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Poor Things
One of Alasdair Gray's most brilliant creations, Poor Things is a postmodern revision of Frankenstein that replaces the traditional monster with Bella Baxter - a beautiful young erotomaniac brought back to life with the brain of an infant. Godwin Baxter's scientific ambition to create the perfect companion is realized when he finds the drowned body of Bella, but his dream is thwarted by Dr. Archibald McCandless's jealous love for Baxter's creation.
The hilarious tale of love and scandal that ensues would be "the whole story" in the hands of a lesser author (which in fact it is, for this account is actually written by Dr. McCandless). For Gray, though, this is only half the story, after which Bella (a.k.a. Victoria McCandless) has her own say in the matter. Satirizing the classic Victorian novel, Poor Things is a hilarious political allegory and a thought-provoking duel between the desires of men and the independence of women, from one of Scotland's most accomplished authors.
The hilarious tale of love and scandal that ensues would be "the whole story" in the hands of a lesser author (which in fact it is, for this account is actually written by Dr. McCandless). For Gray, though, this is only half the story, after which Bella (a.k.a. Victoria McCandless) has her own say in the matter. Satirizing the classic Victorian novel, Poor Things is a hilarious political allegory and a thought-provoking duel between the desires of men and the independence of women, from one of Scotland's most accomplished authors.
318 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
About the author
Alasdair Gray
87 books738 followersAlasdair James Gray was a Scottish writer and artist. His first novel, Lanark (1981), is seen as a landmark of Scottish fiction. He published novels, short stories, plays, poetry and translations, and wrote on politics and the history of English and Scots literature. His works of fiction combine realism, fantasy, and science fiction with the use of his own typography and illustrations, and won several awards.
He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957. As well as his book illustrations, he painted portraits and murals. His artwork has been widely exhibited and is in several important collections. Before Lanark, he had plays performed on radio and TV.
His writing style is postmodern and has been compared with those of Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. It often contains extensive footnotes explaining the works that influenced it. His books inspired many younger Scottish writers, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, A.L. Kennedy, Janice Galloway, Chris Kelso and Iain Banks. He was writer-in-residence at the University of Glasgow from 1977 to 1979, and professor of Creative Writing at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities from 2001 to 2003.
Gray was a civic nationalist and a republican, and wrote supporting socialism and Scottish independence. He popularised the epigram "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation" (taken from a poem by Canadian poet Dennis Leigh) which was engraved in the Canongate Wall of the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh when it opened in 2004. He lived almost all his life in Glasgow, married twice, and had one son. On his death The Guardian referred to him as "the father figure of the renaissance in Scottish literature and art".
He studied at Glasgow School of Art from 1952 to 1957. As well as his book illustrations, he painted portraits and murals. His artwork has been widely exhibited and is in several important collections. Before Lanark, he had plays performed on radio and TV.
His writing style is postmodern and has been compared with those of Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino. It often contains extensive footnotes explaining the works that influenced it. His books inspired many younger Scottish writers, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner, A.L. Kennedy, Janice Galloway, Chris Kelso and Iain Banks. He was writer-in-residence at the University of Glasgow from 1977 to 1979, and professor of Creative Writing at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities from 2001 to 2003.
Gray was a civic nationalist and a republican, and wrote supporting socialism and Scottish independence. He popularised the epigram "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation" (taken from a poem by Canadian poet Dennis Leigh) which was engraved in the Canongate Wall of the Scottish Parliament Building in Edinburgh when it opened in 2004. He lived almost all his life in Glasgow, married twice, and had one son. On his death The Guardian referred to him as "the father figure of the renaissance in Scottish literature and art".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,180 reviews
January 11, 2024
The book that turned me on to frame tales, unreliable narrators, authors-as-editors, found documents, pastiche and parody, emotionally stimulating artwork, the novel as an a objet d’art, run-on sentences, paratextual palaver, and metafiction-with-a-heart is as marvellous on the third read as it was on the first. Gray’s novel presents two unreliable accounts of Bella Baxter’s life—the first a Frankenstein and Victorian horror pastiche told in the form of a (fictional?) autobio of “public health officier” Archibald McCandless, the second a brief corrective letter from Bella Baxter denouncing his entire book (¾ of Poor Things) as a complete fabrication. Gray never wrote characters as vivid and wondrous as the ear-splitting mutant Baxter, the gambling Don Juan Wedderburn, and the liberated feminist Bella in his other books, and Poor Things finds him perfecting the balance of postmodern playfulness, artistic perfection and multi-layered parody and historical insight present in his other books, but nowhere as coherent, moving, hilarious, sly and cunning as in this masterpiece. I rank this as the peak of Gray’s literary achievements, below Lanark and 1982 Janine which show their age now, and recommend to all who find the above list of qualities paramount to their textual tantalisation.
January 18, 2022
Moonlight is mysterious but it is cold… Sunlight is ordinary but it brings warmth…
Poor Things is a brilliant stylization to the Victorian novel – a real cornucopia of reminiscences of the great novels of the nineteenth century but being a postmodernistic tale it is generously laden with mockery of all sorts of Gothic motifs.
It is a fine but more jeering companion to The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles — both books are an original outlook on the Victorian epoch with the modern eyes. They are something like a lesson and warning to contemporary man.
Some people are authentic human beings but some are just Frankensteins…
“Only bad religions depend on mysteries, just as bad governments depend on secret police. Truth, beauty and goodness are not mysterious, they are the commonest, most obvious, most essential facts of life, like sunlight, air and bread.”
Poor Things is a brilliant stylization to the Victorian novel – a real cornucopia of reminiscences of the great novels of the nineteenth century but being a postmodernistic tale it is generously laden with mockery of all sorts of Gothic motifs.
The pictures showed many kinds of people. The ugliest and most comical are Scots, Irish, foreign, poor, servants, rich folk who have been poor until very recently, small men, old unmarried women and Socialists. The Socialists are ugliest, very dirty and hairy with weak chins, and seem to spend their time grumbling to other people at street corners.
“What are Socialists, Duncan?” I asked.
“Fools who think the world should be improved.”
“Why? Is something wrong with it?”
“The Socialists are wrong with it — and my infernal luck.”
“You told me once that luck is a solemn name for ignorance.”
“Do not torture me, Bell.”
It is a fine but more jeering companion to The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles — both books are an original outlook on the Victorian epoch with the modern eyes. They are something like a lesson and warning to contemporary man.
“Politics, like filling and emptying cesspools, is filthy work and women should be protected from it.”
Some people are authentic human beings but some are just Frankensteins…
March 19, 2024
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why postmodern literature is so much fun: Gray basically tells a feminist story about how some mad men stitch up their sick idea of a perfect female, and this Frankensteinian creation - the body of a beautiful grown woman, the brain of an infant - emanciaptes herself by claiming desires that are reserved for men: Bella Baxter wants sex, power, and independence, and she just goes for it. Oh, the horror!! :-) Changing perspectives, text forms and time frames all serve the same purpose, namely to show how men attempt to put Bella in a box, to own her narrative and her body, but she is an escape artist and always one step ahead.
A pastiche of Victorian literature, the starting point (and all that follows will in later twists be called into question) is that one scary-looking Dr. Godwin Baxter a.k.a. God saves the unborn baby of a woman who drowned herself, implants the fetal brain into her head and resurrects the corpse, so he can raise an obedient bride. Needless to say, this won't work, because Bella becomes a curious student of life, trapped in a grown-up body before being deformed by internalized societal expectations for women. Chaos ensues, feat. world travels, sexual escapades, political discussions about class war and colonialism, becoming a nurse / vet / doctor, more sexual escapades, marriages, accidental identity theft, driving men into insanity, more sexual escapades... you get the idea.
