm at it: What's with all the "I enjoyed it." "Loved it." comments? What is this, sixth grade? Let's have some real analysis and some real vocabulary, people. It as good blah blah blah. It was bad blah blah blah. Retch.

MaryDell: What? Of course there are feminist men. Misguided at best, self-deluding at weakest, self-flagellatory at worst.

Everyone: safety tip: this is what is known among the digerati as a "winking smiley":

;-)

...and it typically denotes sarcasm or kidding. The latter is what I meant in this case. Confessions is ultimately a harmless story that I quite enjoyed, and have no ideological problems with.

Andy's "larger level": OK, let's dance. :-)

(Please skip to the next comment if you're not interested in a non-Confessions-related antifeminist screed)...

My major beef with feminism has to do with its stated goals (equality for all, which which I have no problem in principle) versus its actual effects (which get pretty scary and downright malicious).

Stated goal: equality in the workplace. Actual effects: hiring quotas that reinforce the notion that women can't achieve parity on their own. Sexual harrassment laws that allow the destroying of mens' lives (conviction or no) for creating a "hostile work environment" by commenting on a woman's hairstyle or fashion choices. Outright falsehood on the part of NOW regarding 'unequal pay for equal work' when it's been illegal to pay two people differently for the same work for decades.

Stated goal: equality in the realm of marriage. Actual effects: a skyrocketing divorce rate, combined with an anti-male-biased judicial system that, for example, allows incarceration of a man in many cities on the mere charge of assault by his estranged/ex-wife, and zealously prosecutes "deadbeat dads" while ignoring "malfeasant moms."

Stated goal: equality in the social/reproductive realm. Actual effects: laws that allow women to hit up men for child support who did not father the child in question; a definition of rape that includes a woman changing her mind about consensual intercourse after the fact; a drive to hinder a man's legal ability to insist upon a paternity test when his own wife gives birth.

There's lots more fuel for the fire, but I figure that ought to keep Andy and myself busy for a while.

If you didn't notice, Andy, I qualified my "enjoyed it" remark by saying I was going to start out easy. Coming up with a meaty first comment is kind of difficult since the conversation hasn't gotten going yet. Besides, I'm the only one around here who's read every book (except part II of Don Quixote but that's Sarah's fault) and participated in every discussion, so I'm allowed to occasionally use lame phrasing like "I enjoyed it." And when I asked for more conflict, I really only meant against Rich since I enjoy watching him bail out his sinking ship with a sieve. So don�t go retching on me.

That being said, I agree with Andy�s point about this book being sort of a cheat. It�s like a literary version of a movie remake when the original film was just fine on its own. However, I enjoyed the way it took a fairy tale and turned it on its ear. The characters were portrayed like real people with real feelings and motives behind their actions, there wasn�t a fairy godmother, and the happily ever after didn�t happen.

Rich, you have got to be kidding. Do you have any idea how na�ve your "actual effects" arguments are? Then again, you are a man of European descent and have no idea what it�s like to be a minority or a woman (who, according to the 2000 census, earned only 73 cents for every dollar a man was paid).

I�m not going to argue with your misconceptions here (this is a book club, after all). Feel free, though, to move it over to your blog and take your chances with the comments you'll get over there.

Yikes! Well, I am totally ignorant when it comes to feminism. I know what it is about, but I must confess I have never ead any of the literature. I am actually starting to get into the topic, but I think the books I am choosing to read are not considered the seminal works and are really more about body image, than feminism.

That being said, I really didn't pick up a strong feminist vibe in this book. did I miss something? I got more of the usual, "beauty is only skin deep," "don't judge a book by it's cover" type sentiments from the story.

What did I miss?

Kid. Ding. About anything feminist in the book.

Geez, people.

Marydell: Andy started it. :-p

Oy, the "male of European descent" argument. I forgot, I'm the oppressor, and thus can't possibly understand the problems of the oppressed.

Get divorced some time, and read some of the legal decisions out there. It's dangerous to be male these days. Look around.

