I’m gonna keep this one simple–Have you read this? Was it in for a class in college? Read it again.
It’s so short and deliciously written. It may be somehow older than you remembered and also more modern? The dialogue reads like it could be from a Sally Rooney novel. The scenes could be (SHOULD BE) straight out of a Greta Gerwig adaptation. Finishing this book while sunning alone beside a hotel pool in the blazing end-of-summer sun at 10 AM on a weekday was an unexpectedly spiritual experience.
Something that stood out to me on this read was the role of New Orleans mysticism. At one point, Chopin says, “Edna could hear the whispering voices of dead men and the click of muffled gold,” and sees “misty spirit forms were prowling in the shadows and among the reeds, and upon the water were phantom ships, speeding to cover” (p. 39). Small shining traces of magic lurk here and there, never commented on. I used to read these as metaphorical language, but now I’m not so sure. It felt, upon this read, more like the ghosts and magic in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Are we supposed to assign meaning and explanation to this interjections, or do we owe it to authors to take their word for it? Maybe this is supposed to be a symbol for Edna’s loosening grip on reality. For seeing things that others don’t. Personally, I like the idea of coexisting with ghosts and still being like, the real problem is this husband I’m stuck with!
Basically, I think this slim little book is worth another read. Even if all you remember is that it was bored wealthy white woman feminism, to which I say that each work is a contribution to a bigger conversation, and that of course work from over a century ago is not going to be nuanced in a way that meets all of our current expectations. It’s like criticism that American Ferrera’s monologue in Barbie (2023) is cliché, by which we mean “this idea isn’t new to me because I was lucky enough to be raised with discourse like this being normalized and very accessible,” and which we SHOULD finish, “…and not everyone was, so maybe this is to me but not for me.”
So anyway, in this, the year of The Barbie Movie, I think Chopin is worth the reread. Here’s a little taste.
TabithaTypes 