What remains throughout all iterations is that Bella Baxter is a strong woman with ambitions her time didn't want to allow for - but Bella doesn't wait to be granted permission, and that's the monstrousness that's at the comedic heart of the text. Male projection, the male gaze and the mores of the time become the hilarious basis for narrative twists. Gray masterfully shifts between the emulation of Victorian writing and the build-up of Bella's own voice which she has to grow into, as reflected on the page. Apart from the obvious Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, we get funny references to Faust, First Part (in which a scientist becomes a pawn in a game between God and the devil without realizing it), Pygmalion gone wrong and a Bildungsroman.
The strength of the novel is how it illuminates versions of female monstrousness as taught by mysogyny, and the attempts of men to form women into what they want them to be. It's not like the men in this book are the real monsters (like in "Frankenstein", where the monster is actually the victim), no, it's way worse: The men are pathetic, they have nothing to offer when compared to witty, brave Bella, so they try to tame her power - and fail. These men are clowns, and Bella is the director of this postmodern circus.
Great, smart fun.
A pastiche of Victorian literature, the starting point (and all that follows will in later twists be called into question) is that one scary-looking Dr. Godwin Baxter a.k.a. God saves the unborn baby of a woman who drowned herself, implants the fetal brain into her head and resurrects the corpse, so he can raise an obedient bride. Needless to say, this won't work, because Bella becomes a curious student of life, trapped in a grown-up body before being deformed by internalized societal expectations for women. Chaos ensues, feat. world travels, sexual escapades, political discussions about class war and colonialism, becoming a nurse / vet / doctor, more sexual escapades, marriages, accidental identity theft, driving men into insanity, more sexual escapades... you get the idea.
What remains throughout all iterations is that Bella Baxter is a strong woman with ambitions her time didn't want to allow for - but Bella doesn't wait to be granted permission, and that's the monstrousness that's at the comedic heart of the text. Male projection, the male gaze and the mores of the time become the hilarious basis for narrative twists. Gray masterfully shifts between the emulation of Victorian writing and the build-up of Bella's own voice which she has to grow into, as reflected on the page. Apart from the obvious Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, we get funny references to Faust, First Part (in which a scientist becomes a pawn in a game between God and the devil without realizing it), Pygmalion gone wrong and a Bildungsroman.
The strength of the novel is how it illuminates versions of female monstrousness as taught by mysogyny, and the attempts of men to form women into what they want them to be. It's not like the men in this book are the real monsters (like in "Frankenstein", where the monster is actually the victim), no, it's way worse: The men are pathetic, they have nothing to offer when compared to witty, brave Bella, so they try to tame her power - and fail. These men are clowns, and Bella is the director of this postmodern circus.
Great, smart fun.
January 5, 2024
PLEASE!!!! no more pov’s from a man!!!!!! i’ve had ENOUGH!!!!!!!
January 26, 2024
Okay, this cements Alasdair Gray as utterly brilliant. The way this story is structured is so incredibly clever: A found book-within-a-book containing dueling unreliable narrators with differing versions of the events of the story. One fantastical, one much more grounded in reality. Both characters within the found novel/possibly historical text could plausibly have perverted their telling of the story from the "reality" of the other's telling.
It's also a very entertaining, enlightening story all on its own. A feminist Frankenstein. One of the most unique and important coming of age stories I've ever read.
Jan 2023 update: The movie is REALLY good y'all.
It's also a very entertaining, enlightening story all on its own. A feminist Frankenstein. One of the most unique and important coming of age stories I've ever read.
Jan 2023 update: The movie is REALLY good y'all.
February 12, 2024
Czuję się aż nielegalnie oceniając ją tak nisko, ale oh god jakie to było kuriozalne.
January 24, 2024
Updated with thoughts about the movie at the bottom.
I read somewhere that this book could aptly be summarized as a feminist, socialist riff on "Frankenstein", one of my favorite books, so I was quite eager to read it. In fact, I am amazed it never appeared on my radar before I was suddenly surrounded by trailers for the Yorgos Lanthimos movie adaptation. I guess this is the quiet type of amazing book, that flies just under the pop culture radar until some weirdo with an amazing eye for period pieces decides to make a movie out of it. Now I was in quite a hurry to read it because I wanted to go on a movie date with my bestie - and I much prefer reading the books before seeing the movies.
I am a sucker for a few things when it comes to books, and the whole "book within a book" framing is one, as is the adorable "this is a reproduction of a found manuscript" device. So as soon as I cracked this novel open, I was cackling maniacally.
There are so many wonderful layers to peel back with "Poor Things", starting with Bella, a woman who was resurrected, given her unborn child's brain and stitched back together. But even without trying to see her as a metaphor for anything, she is, first and foremost, a grown woman who is innocent of her society's arbitrary, sexist and oppressive rules. She has a child's candor and enthusiasm for experience and sensations, something neither her creator, Dr. Baxter, or the man who falls in love with her, McCandless, knows how to handle. In fact, no one knows quite what to do with Bella, who is in fact doing nothing more than being her purest self.
I love that while this is a perfectly executed pastiche of Victorian fiction, it never falls into clumsy presentism while discussing very modern ideas. The surrealistic elements, questionable narration and characters that defy stereotype classification make this a really remarkable novel. I am happy that it was made into a movie (can't wait to see it next week!) because that will hopefully bring it back into the spotlight. A little, weird, baroque treasure!
--
I finally went to see the movie, and I am delighted to report that I absolutely loved it! It's stunning, surreal, grotesque and magnificent!
Yes, the sex scenes are rather explicit, as where they are merely hinted at in the book, but I find that they are an important part of Bella's story, and it doesn't feel gratuitous. If anything, they are quite realistic in the sense that sex isn't always pretty.
The movie is gorgeous, but the dialogue is also incredible, as are the performances. Some details were changed, and I think the changes made sense for a smoother page-to-screen adaptation. This movie deserves every award it is nominated for!
I read somewhere that this book could aptly be summarized as a feminist, socialist riff on "Frankenstein", one of my favorite books, so I was quite eager to read it. In fact, I am amazed it never appeared on my radar before I was suddenly surrounded by trailers for the Yorgos Lanthimos movie adaptation. I guess this is the quiet type of amazing book, that flies just under the pop culture radar until some weirdo with an amazing eye for period pieces decides to make a movie out of it. Now I was in quite a hurry to read it because I wanted to go on a movie date with my bestie - and I much prefer reading the books before seeing the movies.
I am a sucker for a few things when it comes to books, and the whole "book within a book" framing is one, as is the adorable "this is a reproduction of a found manuscript" device. So as soon as I cracked this novel open, I was cackling maniacally.
There are so many wonderful layers to peel back with "Poor Things", starting with Bella, a woman who was resurrected, given her unborn child's brain and stitched back together. But even without trying to see her as a metaphor for anything, she is, first and foremost, a grown woman who is innocent of her society's arbitrary, sexist and oppressive rules. She has a child's candor and enthusiasm for experience and sensations, something neither her creator, Dr. Baxter, or the man who falls in love with her, McCandless, knows how to handle. In fact, no one knows quite what to do with Bella, who is in fact doing nothing more than being her purest self.
I love that while this is a perfectly executed pastiche of Victorian fiction, it never falls into clumsy presentism while discussing very modern ideas. The surrealistic elements, questionable narration and characters that defy stereotype classification make this a really remarkable novel. I am happy that it was made into a movie (can't wait to see it next week!) because that will hopefully bring it back into the spotlight. A little, weird, baroque treasure!
--
I finally went to see the movie, and I am delighted to report that I absolutely loved it! It's stunning, surreal, grotesque and magnificent!
