Category: Revisiting Books

Fictional Simplicity

I would love to conduct a scientific experiment in which one version of my brain read contemporary fiction while another read an old classic, a Jane Austen novel for example, and I could sit back and compare their experiences.

I’m about halfway through Gary Shteyngart’s fantastically funny beautifully written new novel, Our Country Friends. It is entertaining and theoretically immersive and yet I can’t seem to read more than a chapter or two without drifting…(did I pay my credit card bill? I forgot to sign my kid’s sports consent form! Is it cold in here?). Not that this isn’t a fairly common experience in my life, but here’s the strange thing: Last month I re-read Mansfield Park and I sunk into it like a warm bath and came out only when I was relaxed and slightly shriveled.

So I’m wondering if there is a connection. Not in the prose so much as the world it portrays. Shteyngart’s novel is literally of the moment, full of phones, Covid, helicopter parenting and ambitious neurotic people. In Austen, a long walk could be the highlight of the day. News arrives so sporadically that each new snippet can be chewed over for days before the next one arrives.

Think of all the things we need to remember today: Passwords, who to call when the heat doesn’t work. Is it oil? Propane? How to unclog a drain, pay bills, pay taxes. Directions to the dentist, all the various doctor appointments and what your health care plan will cover. Which former republic is Russia planning to invade? What horrible things are the Chinese government doing now, without repercussions? That’s without touching on the latest music, movies, tv shows and whether or not I even subscribe to the service which will allow me to watch them.

Maybe it’s age catching up with me, this desire to downscale the input. My brain is fed up and its way of telling me is to cut me off after a chapter of the latest fiction. It’s telling me that I really should be living in a time when I could spend an entire morning hand-washing the underwear I’ve probably been wearing for days at a time. Gross? Yes. But so much less stressful!

The Jeans Gene

One of the many traits that drifted down from my mom and attached itself to me, barnacle-like, was an interest in fashion. I was not/am not/will almost surely never be fashionable. But that interest is in me, defying my inner eye-rolls and deep attraction to jeans and sweatshirts (a woman I worked with once described my “style” as slobby chic).

My mom’s (enormous) closet was filled with designer suits for day and Pucci dresses for evenings out. She had boxes and trays of accessories specifically purchased to match an outfit. She loved to shop and some of our best bonding happened at Daytons Department Store in Minneapolis, where she tried to convince me to be someone other than me.

I had none of her flair and my interest was once-removed, but that did not stop me from taking a job at Vogue Magazine straight out of college. It was a crappy job and I was a fish laughingly far out of water, but it led to other, slightly less crappy jobs and, finally, to W Magazine and Women’s Wear Daily, where I was finally able to do what I really wanted, which was write (even if most of the writing was about fashion).

When this book, Women in Clothes, came out a few years ago, I was skeptical. I had recently gone freelance and brushed all (most) remnants of the fashion world from the seat of my yoga pants, but the authors (Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton) were interesting writers and thinkers so the book couldn’t be a deep dive into narcissism.

Well a little bit is, but most of the book is comprised of great stories of women with stories like mine — women who have complicated feelings about clothes. Some see their choices as an extension of their personality, others find solace in specific pieces. Some are vaguely hostile towards the idea of it.

The book itself gave me solace. I thought I was supposed to feel certain things about clothes. It helped me realize how fashion is so often entwined with psychology and how that is not a bad thing; it’s just a thing.