Anyway, back to the book. PLEASE.

I did start it, and I apologize for bringing things off-topic. But despite the fact that I know Rich and I generally approach issues and books from completely opposite perspectives, I am genuinely interested in his analysis. I didn't think Rich was kidding about the book but I'll take his word for it that he was. And as much as the "dangerous to be male" line gets me salivating, I won't go off topic to jump on that and tear it to shreds for the limp logic that it is.

Rich, you aren't an oppressor. You simply have no idea what it's like to be anything other than yourself. There's nothing wrong with that.

Andy is sitting at a computer right now with a gleem in his eye at forcing Rich into an anti-feminism rant and sending the thread off topic. Bastard.

Going back to the book, Mary Carmen brings up a major theme: beauty is only skin deep. Obviously, we're supposed to be sympathetic to the ugly stepsisters since they were forced into their situation by their mother. However, I take no stock in Clara�s ideas on beauty being an affliction. She makes herself ugly by turning herself into a housemaid and rubbing cinders on her face. All the hard work she does in the kitchen doesn�t change her one iota in the end because she remains externally beautiful but still ugly on the inside. Beauty may be an affliction, but I don�t have one iota of sympathy for her.

Thinking about beauty reminds me of a great line in The Secret History (which I�d love to be a monthly selection, but it�s over 500 pages long): "Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it."

OK, I'm breaking my comments up by topic. I talk a lot.

So: The book. (You can argue about feminism on your respective blogs.)

I disagree that it's a cheat to re-envision an existing story. This isn't like Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho; it's something that brings a new perspective on a story we think we know. That's as hard, in some ways, as creating something from scratch. You need to get the readers to buy that, say, the ugly stepsister isn't the villain, that Cinderella isn't perfect, when a lot of readers will be saying "Wait, that's not right, that's not how it goes." It's hard to get a story off the tracks that it's been running on for the past several hundred years.

And also: Sure, you have the story outline set out. But how different is that from most genre writing (the mystery will be solved, in some way shape or form, for example.) And when you consider all books are, arguably, variations on five stories (person vs. person, person vs. self, person vs. society, person vs. nature, person vs. god), how is that much different?

(Yes, I'm being contentious. But at least I'm being contentious on topic. So there.)

As for the book itself: I liked it. It was nice. (Happy, Andy?)

OK, more depth. I finished it in two days, and I didn't want to put it down after that first day. I didn't find the language stilted or difficult to read, Andy -- I thought it flowed. That one thing that did bug me, however, is that the whole damn thing is in present tense. Why? Whywhywhy? (For some reason, that would really bug me at the beginning of each chapter, and then I'd get over it. Then I'd start the next chapter, and it would bug me again. Grr.

Re: Clara being a bitch. "Go away. I'm sulking." Oh, ferchrissakes. Yes, Margarethe was a bitch/witch (and ultimately much worse), but get fucking over it. Grow a spine, girlchild. Eventually she did, but damn, it took long enough. (By the way, have any of you read Bartleby, by Melville? He does the same sort of passive resistance thing that's so damn maddening, and so difficult to fight against. Hmm.) But in the end, she did do the right thing., at least by Ruth. Why, when she'd been such a bitch before?

I was surprised by the narrator switch, but I went back to the intro and there were clue -- "Were I a painter..." "Words haven't been my particular strength..." That sort of thing.

And I liked that Ruth, in the end , got to have her say. "I was silent but not dull. I was slow but not vacant." She was ignored or abused for most of the story, but she ended up putting major events into action. To get all book-clubby on you, what do you think that means?

So I am still thinking about the idea of beauty in this book. The way I see it, Maguire discusses several different types of beauty: physical beauty and grace, the beuaty of art, the beauty of flowers blossoming, and the beauty of charity. I think he is trying to make a statement about the relative values of each. I am not so sure he does a good job with the beauty in art and flowers, but I am getting the feeling of quite a judgement call about physical beauty and charity.