Yes, the sex scenes are rather explicit, as where they are merely hinted at in the book, but I find that they are an important part of Bella's story, and it doesn't feel gratuitous. If anything, they are quite realistic in the sense that sex isn't always pretty.
The movie is gorgeous, but the dialogue is also incredible, as are the performances. Some details were changed, and I think the changes made sense for a smoother page-to-screen adaptation. This movie deserves every award it is nominated for!
February 14, 2024
Just realised that this Poor Things is the very book that the big new movie Poor Things that apparently everybody is talking about is based on....! Now I need to see it...!
*****
original review :
Almost the only thing that dragged me away from this rollicking novel was a school production of Oliver in which my daughter Georgia (soon to be 16, can that possibly be?) was cavorting and twirling as part of the chorus line (oom-papah, oom-papah, that's how it goes!) , and then warbling a solo Where Is Love as Mrs Bedwin The Housekeeper over Oliver's sleeping form – she looked so pretty with her hair piled up on her head, something she never does in real life. There was a schoolgirl usher who sat next to us on the front row, and before the performance started, she got chatting. We asked her if she had wanted to be in Oliver, and she said she had been, but had to drop out, because her dad just died. What?? You can imagine our interested smiles freezing and dropping to the floor in splinters. Oh yes, it was just a couple of weeks ago, and her mum is still in the hospital very ill from the same thing as killed her dad. What???? We really didn't know what to say, and she seemed so matter-of-fact about this ghastly tragedy. At that uneasy moment, the orphans arrived and started lining up for their gruel.
After the whole thing was done and we had gone through every single part of the evening and told Georgia precisely who was good or bad, what we thought of the sound effects for Nancy's murder and the cut of Mr Bumble's jib, we mentioned this awful story. Oh that was Grace, she said, rolling her eyes. She was going to be Mrs Bumble but she was kicked out for not turning up to rehearsals. No, her dad hadn't died and her mother wasn't in any hospital with a life-threatening ailment. I think I would have heard about that! Grace is a compulsive liar. Everyone knows that!
And so is Alasdair Gray. Poor Things is a Victorian narrative by a "Scottish public Health Officer" named Archibald McCandless which is immediately contradicted completely by a letter/essay written by the principal of the narrative, his wife Bella Baxter aka Victoria McCandless, which is in turn cross-examined and undermined to an extent by a series of contemporary notes appended by "Alisdair Gray". Some novels given to japery-wheezy faux-academic pastiche do this – check out House of Leaves for a rock and roll example, or Pale Fire by Nabokov, probably the grandaddy of the genre.
It's great fun – how could it not be when you get, for instance, the great Glaswegian seducer Duncan Wedderburn justifying himself in terms such as these:
No delicious scullions, tempting laundry manglers, lucious latrine scrubbers ever lost a day's work by dallying with Duncan Wedderburn, though the shortness and irregularity of their free time meant I had to court several at once.
Or again, savour the Dickensian turn of phrase of Bella, our heroine, talking about a trip to Argentine to try to discover some of her own mysterious history:
In Buenos Aires we tried to visit my parents' grave, but Baxter found the railway company that paid for the interment had put them in a graveyard on the edge of a bottomless canyon, so when Chimborazo or Cotopaxi or Popocatapetl erupted the whole shebang collapsed in an avalance to the bottom crushing headstones coffins skeletons to a powder of in-fin-it-se-im-al atoms. Seeing them in that state would have been like visiting a heap of caster sugar.
I've now read four Alasdair Gray books, all completely different from each other, except as regards to their linguistic effervescence. Lanark is the big masterpiece. But if you fancy a bit of Victoriana with a dash of Breughel, a spoonful of Engels and a garnishing of Mary Shelley, Poor Things will do for you as it did for me.
January 26, 2024
this should have been written by a woman.
January 21, 2024
Mocarna książka. Jestem bardzo pozytywnie zaskoczony.
March 18, 2024
A weird, wild & fun ride but also highly uncomfortable - I can’t decide if this is the most sexist & gross piece of literature I’ve ever read or if its genius commentary on mens disgusting desires and how they think ideal women should be - you could read it as women will make their own way in this world no matter how the men around them try to shape them. But did Bella really make her own way, since every decision she made was the direct result of being ‘made’ by Baxter? I guess it’s at least thought provoking and I love a book like that. Will let it simmer & also watch the movie asap
March 7, 2024
DNF @ 50%
This book is about a woman whose brain is replaced with that of a baby. Naturally, every man in a 5 mile radius wants to (and does) bang her tiny brains out.
I don't think this is a bad book by any means, it makes some compelling points about how men regard and treat women. But this was one of the rare cases where the ick overpowered my desire to finish the book.
This book is about a woman whose brain is replaced with that of a baby. Naturally, every man in a 5 mile radius wants to (and does) bang her tiny brains out.
I don't think this is a bad book by any means, it makes some compelling points about how men regard and treat women. But this was one of the rare cases where the ick overpowered my desire to finish the book.
January 28, 2018
more like poor me for reading this
April 8, 2024
Poor Things is written so all over the place... Letters, POV switches, unreliable narrators... I appreciate the idea of a pastiche Frankenstein as a comment on patriarchy and capitalism (I realized Bella's political side was grossly simplified and reduced in the film, what a shame!) but I didn't really enjoy reading this; I feel it's a problem of prose and maybe me not clicking with the writing.
October 27, 2023
They lost me within the first 10% when they made a literal child a sex addict, and then they lost me again when it ended up just being a story about white men, their double standards, egos, misogyny and racism, and a whole host of other distasteful themes.
This whole thing felt like the ‘yeah she’s mentally 10 but she’s built like a grown woman so i couldn’t help myself and i have a right to her,” argument….. i mean, McCandless literally throws a fit bc she’s gonna marry another man and he says “she’s a child” to explain why HE should marry her instead…..???????? Like be so fr
I understand the idea of the story, and I think it could’ve been cool??? A story about the journey of this child who’s been born into an adult woman’s body, how she navigates her role as a science project and commodity simultaneously; grief of the mother who’s body she now animates, love, independence, politics/ but it was giving manic pixie dream girl and I really cannot bear when a woman’s pov is written through the male gaze. It could’ve been a freaky science thing if it just committed to that instead of the weird social games and perverted desires of the main characters.
The audiobook narrators were fantastic, I really enjoyed it!! But the story was not for me :(
This whole thing felt like the ‘yeah she’s mentally 10 but she’s built like a grown woman so i couldn’t help myself and i have a right to her,” argument….. i mean, McCandless literally throws a fit bc she’s gonna marry another man and he says “she’s a child” to explain why HE should marry her instead…..???????? Like be so fr
I understand the idea of the story, and I think it could’ve been cool??? A story about the journey of this child who’s been born into an adult woman’s body, how she navigates her role as a science project and commodity simultaneously; grief of the mother who’s body she now animates, love, independence, politics/ but it was giving manic pixie dream girl and I really cannot bear when a woman’s pov is written through the male gaze. It could’ve been a freaky science thing if it just committed to that instead of the weird social games and perverted desires of the main characters.
The audiobook narrators were fantastic, I really enjoyed it!! But the story was not for me :(
February 21, 2024
A life without freedom to choose is not worth having.
Reading Poor Things was such a wild ride. Right from the start when I opened the book I was so confused, for instance, it informed me that the author Alasdair Gray was the editor of the book. Wait, so who is the author in the first place? Whose story is this?
At first it reads as a reimagining of Frankenstein - a story about the horrendous monster - although this time it is about a beautiful woman named Bella Caledonia who is given a second chance at life and is free from any social conventions and expectations. A smoggy and dark Victorian Glasgow (now I really want to visit Glasgow!) sets the right mood for this fantastical tale. It almost feels like a pastiche of a Gothic novel and riffs on so many other books and genres. But there is a layer that makes the reader reconsider what they are reading, the book keeps on changing and takes a very unexpected direction.
