I was awaiting Elizabeth Gilbert's latest book 'City of Girls' eagerly since I first read about it last year. And my god, was it a joyride or what! I resisted getting the book for myself till I had read my previous, Murakami's 'Killing Commendatore'. But it was in my bag right after, on October 20th, to be precise.
It became my constant companion as I moved around the city, dug into my food at restaurants, sat on neighbourhood benches and it even got read in the torchlight just before I went to bed (an honour reserved for books I just can't resist reading).
Purposefully frivolous, it starts with a clueless young girl's journey in the New York theatre scene in the 1940s with all its decadence. With the eagerness to fit in, seen only among the young who are yet to discover themselves, our protagonist turns into a giddy headed party girl who tests all boundaries of her own personal morality, living the adventure but ultimately making a mistake that would cost her.
One chapter of her life might be over but another one has already begun. Set in the war years, the book explores how big events such as these don't leave anyone untouched, even the ones who have absolutely no conception or interest in anything to do with it. But ignorance can truly be bliss, as she proves, going about her business anyway as a costume designer for bare bones budgeted theatrical performances meant to keep up the morale of the armed forces.
The war may end but our protagonist goes on, adding rich new chapters to a life that's taken unchartered routes. This includes unexpected love that's so moving, its almost devotional. And that's really the closest she comes to in terms of her understanding of war and the price that it demands of us, not just in economic terms but also the price paid by the human soul. Ironically, she doesn't show much understanding even when her fiancee leaves her to serve at the war, or her brother dies at duty or even when her own life is reduced to laborious drudgery during the war years.
****
I enjoyed reading the first part of the novel the most. Gilbert has created a lead character so believably impressionable, she's like a blank canvas that can be painted on by an artist. But Gilbert's real win here is the textures to this canvas that lend to the art itself. So even though she is ready to be wrapped up in a heady life, her motivation is one of youthful rebellion. Born into a wealthy family, which emotes little and expects her to lead a very straight life, much like her big brother who is the ideal sort of son parents would like, she internally possibly wants to break free from the weight of these expectations.
The burden of living a life everyone else wants you to live reminded me of Gilbert's personal story, Eat Pray Love, where she pretty much tosses out her former life with a boldness that's very hard to muster. But she was of course an older, more experienced and more anchored woman. Here the rebel is a young girl without a cause but with a lust to live life in a way her non-New York world couldn't afford.
She too, like Gilbert, decides to make it on her own without really going back to her former life except for brief periods and eventually comes into her own accepting about herself all aspects that she no longer needs society's approval from. It's a road less travelled, but one that's deeply authentic to her. In casting off judgement of herself, the lead character and by extension the writer, invite the reader to see people not as one tone stereotypes but individual snowflakes, each an embodiment of a uniquely personal story.
Reading City of Girls was a delight I haven't experienced in a long time. And I haven't even touched on the many varied characters and descriptions that lend so much colour and beauty to the story. Thank you Elizabeth Gilbert, my reading experiences would be so woefully diminished if it weren't for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment