Monday, January 16, 2006

Two Girls, Fat and Thin

I just finished reading Mary Gaitskill's Two Girls, Fat and Thin. I had wanted to check out her newest, Veronica, but it wasn't at the library. I suppose you know what you're getting into if you check out Mary Gaitskill—tales of sexual deviancy and psyhological discomfort, which I'm admittedly not a big fan of, but I was able to get beyond that and really appreciate the amount of detail that she puts into her characters and their universes. (An ability in which I am deficient.)

That said, it was weird to read this novel, to delve so deeply into two women's lives (one "fat" [Dorothy], one "thin [Justine]," each of whom are connected in some form to the writings of a Ayn Rand-esque character) and to come away feeling empty, feeling I was no closer to understanding their present-day decisions, particularly Justine's (albeit whose story was written in third person and did not have the same painful immediacy as Dorothy's first person).

I suppose I was disappointed because Justine and Dorothy form a bond at the end not by individual, conscious choice so much as by circumstance and luck, especially when they both had opportunities throughout the novel to forge conscious connections with each other. Unless this is Gaitskill's point, that, much like their childhood, their ability to find healthy intimacy is based primarily on circumstance and luck and cannot be overcome by simple desire (as the realist guru Anna Granite [Ayn Rand] would have one believe). However, I don't think that is her point, and I do believe you can overcome the circumstances of one's upbrining, whatever it is, and find intimacy and sexual satisfaction. Although I'm not an Ayn Rand fan. Believe me.

Anyway, I think the idea of this book was intriguing but the execution was terrible. Such a waste for someone whose ability with details is far more suited to the novel form than the short story. However, this was her first novel, so perhaps they get better. Any Mary Gaitskill fans out there?

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