Poor Things might just be a monster of a book itself. A found object, a book within a book, a story within a story - there are just so many layers to this book. Despite its pastiche-like premise and topsy-turvy turns, it is a brilliantly written piece of metafiction. A hilarious and thought-provoking glimpse into an unrestrained humanity - it can be as real as it can be fictitious and the best thing about it is that it trusts the reader to come to their own conclusions. Throughout the book, there are different references and hints to poor things, in the end it made me reflect on who and what those poor things might really be.
Only bad religions depend on mysteries, just as bad governments depend on secret police. Truth, beauty and goodness are not mysterious, they are the commonest, most obvious, most essential facts of life, like sunlight, air and bread. Only folk whose heads are muddled by expensive educations think truth, beauty, goodness are rare private properties. Nature is more liberal. The universe keeps nothing essential from us — it is all present, all gift.
Poor Things was written by iconic Scottish writer and artist Alasdair Gray, who also created many of the illustrations for the book. It was actually thanks to the film’s trailers and posters that I discovered Gray, whose work fascinated me so that I decided to pick up the book. Moreover, Poor Things prompted me to finally read Frankenstein, which blew my mind and convinced me that its pop culture’s image has little or nothing to do with Mary Shelley’s original work. Reading is an ongoing journey of discovery.
The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine.
Comparing a book to a film might be quite pointless since these are very different art forms. Each stands on its own. Yorgos Lanthimos film is quite fascinating and ambitious. I think he made some really great choices in amplifying, suppressing or changing completely some aspects of the source material. Even though he goes quite heavy-handed with some elements, these turn out to work quite well precisely because of the art form they are set in. Needless to say, Emma Stone’s performance saves many scenes. Cinematography, casting and soundtrack are brilliant. Maybe these days I prefer other directors and despite my mixed feelings about the final part, it was worth going to the cinema.
Now my only gripe about the book is that Alasdair Gray’s work didn’t come to my life sooner!
Reading Poor Things was such a wild ride. Right from the start when I opened the book I was so confused, for instance, it informed me that the author Alasdair Gray was the editor of the book. Wait, so who is the author in the first place? Whose story is this?
At first it reads as a reimagining of Frankenstein - a story about the horrendous monster - although this time it is about a beautiful woman named Bella Caledonia who is given a second chance at life and is free from any social conventions and expectations. A smoggy and dark Victorian Glasgow (now I really want to visit Glasgow!) sets the right mood for this fantastical tale. It almost feels like a pastiche of a Gothic novel and riffs on so many other books and genres. But there is a layer that makes the reader reconsider what they are reading, the book keeps on changing and takes a very unexpected direction.
Poor Things might just be a monster of a book itself. A found object, a book within a book, a story within a story - there are just so many layers to this book. Despite its pastiche-like premise and topsy-turvy turns, it is a brilliantly written piece of metafiction. A hilarious and thought-provoking glimpse into an unrestrained humanity - it can be as real as it can be fictitious and the best thing about it is that it trusts the reader to come to their own conclusions. Throughout the book, there are different references and hints to poor things, in the end it made me reflect on who and what those poor things might really be.
Only bad religions depend on mysteries, just as bad governments depend on secret police. Truth, beauty and goodness are not mysterious, they are the commonest, most obvious, most essential facts of life, like sunlight, air and bread. Only folk whose heads are muddled by expensive educations think truth, beauty, goodness are rare private properties. Nature is more liberal. The universe keeps nothing essential from us — it is all present, all gift.
Poor Things was written by iconic Scottish writer and artist Alasdair Gray, who also created many of the illustrations for the book. It was actually thanks to the film’s trailers and posters that I discovered Gray, whose work fascinated me so that I decided to pick up the book. Moreover, Poor Things prompted me to finally read Frankenstein, which blew my mind and convinced me that its pop culture’s image has little or nothing to do with Mary Shelley’s original work. Reading is an ongoing journey of discovery.
The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine.
Comparing a book to a film might be quite pointless since these are very different art forms. Each stands on its own. Yorgos Lanthimos film is quite fascinating and ambitious. I think he made some really great choices in amplifying, suppressing or changing completely some aspects of the source material. Even though he goes quite heavy-handed with some elements, these turn out to work quite well precisely because of the art form they are set in. Needless to say, Emma Stone’s performance saves many scenes. Cinematography, casting and soundtrack are brilliant. Maybe these days I prefer other directors and despite my mixed feelings about the final part, it was worth going to the cinema.
Now my only gripe about the book is that Alasdair Gray’s work didn’t come to my life sooner!
December 2, 2023
4.5
So so entertaining and a fun mindfuck
So so entertaining and a fun mindfuck
April 27, 2024
This is a tricksy romp of a novel, a pastiche and collage of Victorian fiction and culture (Frankenstein, of course, but also the Godwin-Wollstonecraft household, the Byron-Shelley circle, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a bit of Jane Eyre and a whole inset travelogue of an innocent abroad that is very Don Juan) and an underlying treatise on gender and socialism.
Gray embeds and nests serial narrators, as the original Frankenstein does, and thematises issues around 'natural' knowledge vs. the way culture is inscribed on individuals particularly here the pressures to be a 'woman'. There's a sort of playing out of Simone de Beauvoir's well-known statement that women are not born but created. The writing is conscious of its own artifice and rambunctious, retelling a rollicking adventure.
I guess I have two issues: the first is that all the pointed statements about classism, misogyny, capitalism and empire are written by a purported narrator who is nothing like Gray in political terms so it's hard to believe in him as a fictional device saying some of the things he does. The last minute turnaround and revelation also undercuts some, even most, of the political material and replaces it with something different.
The second issue for me is perhaps more pressing: and here my concern is that Gray as the ultimate author is taking an important precedent, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - a novel that has all kinds of proto-feminist concerns about creativity, motherhood, responsibility and society's outsiders - and is re-writing it from a masculine perspective, a masculine narrative gaze. Even the sections and the final letter written by Bella within the fiction are, in reality, written by a man - two men, even. However sensitive and well-intentioned Gray is - and he is both of these things - there's perhaps a limit to how far his imagination can enter into the embodied experience of what it means to live as a woman, doubled with the sense of living as a Victorian woman.
If one of the points the book is making is about McCandless' fantasies of Bella (not least her hyper-sexuality), then what of the way Gray also, albeit at one remove, fantasises a heroine who rejects McCandless' story... only to be subsumed into an alternative male narrative? Mary Shelley originally imagined a 'creature' who is the ultimate outsider as a container for her anxieties; this book turns that creature into a woman who is always ventroquised by a male voice.
There's no doubt that this is fun, clever, full of productive intertexts and conscious of its own postmodern game-playing - but it's also embedded in its 1990s context which raises problematic questions for me. 3.5 stars.
Gray embeds and nests serial narrators, as the original Frankenstein does, and thematises issues around 'natural' knowledge vs. the way culture is inscribed on individuals particularly here the pressures to be a 'woman'. There's a sort of playing out of Simone de Beauvoir's well-known statement that women are not born but created. The writing is conscious of its own artifice and rambunctious, retelling a rollicking adventure.
I guess I have two issues: the first is that all the pointed statements about classism, misogyny, capitalism and empire are written by a purported narrator who is nothing like Gray in political terms so it's hard to believe in him as a fictional device saying some of the things he does. The last minute turnaround and revelation also undercuts some, even most, of the political material and replaces it with something different.