I feel that he sees physical beauty as something that can be an affliction (I agree to an extent, but as Mary mentioned, Clara was still ugly on the inside), whereas charitable works act as a reedemer of sorts. Like having a charitable heart makes you more beautiful on the outside because your inner beauty comes through.

Maybe I am reading too much into this?

Re: Beauty as affliction.

I buy it. Yes, Clara was still ugly on the inside, but how much of that was because all her life people ignored her insides, because she was so beautiful? They wouldn't/couldn't see beyond the surface, so she gave up on having anything below the surface. I fddon't think she started out a bitch -- I think she was once a decent kid, and it got twisted. Maybe that's why she spared Ruth at the end.

Sarah, that echoes a lot of my thinking about Clara and how/why she became a bitch.

As for Ruth, I was very happy that Ruth was the one narrating this story. I thought it was a great surprise, and in a way, sort of validates her existence, or if not validates it, is a way of slapping the reader out of assumption/judgement mode. She was "slow but not dull" and "silent, but not vacant." I found it interesting how she describes the way she was treated. In a way she does portray herself as dull and vacant, but I think she does that as an honest description of how she was perceived and treated.

I can't help but think this is Maguire again beating us over the head with his "don't judge a book by it's cover" stick. In essence that may be the lesson or moral of the story, and many fairy tales seem to have some sort of lesson, I mean I know they are not fables, but their always seemed to be a deeper meaning to them.

ugh above change "their" to there. Typing slower than my brain is moving.

I think Clara did save Ruth in the end because she knew that Ruth was not stupid or unworthy. They did spend time with one another after Clara made her transformation into the maid. I would like to believe that Clara saw a person with emotions, intelligence, and feeling in Ruth. Maybe this was Clara's act of redemption.

Yeah, it's not exactly the subtlest of messages, but fairy tales aren't terribly subtle, eithere, are they? So I don't have a problem with that.

It makes sense to me that Clara was finally able to see beyond the surface with Ruth -- possibly she was the first one who figured out she could, in fact, talk -- and that did change her.

Speaking of change -- what's with all the Changeling stuff? Why is that there? Do you think Clara was aabused and repressed it all? Do you think it was just her way of retreating fromthe world, evading responsibility?

And Mary Carmen, before I forget -- thanks for choosing this book!

This isn't exactly a fairy tale, is it? Once you take out the magic, it turns into something else entirely. (At least, that's what I teach my students.)

Sarah brings up a good point with asking about the Changeling thread. Both Clara and Ruth are referred to as possibly being Changelings, and both of them are the only ones that do manage to change by the end of the book. Clara redeems herself by taking care of Ruth (who is like her polar opposite: as ugly on the outside as she is on the inside) while Ruth turns out to be a more important part of the story than originally thought.

Out of curiosity, did you mean Ruth is "as ugly on the outside as she, herself is on the inside"? Or "as ugly on the outside as Clara is on the inside"? Because, while Ruth turns out to be a bit vengeful, I think she's a basically good person. So I'd disagree, if that's what you're saying.

Ruth is Clara's opposite. Ruth is as ugly on the outside as Clara is on the inside.

Disagree now?

Sorry for jumping in a bit late, but just finished it last night. First off, yes, I did enjoy the book, but it took a long time to get into it. I think that was partly due to the beating over the head business that mary carmen referred to. I don't like it when authors think the reader is incapable of understanding subtlety. Also, to borrow andy's analogy, I didn't like being thrown into the deep end of the pool without any assurance that there was a shallow end at the end.

there are a couple of comments in previous posts that I am kinda thinking about. First, I'm not understanding where the feminism is. Maybe I've been out of activist circles for too long, but you know honestly, it was nice to see characters who were trying to cope with thier lives the best they could. And I am afraid I disagree with you Rich, the negative authority figures in this book are not men, they're all women. Both Margarethe and Hendrika are the foremost oppressors of their daughters lives. In fact the men in this book are rather benign, in fact, a little incompetent and doltish, with the exception of van stollt (is that the guy's name? don't have bok with me). Actually, I liked the fact that the nastiest people in the book were women. I prefer these women. They seem more like the women I know and have to deal with. Neither the angelic peace loving creatures that certain men and certain women wish us to be.

