Some catastrophes have their own architecture

I'm fed up with sincerity. All I want is to be a complete asshole. To be negative about everything. To hate people. To feel contempt for them. To pretend they're to blame for all my problems. I'm reminded of something I heard at a meeting: "A relapse is something you construct." Some catastrophes have their own architecture.

Dear Dickhead, by Virginie Despentes, is a catastrophe: poor characterization and muddled philosophizing make for a boring novel that brings nothing new to #MeToo feminism. Also, everyone is a complete asshole.

An established, middle-aged author (Oscar), who is also a recovering alcoholic and party guy, is accused of past sexual transgressions by his young publicist (Zoe), who as a result of his behaviour felt compelled to leave her career in publishing and is now a social media influencer. For some obscure reason he takes up a correspondence with a childhood acquaintance, his older sister's best friend (Rebecca), who grew up to be a famous, drop-dead-gorgeous film star now facing ageism (but it doesn't really help that she's a junkie and a selfish bitch). 

As an epistolary novel, it's a complete failure. Featuring email exchanges between Oscar and Rebecca, and then missives (blog posts?) from Zoe, their voices are indistinguishable — they all embody a similar kind of anger, victimhood, entitlement, righteousness, moral ambiguity. A good character doesn't have to likeable; I appreciate a provocative stance, but they should show some distinct personality if they hope to leave a mark.  

Rebecca is rightfully skeptical of Oscar's past behaviour and current motivations.

I don't believe that every victim's word is sacrosanct. Obviously, women sometimes lie. Either because they have no principles or because they think it's fair game. But the number of pathological liars among victims is infinitesimal, whereas the percentage of rapists among the male population speaks volumes about the state of male heterosexuality. Yet I suspect you're far more shocked by the possibility of an unfounded accusation than you are by the fact that some of your friends are rapists. On this basis — how can I put this delicately? — even with a supersize dose of compassion, it's hard to feel sorry for you.

While there is a resolution of sorts of the main plot point, there is not much character growth to speak of, beyond Oscar's and Rebecca's progress in beating addiction, and an inkling of an awareness that the world is bigger than themselves — they still have a very long way to go. 

Heroin is to crack what great literature is to Twitter — a whole different story. I say that because it sounds good. Deep down, real junkies take drugs because they know they're worthless. Whether you're shooting dope or smoking crack, what you're really doing is reminding yourself that you're shit. When you become a junkie, you're saying to the world, you really think you're saying to the world, you really think you're better than me? You're deluded. Shooting up and fucking up is our way of telling other people how much we despise them. Their pathetic efforts to stand on their own two feet. I'd rather die than do yoga.

I don't understand the praise for this book. There are cuss words and sex and drugs — does this pass as transgressive? It bored me. I often couldn't tell who was speaking, to ascertain whose past (or gender, or profession) was formative in shaping the arguments put forth. Their logic was convoluted. Clearly Despentes has (more) things to say about sexism and feminism and #MeToo and ageism and the effects of Covid isolation and refugees in France, but these epistolary explosions don't merit the label of "novel" — a book of incendiary essays would've had bigger impact.

My generation of women are famous for our ability to put up with shit. We were told, "No feminism, it turns men off," and we said, "Don't worry, Daddy, I won't bother anyone with my little problems." But all around me, I saw women being broken. That it all happened in a dignified silence didn't help anyone.

Excerpt.

Trying to balance it all

What are you looking for? she had asked me.

I think about it. A place for these dreams that I don't know what to do with?

This weekend I read an entire novel in my phone, not something I thought I would ever do. But I got an alert from the library that my loan was expiring soon, and I’d completely forgotten that I'd waited for it and checked it out, but clearly I hadn’t bothered to download it to my reader, and I figured that by the time I went through the tedious process of connecting and deauthorizing and reauthorizing and turning around three times while reciting backwards the final chapter of something I had not yet read, it would’ve expired, so maybe I’d just glance through it on my laptop. The laptop, being lightweight and portable as it is, is actually well suited to reading in my swing chair, but I could not find a setting to enable full screen, so there was the browser window bookmarking various things that need my attention and displaying the time, which was an obstacle to satisfactory immersion, so at some point after the first cocktail while the evenings chops were still marinating I switched to reading on my phone.

I have in fact been deeply engrossed in reading another novel over the last couple of weeks, States of Emergency, by Chris Knapp. I think I love this novel, but I am deeply frustrated by its being (as a review copy) in pdf format and therefore a strain on my eyes, as well as a strain on my brain as I’m unable to highlight passages, and am mystified by the perplexing muddle of prepositions and articles, as if they had all been removed and half of them randomly reinserted as part of some diabolical copyediting test. And it has me reliving 2015 and 2016 and reconsidering my own past and current states of emergency, though they are very different from the narrator's. 

So I took a break to read What You Are Looking for Is in the Library, by Michiko Aoyama. And it was just what I needed— entirely undemanding and kinda sweet (verging on saccharine). It’s the naive career advice I needed to hear, less goal-driven than my sister would urge, slightly more practical than my manager’s suggestion to lie flat. (“Lying flat” is a Chinese concept, he told me, akin to quiet quitting, but more intentional, less burdened by external judgment.)

In What You Are Looking for, five Tokyo denizens, each the centre of their own story, ask the librarian at the community house for recommendations and get something different from what they'd anticipated. Through her intervention they begin to realize a life (dare I say "career path") for which they are best suited, by making adjustments (to attitude if not action) or by making peace. 

The book covers various scenarios: working mom, retiree, unskilled shopgirl, unemployed artist, and entrepreneur wannabe. 

The themes are fairly universal and translate well to North American culture, where for the most part identity is tightly linked to job. Being a company man may no longer be valued, or even possible, as it once was, and perhaps this mentality lingers a little longer in Asia, intertwined as it is with traditional expectations and obligations. 

Seitaro clasps his cup in both hands. "What kind of job do you think is totally secure?" he quizzes me in return.

"A public employee like you, or a big corporation?"

"Nothing is," he replies, gently shaking his head. "Not one single job I could name is absolutely secure. Everybody just does their best to hang in there, trying to balance it all."

His expression is mild, but his tone is dead serious.

"There no guarantee of certainty in anything. But the flip side to there being no guarantee of security, is that there's also no certainty that something is a dud."

The book isn't a dud, but it's thin and insubstantial — not the type of literature that typically feeds my soul. I only read it because it warranted inclusion in the 2024 Tournament of Books. But for a few hours, it charmed me and soothed my worries.