The second issue for me is perhaps more pressing: and here my concern is that Gray as the ultimate author is taking an important precedent, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - a novel that has all kinds of proto-feminist concerns about creativity, motherhood, responsibility and society's outsiders - and is re-writing it from a masculine perspective, a masculine narrative gaze. Even the sections and the final letter written by Bella within the fiction are, in reality, written by a man - two men, even. However sensitive and well-intentioned Gray is - and he is both of these things - there's perhaps a limit to how far his imagination can enter into the embodied experience of what it means to live as a woman, doubled with the sense of living as a Victorian woman.
If one of the points the book is making is about McCandless' fantasies of Bella (not least her hyper-sexuality), then what of the way Gray also, albeit at one remove, fantasises a heroine who rejects McCandless' story... only to be subsumed into an alternative male narrative? Mary Shelley originally imagined a 'creature' who is the ultimate outsider as a container for her anxieties; this book turns that creature into a woman who is always ventroquised by a male voice.
There's no doubt that this is fun, clever, full of productive intertexts and conscious of its own postmodern game-playing - but it's also embedded in its 1990s context which raises problematic questions for me. 3.5 stars.
March 12, 2024
Şöyle başlayayım: bu kitabın filmle hiçbir alakası yok. Açıkçası kitabı, filmi görmeden okumayı tercih ederdim, zira çok daha derinlikli bir anlatı sunuyor Alasdair Gray'in kitabı ancak mümkün olamadı. Artık herkes az çok biliyor, bir nedenle (filmde size tek bir sebep sunuluyor nedenine dair, kitapta ise 2 farklı öykü var, hangisine inanacağınızı yazar size bırakmış) çocuksu bir beyine sahip olan Bella Baxter'ın bedenini ve dünyayı keşfinin öyküsünü anlatıyor Zavallılar.
Elimde olmadan filmi kitapla kıyasl��yorum ve Yorgos Lanthimos'un bu kitabı yorumlama biçimine öfkelenmeden edemiyorum. Bella Baxter'ın keşif ve özgürleşme yolculuğunu tamamen cinsellik odaklı anlatmayı seçmiş Lanthimos, yahu neden? Oysaki Gray'in kitabında cinsellik, Bella'nın kendiyle ilişkilenme ve dünyadaki derdi görme yolculuğunun olağan bir parçası sadece. Filmin bakış açısını pek feminist bulanlar buyursunlar kitabı okusunlar, zira bence kitap anlatısını çok daha feminist bir yerden ve çok daha ikna edici biçimde kuruyor.
Öncelikle kitap müthiş yaratıcı, yaratmanın ne olduğunu didikleyen bir metnin tam da böyle olması gerekir, buna bayıldım. Kurgu içinde kurgu içinde kurgu - hakikat ne, yalan ne, hepsini müthiş şekilde iç içe geçirmiş yazar. Viktoryen dönemin ahlakıyla, erken kapitalizmin iştahla beslemeye giriştiği sosyal adaletsizlikle, gelmekte olan savaşlarla epey müstehzi biçimde alay ediyor. Bir yanıyla dönemin gotik romanlarının tadını verirken, bir yanıyla da son derece modernist bir kurguyla anlatıyor derdini. Kadın/erkek, asker/sivil, zengin/yoksul - her türden eşitsizliği sıkı biçimde sorguluyor kitap, bunları anlatmak için yetişkin bedenine ham & saf bir beyni yerleştirmek ve onun şaşkınlığını kullanmak bence müthiş zekice.
Yazarın üslubu son derece akıcı, kitap bir edebî şaheser değil belki ama çok iyi yazılmış ve o kadar iyi kurgulanmış ki, aşırı bir lezzet olmasa da olur diyor insan. Filmde neyi sevmediğimi kitabı okuyunca daha iyi anlayacağımı düşünüyordum, öyle de oldu. Film, kitabın onca ekseninden sadece birinin yansıması, tek boyutlu bir maketi gibi, tam da bu yüzden sorunlu ve tartışmalı zaten. Ezcümle, filmi boşverin, kitabı okuyun diyorum ben, arz ediyorum.
Elimde olmadan filmi kitapla kıyasl��yorum ve Yorgos Lanthimos'un bu kitabı yorumlama biçimine öfkelenmeden edemiyorum. Bella Baxter'ın keşif ve özgürleşme yolculuğunu tamamen cinsellik odaklı anlatmayı seçmiş Lanthimos, yahu neden? Oysaki Gray'in kitabında cinsellik, Bella'nın kendiyle ilişkilenme ve dünyadaki derdi görme yolculuğunun olağan bir parçası sadece. Filmin bakış açısını pek feminist bulanlar buyursunlar kitabı okusunlar, zira bence kitap anlatısını çok daha feminist bir yerden ve çok daha ikna edici biçimde kuruyor.
Öncelikle kitap müthiş yaratıcı, yaratmanın ne olduğunu didikleyen bir metnin tam da böyle olması gerekir, buna bayıldım. Kurgu içinde kurgu içinde kurgu - hakikat ne, yalan ne, hepsini müthiş şekilde iç içe geçirmiş yazar. Viktoryen dönemin ahlakıyla, erken kapitalizmin iştahla beslemeye giriştiği sosyal adaletsizlikle, gelmekte olan savaşlarla epey müstehzi biçimde alay ediyor. Bir yanıyla dönemin gotik romanlarının tadını verirken, bir yanıyla da son derece modernist bir kurguyla anlatıyor derdini. Kadın/erkek, asker/sivil, zengin/yoksul - her türden eşitsizliği sıkı biçimde sorguluyor kitap, bunları anlatmak için yetişkin bedenine ham & saf bir beyni yerleştirmek ve onun şaşkınlığını kullanmak bence müthiş zekice.
Yazarın üslubu son derece akıcı, kitap bir edebî şaheser değil belki ama çok iyi yazılmış ve o kadar iyi kurgulanmış ki, aşırı bir lezzet olmasa da olur diyor insan. Filmde neyi sevmediğimi kitabı okuyunca daha iyi anlayacağımı düşünüyordum, öyle de oldu. Film, kitabın onca ekseninden sadece birinin yansıması, tek boyutlu bir maketi gibi, tam da bu yüzden sorunlu ve tartışmalı zaten. Ezcümle, filmi boşverin, kitabı okuyun diyorum ben, arz ediyorum.
December 3, 2023
Such a wonderful use of the “book within a book” trope and a scathing critique of the patriarchy and capitalism. All chronically online people critiquing the imminent Yorgos Lanthimos film for being a feminist fable directed by a man would have their heads explode if they read this. Alasdair Gray gets it in a way men rarely do, and Poor Things is a deliciously unhinged odyssey of a woman reborn that pulls no punches. Men are constantly depicted as whining, hypocritical menaces and it’s oh so satisfying. I was already immensely excited to watch the film, and reading the novel has increased my anticipation a hundred times over.
October 22, 2023
Brillante, unico, liberatorio, anarchico. E divertente!
January 31, 2024
3.5, rounded down.
This is one of those books that are so good in PARTS, you just wish it were better as a whole. The main text is fine, but then there are side diversions, footnotes and long sections dedicated to ruminations about politics that are... in a word ... boring (and largely superfluous). And then there is an afterword undercutting everything that has gone before and that tries to explain away the more fantastical elements that is the chief charm of the book (which is sort of a faux 'Bride of Frankenstein' tale).
Regardless, I mainly picked this up because Yorgos Lanthimos, the eccentric Greek director, is making a film of it starring Emma Stone, so am hopeful he can shape it into something much better as a movie than a novel.
This is one of those books that are so good in PARTS, you just wish it were better as a whole. The main text is fine, but then there are side diversions, footnotes and long sections dedicated to ruminations about politics that are... in a word ... boring (and largely superfluous). And then there is an afterword undercutting everything that has gone before and that tries to explain away the more fantastical elements that is the chief charm of the book (which is sort of a faux 'Bride of Frankenstein' tale).