Which is a perfect segue into Clara. I don't think she's a bitch at all. I agree with sarah and mary carmen in thinking that even when she was at her brattiest, she wasn't really that bad of a kid. Just thorughly spoiled and needing a decent spanking, delivered by better parents than the ones she was stuck with.

On a rather abrupt note, gotta run and teach a class. see ya.

sorry for the double posting! I also regret the bad writing I had the audacity to inflict twice onto you. Ironically, I teach English writing and I am often reminded of how it is very much the blind leading the blind.

Mary -- Nope, I agree

Do-hee -- Ignore Rich's cooments about feminism in the book. He was being funny. He was making a joke based on the reputation he garnered as a feminist-basher when we read Poisonwood bible. It's just, since we're all so primed to jump down his throat, none of us got it at first. (Sorry Rich. And oh, YOU'RE WRONG!)

(That was another joke.)

(Mostly)

Anyway,I'm torn on Clara's bitchiness. She spent much of the book acting like she was the center of the universe, but I don't think she was born that way. I think she was a normal. curious, willful kid, who got twisted by 1)being trapped in the house and 2) everybody being so captivated by the surface that it never even occured to them that there could be anything else. Granted, I wanted to shake her with the "Go away, I'm sulking" line, but the problem was, no one ever had shaken her before.

Now here's where my Quaker schooling comes out: I thought it was interesting that she chose to rebel by withdrawing -- by retreating to the cinders and refusing to be displayed -- rather than by turning all diva and demanding a personal assistant. In a lot of ways, the retreat is more frustrating. It's passive resistance, it's a sit-in, it's allowing yourself to be arrested instead of fighting back. And hell, you want someone to fight you -- that way it's not all your fault. She made it Margarethe's fault Which, in the end, we discover it was.

That passivity, that withdrawal, finally came to an end in a minor way when Iris made it clear that Clara couldn't coast on it being someone else's fault for the rest of her life. It ended in a major way when Clara discovered she had the means to save Ruth and Iris. So she did fianlly step up, and youhave to respect her for that.

Took her long enough, though.

Actually, I just had a thought (scary, I know): Ruth isn't all sweetness and light on the inside. She does dose Margarethe's eyes with pepper, and she does set Clara's picture alight. She admits that it was, at least partially, out of spite. I'd say she's probably the most decent person in the book, but she's hardly a saint.

Thank you, Sarah, for having 'got it.' Oy. Sorry to have derailed things so thoroughly.

Rich, everyone got it. We just like getting you into a tizzy. It's not as fun when you aren't foaming at the mouth about something.

Woah. Is it me or does it seem like the comment box is broken?

Is it fixed?

Maybe it's fixed now.

Awww geee Rich, I was hoping to start a good ole fight! This is what happens when you jump in late I guess. I've learnt my lesson. I will finish my reading on time.

On a completely different topic however, I am still puzzled over Jack Fisher's place or lack there of in the book. To me, this bit seemed a rather distracting, like it was tacked on or something. Except for these scary memories of their flight, there are no acutal memories of their father, no comparisons of him to Papa Cornelius nor even the Master. Either I'm making a mountain out a of a molehill or I'm completely missing something again. Ideas?

I think that bit was in there as a way of explaining why Margarethe is the way she is. Later, there was also some confusion over whether or not they were actually run out of town because of him. I can't remember if the book actually tells us, but I think they had to leave England because of her. Margarethe used Jack as a place to lay the blame for her problems.

I read this book a couple years ago and ADORED it much more than his other book "Wicked". So glad that other's have found this book as entertaining as I did!

We had to read this book for my book group. It confused me a little with all the different characters. Clara made me mad a lot of the time, and so did Margarethe! She called her children ugly right to their faces! I especially felt bad for Ruth. I liked Caspar a lot too.

yeah, the 2nd person drove me crazy too!