Regardless, I mainly picked this up because Yorgos Lanthimos, the eccentric Greek director, is making a film of it starring Emma Stone, so am hopeful he can shape it into something much better as a movie than a novel.
October 9, 2023
Şimdiye kadar benzerini okumadığım bir kurgu ile yazılmış çok ilginç bir kitap. İskoç yazar Alisdair Gray'in kara mizah, bilimkurgu, fantastik veya gerçeküstü anlatım ile gerçeği harmanladığı bir anlatım. Yazarın da dediği gibi gerçek mi kurmaca mı siz karar verin. Gray kendini metnin editörü olarak tanıtıyor ve gerçek hayattaki arkadaşları Michael Donnelly ve Elspeth King tarafından "keşfedilmesini" anlatan bir girişle başlıyor kitabına. Birçok tarihi belgeler sunuyor kitap sonunda ancak bunlar hayali mi değil mi diye okuyucuyu adeta sınıyor.
Viktorya dönemi ahlakını hicvetmek ön planda görünse de kadın hakları, evlilik müessesi, seks ve aşk, özgürlük, gelir dağılımı eşitsizliği, ekonomik ve siyasi mücadeleler gibi birçok konuyu mizahi bir biçimde işliyor. Romanın kahramanlarından birisi 19. yüzyılın sonlarına doğru yaşamış Glasgowlu Dr Archibald McCandless, diğeri ise aşırı seks düşkünü, özgür ruhlu, Fabian sosyalisti, tuhaf bir kadın olan eşi Bella Baxter. Romanın üçüncü kahramanı ise çirkin, nazik ancak dehaya sahip bir adam olan Godwin Baxter. Zaten bunların anılarından yola çıkmış yazar. Gray kitabını içeriğiyle uygun garip çizimleriyle resimlemiş.
Alasdair Gray’in anıları olduğu iddia edilen kendi parasıyla tek cilt olarak bastırılmış eski bir ciltli kitap romanın kaynağını oluşturur, ancak bu kitap şüphelidir; bir tarihçi bunu kurgu olarak reddederken yazarın dul eşi (yani Bella Baxter) kitabın sonunda 1914 tarihli mektubuyla bunları bir dizi yalan olarak tanımlyor. Gray ise bütünüyle gerçek olduğunu savunuyor, onu düzenlediğini ancak hayatta kalan tek kopyayı kaybettiğini itiraf ediyor.
Çevirisi mükemmel, İngilizce’deki dil oyunlarını bile atlamadan aktarmış Süha Sertabiboğlu. İlginç bir okuma istiyorsanız öneririm.
Viktorya dönemi ahlakını hicvetmek ön planda görünse de kadın hakları, evlilik müessesi, seks ve aşk, özgürlük, gelir dağılımı eşitsizliği, ekonomik ve siyasi mücadeleler gibi birçok konuyu mizahi bir biçimde işliyor. Romanın kahramanlarından birisi 19. yüzyılın sonlarına doğru yaşamış Glasgowlu Dr Archibald McCandless, diğeri ise aşırı seks düşkünü, özgür ruhlu, Fabian sosyalisti, tuhaf bir kadın olan eşi Bella Baxter. Romanın üçüncü kahramanı ise çirkin, nazik ancak dehaya sahip bir adam olan Godwin Baxter. Zaten bunların anılarından yola çıkmış yazar. Gray kitabını içeriğiyle uygun garip çizimleriyle resimlemiş.
Alasdair Gray’in anıları olduğu iddia edilen kendi parasıyla tek cilt olarak bastırılmış eski bir ciltli kitap romanın kaynağını oluşturur, ancak bu kitap şüphelidir; bir tarihçi bunu kurgu olarak reddederken yazarın dul eşi (yani Bella Baxter) kitabın sonunda 1914 tarihli mektubuyla bunları bir dizi yalan olarak tanımlyor. Gray ise bütünüyle gerçek olduğunu savunuyor, onu düzenlediğini ancak hayatta kalan tek kopyayı kaybettiğini itiraf ediyor.
Çevirisi mükemmel, İngilizce’deki dil oyunlarını bile atlamadan aktarmış Süha Sertabiboğlu. İlginç bir okuma istiyorsanız öneririm.
December 17, 2023
I was very excited when hearing about this book however my excitement waned when reading it. It was definitely different in a curious way. However, I was unable to keep my full attention.
Coincidentally I already planned my next read to be Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Which will perhaps make me appreciate Poor Things more.
I'm also interested to see how this book translates on screen due to the disjointed nature of being made up of many parts/stories/perspectives.
Coincidentally I already planned my next read to be Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Which will perhaps make me appreciate Poor Things more.
I'm also interested to see how this book translates on screen due to the disjointed nature of being made up of many parts/stories/perspectives.
Read
January 19, 2024Written by 20th century Scotland's greatest author, Alasdair Gray, Poor Things is at once an homage to the gothic legacy of Victorian fiction and a pseudo-feminist satire of the genre. On its surface, Poor Things is a creature stitched together by Lolita, Flowers for Algernon, and, appropriately, Frankenstein. But there is much beneath the surface of this great Scottish novel.
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/best-modern-c...
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/best-modern-c...
February 21, 2024
"Please, remember me sometimes"
Domande, molte domande sorgono leggendo questo libro.
Se si esce dalla visione del film divertiti e ammaliati dal punto di vista onirico del regista, che evidentemente ha dato un taglio particolare al racconto oggetto della sua interpretazione, si termina la lettura del libro più turbati e titubanti.
Chi è Bella Baxter? Chi è GodWin Baxter? Chi è Archibald McCandless? Ma soprattutto aggiunge davvero sapere quale sia la versione più credibile della storia (quella di McCandless o quella di Bella Baxter) dato che di romanzo trattasi o se, mettendo tutto in discussione, l'autore non volesse dire altro?
"Come l'appendice, l'immaginazione è una eredità lasciata da un'epoca primitiva, quando contribuiva alla sopravvivenza della nostra specie, ma nelle nazioni scientifiche e industriali moderne costituisce soprattutto una fonte di malattie. Mi ero vantato di esserne privo, ma in realtà era solo addormentata"
Un libro mondo la cui lettura è proprio una esperienza destabilizzante.
"Di fronte a un'opera senza fine , l'arte di Alasdair Gray addita quanto c'è di infinito e infinibile nel nostro essere umani. Ed è una lezione non da poco."(*)
Il film è una cosa. Il libro un'altra. La combinazione di visione e lettura fa da cassa di risonanza dei molti stimoli di riflessione indotti.
"Quali sono le questioni importanti?"
"L'amore e il denaro. Cos'altro c'è?"
"La crudeltà"
Quattro stelle e mezzo.
(*) Prefazione di Enrico Terrinoni
================================
Aggiungo le mie note post visione film.
================================
Il 12 Febbraio ho visto "Povere Creature!" e, che dire, sono rimasta folgorata(!).
Diciamo che era da tempo che i miei neuroni non venivano così sollecitati dalla stimolo dell'individuazione dei temi sottotraccia.
Innanzitutto la scenografia. Gotica e surreale. I costumi di Emma Stone, Bella Baxter. Le case, le inquadrature, la scelta del colore solo da un certo punto in poi della narrazione.
E poi le citazioni. La più palese Frankenstain di Mary Godwin Shelley. God(win) il nome del medico che crea Bella, il suo Frankenstain al femminile.
E anche Anna dei Miracoli, Mercoledì Addams...
Ma che cosa insinua nella mente 'sto film?
Mia figlia ci ha visto solo i temi legati al corpo della donna, alla libertà sessuale.
Io molto molto altro. Credo si parli di Libertà in senso lato (in particolare da moralismi e infrastrutture culturali e di costume), di scelta (operata o subita), di libero arbitrio, ma anche di incoscienza e curiosità come unica misura per riuscire ad affrontare il mondo.
Di pietà per l'innocenza e per i bambini ma anche di cattiveria, gratuita e radicata in maniera ancestrale nel DNA dell'uomo.
E io? Dopo aver cercato il libro in ebook e in tutte le librerie di Parma mi sono risolta ad ordinarlo su Amazon. Dovrebbe arrivare Giovedì o Venerdì. Non vedo l'ora di vedere cosa possa aver ispirato cotanto film.
=================================
Domande, molte domande sorgono leggendo questo libro.
Se si esce dalla visione del film divertiti e ammaliati dal punto di vista onirico del regista, che evidentemente ha dato un taglio particolare al racconto oggetto della sua interpretazione, si termina la lettura del libro più turbati e titubanti.
Chi è Bella Baxter? Chi è GodWin Baxter? Chi è Archibald McCandless? Ma soprattutto aggiunge davvero sapere quale sia la versione più credibile della storia (quella di McCandless o quella di Bella Baxter) dato che di romanzo trattasi o se, mettendo tutto in discussione, l'autore non volesse dire altro?
"Come l'appendice, l'immaginazione è una eredità lasciata da un'epoca primitiva, quando contribuiva alla sopravvivenza della nostra specie, ma nelle nazioni scientifiche e industriali moderne costituisce soprattutto una fonte di malattie. Mi ero vantato di esserne privo, ma in realtà era solo addormentata"
Un libro mondo la cui lettura è proprio una esperienza destabilizzante.
"Di fronte a un'opera senza fine , l'arte di Alasdair Gray addita quanto c'è di infinito e infinibile nel nostro essere umani. Ed è una lezione non da poco."(*)
Il film è una cosa. Il libro un'altra. La combinazione di visione e lettura fa da cassa di risonanza dei molti stimoli di riflessione indotti.
"Quali sono le questioni importanti?"
"L'amore e il denaro. Cos'altro c'è?"
"La crudeltà"
Quattro stelle e mezzo.
(*) Prefazione di Enrico Terrinoni
================================
Aggiungo le mie note post visione film.
================================
Il 12 Febbraio ho visto "Povere Creature!" e, che dire, sono rimasta folgorata(!).
Diciamo che era da tempo che i miei neuroni non venivano così sollecitati dalla stimolo dell'individuazione dei temi sottotraccia.
Innanzitutto la scenografia. Gotica e surreale. I costumi di Emma Stone, Bella Baxter. Le case, le inquadrature, la scelta del colore solo da un certo punto in poi della narrazione.
E poi le citazioni. La più palese Frankenstain di Mary Godwin Shelley. God(win) il nome del medico che crea Bella, il suo Frankenstain al femminile.
E anche Anna dei Miracoli, Mercoledì Addams...
Ma che cosa insinua nella mente 'sto film?
Mia figlia ci ha visto solo i temi legati al corpo della donna, alla libertà sessuale.
Io molto molto altro. Credo si parli di Libertà in senso lato (in particolare da moralismi e infrastrutture culturali e di costume), di scelta (operata o subita), di libero arbitrio, ma anche di incoscienza e curiosità come unica misura per riuscire ad affrontare il mondo.
Di pietà per l'innocenza e per i bambini ma anche di cattiveria, gratuita e radicata in maniera ancestrale nel DNA dell'uomo.
E io? Dopo aver cercato il libro in ebook e in tutte le librerie di Parma mi sono risolta ad ordinarlo su Amazon. Dovrebbe arrivare Giovedì o Venerdì. Non vedo l'ora di vedere cosa possa aver ispirato cotanto film.
=================================
February 19, 2024
UPDATE - re: the film version. All told... it's ok; I didn't exactly dislike it... but I didn't love it either. For me, the main drawback is the screenplay. I think the adaptation is clunky. It's as though Gray's intent wasn't grasped and certain elements were simply extrapolated for a different purpose. The book is much... much... better.
--------------------------------
Much like the Beatles song of the same name, the spunky heroine of this delightful romp seemed to suddenly come in through the bathroom window. Reading of her madcap life, it was clear Bella Baxter could steal but she could not rob.
Gray's novel wafted into my life in a roundabout way. I am a big fan of Yorgos Lanthimos' film 'The Favourite' (surprising, since I more or less detested his previous films). After watching 'The Favourite' several times, I got around to thinking, 'Who wrote this delicious bonbon?' Turns out it was co-authored by Tony McNamara - who, as it turns out, also co-authored the only Disney film I'd seen (and enjoyed) in many years: 'Cruella'.
As it again turns out (there are many things turning out here), Emma Stone performed brilliantly in both films. Turning out further, Emma and Tony were both hitched to Lanthimos' next film... based on a novel by Alasdair Gray. This novel.
So I had to read the book. Emma is, of course, cast as Bella. I predict she will be hilarious in a role that is an actor's dream. It's a very funny book but, more importantly, Bella is an ingenious creation.
~ which is quite literally what she is: a 'Frankenstein'-esque creation. It's Gray's particular spin on Mary Shelley (or, more accurately, James Whale's 'Bride of Frankenstein') that makes all of the difference. For example, this isn't a grave-robbing tale - well, not exactly. But the result comes to the same. Gray seems to have had a real love of Victorian lit because he pulls from a number of different famous gothic sources in order to serve up this anarchic homage.
In overall tone, the story - with its divine wit and its infectious and often fractured wordplay - brought to mind Peter Barnes' thrilling black comedy 'The Ruling Class' (filmed memorably with Peter O'Toole in the lead). Not that Gray's work is murderous in character - it isn't. But it shares Barnes' WTF trait of suddenly veering off from where you thought you were.
Stylistically, echoing 'Rashōmon', 'Poor Things' flies off to conflicting angles and POVs a few times after the initial set-up. The reader needs to be on his / her toes. Things move from a macabre drawing room romance to something deeply epistolary and around-the-globe to, finally, a reality that pulls the rug out from under a well-earned expectation. All with illustrations! By the author!
And then there's even another segue after that. The book concludes with a 'Notes Critical and Historical' section (supposedly by the 'real' author) - but, frankly... this was the only part of the experience that felt like a strain. It felt superfluous and a bit toothless. I soon started skimming this refuting biographical wrap-up. It contributes little to (though it doesn't at all mar) the zany richness of what precedes. (The last page does put a specific button on a life.)
I don't know whether or not Gray consciously had a 'message' in all of this. He mostly seems to be having fun while making it all fun for *us*. It's mainly one of the most unique love stories I've ever encountered, sprinkled with generous portions of Feminism, Socialism and A Uniquely Haunting Beauty.
--------------------------------
Much like the Beatles song of the same name, the spunky heroine of this delightful romp seemed to suddenly come in through the bathroom window. Reading of her madcap life, it was clear Bella Baxter could steal but she could not rob.
Gray's novel wafted into my life in a roundabout way. I am a big fan of Yorgos Lanthimos' film 'The Favourite' (surprising, since I more or less detested his previous films). After watching 'The Favourite' several times, I got around to thinking, 'Who wrote this delicious bonbon?' Turns out it was co-authored by Tony McNamara - who, as it turns out, also co-authored the only Disney film I'd seen (and enjoyed) in many years: 'Cruella'.
As it again turns out (there are many things turning out here), Emma Stone performed brilliantly in both films. Turning out further, Emma and Tony were both hitched to Lanthimos' next film... based on a novel by Alasdair Gray. This novel.
So I had to read the book. Emma is, of course, cast as Bella. I predict she will be hilarious in a role that is an actor's dream. It's a very funny book but, more importantly, Bella is an ingenious creation.
~ which is quite literally what she is: a 'Frankenstein'-esque creation. It's Gray's particular spin on Mary Shelley (or, more accurately, James Whale's 'Bride of Frankenstein') that makes all of the difference. For example, this isn't a grave-robbing tale - well, not exactly. But the result comes to the same. Gray seems to have had a real love of Victorian lit because he pulls from a number of different famous gothic sources in order to serve up this anarchic homage.
In overall tone, the story - with its divine wit and its infectious and often fractured wordplay - brought to mind Peter Barnes' thrilling black comedy 'The Ruling Class' (filmed memorably with Peter O'Toole in the lead). Not that Gray's work is murderous in character - it isn't. But it shares Barnes' WTF trait of suddenly veering off from where you thought you were.
Stylistically, echoing 'Rashōmon', 'Poor Things' flies off to conflicting angles and POVs a few times after the initial set-up. The reader needs to be on his / her toes. Things move from a macabre drawing room romance to something deeply epistolary and around-the-globe to, finally, a reality that pulls the rug out from under a well-earned expectation. All with illustrations! By the author!
And then there's even another segue after that. The book concludes with a 'Notes Critical and Historical' section (supposedly by the 'real' author) - but, frankly... this was the only part of the experience that felt like a strain. It felt superfluous and a bit toothless. I soon started skimming this refuting biographical wrap-up. It contributes little to (though it doesn't at all mar) the zany richness of what precedes. (The last page does put a specific button on a life.)
I don't know whether or not Gray consciously had a 'message' in all of this. He mostly seems to be having fun while making it all fun for *us*. It's mainly one of the most unique love stories I've ever encountered, sprinkled with generous portions of Feminism, Socialism and A Uniquely Haunting Beauty.
April 15, 2024
Ogni anno centinaia di giovani donne si annegano a causa della povertà e dei pregiudizi di questa nostra società dannatamente ingiusta.
Ogni anno una donna si annega per la paura di andare controcorrente, perché si aspettava un capolavoro assoluto e non ha trovato ciò.
Perché è rimasta delusa dalle aspettative che il popolo di lettori le aveva prospettato.
Perché se da una parte abbiamo la storia di una "resurrezione" tutta al femminile, dall'altra abbiamo parole parole parole nella parte centrale del racconto che boh....ai fini in sé della storia mi hanno solo annoiata.
Si, bella l'idea, bella la rivalsa sul mondo maschile di fine '800 da parte di una donna, però ecco...non mi ha convinta.
Cioè tutti che vogliono Bella Bell Bell Bell, tutti che impazziscono per una non-morta, pure stupida direi, perché quando McCandless (candelina) se ne innamora, ha il cervello di una treenne porca miseria...
Si ok, ha tutto da imparare, sta crescendo, si sta formando, ma ci arriviamo davvero alla fine ormai e lei lì ha già sedotti tutti questi uomini. Ci facciamo un paio di domande?
Dalle poche immagini del film che si è ispirato a Povere Creature, lo stile stempunk qui non è nemmeno lontanamente presente e quindi forse, a questo giro, mi piacerà più il film?
Quindi POVERE CREATURE che siete ad aspettarvi quel super romanzo letterario che tanto declamano tutti!!!
Mi aspetterà la gogna o direttamente il rogo?
Ogni anno una donna si annega per la paura di andare controcorrente, perché si aspettava un capolavoro assoluto e non ha trovato ciò.
Perché è rimasta delusa dalle aspettative che il popolo di lettori le aveva prospettato.
Perché se da una parte abbiamo la storia di una "resurrezione" tutta al femminile, dall'altra abbiamo parole parole parole nella parte centrale del racconto che boh....ai fini in sé della storia mi hanno solo annoiata.
Si, bella l'idea, bella la rivalsa sul mondo maschile di fine '800 da parte di una donna, però ecco...non mi ha convinta.
Cioè tutti che vogliono Bella Bell Bell Bell, tutti che impazziscono per una non-morta, pure stupida direi, perché quando McCandless (candelina) se ne innamora, ha il cervello di una treenne porca miseria...
Si ok, ha tutto da imparare, sta crescendo, si sta formando, ma ci arriviamo davvero alla fine ormai e lei lì ha già sedotti tutti questi uomini. Ci facciamo un paio di domande?
Dalle poche immagini del film che si è ispirato a Povere Creature, lo stile stempunk qui non è nemmeno lontanamente presente e quindi forse, a questo giro, mi piacerà più il film?
Quindi POVERE CREATURE che siete ad aspettarvi quel super romanzo letterario che tanto declamano tutti!!!
Mi aspetterà la gogna o direttamente il rogo?
November 22, 2023
I seem to go back and forth on Alasdair Gray, but this is just fabulous – a rollicking adventure which manages to be Victorian pastiche, postmodern fantasy, socialist manifesto, feminist parable and Glaswegian apotheosis all at once.
Its central character and sometime narrator, Bella Baxter, is a kind of female Frankenstein, made from a dead woman's body combined with the brain of her unborn child. Dubbed (in one typically Grayian illustration) Bella Caledonia, she is in one sense a metaphor for Scotland, in another sense a metaphor for the Union of the Crowns (she is stitched together and speaks with an England accent), and in another sense none of those things. Her story asks how a woman would react to the world if she had not grown up in the usual way and acquired the conventional prejudices.
The answer is, first, that she would have a lot of enthusiastic sex and be baffled by everyone else's hypocrisy. The idea that women should not enjoy sex (one of Gray's characters says in a typically high-minded aside) is something that
The other thing that would happen is that she would be appalled and outraged by the world's inequalities. ‘You find the world horrifying, Bell,’ she is told by one English cynic, ‘because you have not been warped to fit it by a proper education.’ Her solution on a political level is to become a socialist, and on a personal level to become a doctor. ‘Our vast new scientific skills are first used by the damnably greedy selfish impatient parts of our nature and nation,’ her mentor warns her, ‘the careful kindly social part always comes second.’
Gray's anxious self-doubt about his own work – exacerbated here by the fact that his central character is female – finds expression in the layers of post-modern playfulness with which he buttresses the central narrative. There is an introduction from ‘Alasdair Gray’; a frame story from the Victorian doctor Archie McCandless; the first-person narrative from Bella; a letter from the ‘real’ Bella, who claims the preceding narrative is nonsense; and finally Gray's critical notes, which pick up on mistakes, plagiarisms and references and include many excellent pastiches of contemporary writers.
The result is a glorious mishmash of memorable characters and madly productive literary games, whose symbolic import and supposed truth are left entirely up in the air, and which all add up – as one character puts it – to ‘a complete tissue of facts’. It's very good fun.
Its central character and sometime narrator, Bella Baxter, is a kind of female Frankenstein, made from a dead woman's body combined with the brain of her unborn child. Dubbed (in one typically Grayian illustration) Bella Caledonia, she is in one sense a metaphor for Scotland, in another sense a metaphor for the Union of the Crowns (she is stitched together and speaks with an England accent), and in another sense none of those things. Her story asks how a woman would react to the world if she had not grown up in the usual way and acquired the conventional prejudices.
The answer is, first, that she would have a lot of enthusiastic sex and be baffled by everyone else's hypocrisy. The idea that women should not enjoy sex (one of Gray's characters says in a typically high-minded aside) is something that
was first recorded by Athenian homosexuals who thought women only existed to produce men. It was then adopted by celibate Christian priests who thought sexual delight was the origin of every sin, and women were the source of it. I do not know why the idea is now popular in Britain. Maybe an increase in the size and number of boys' boarding-schools has bred up a professional class who are strangers to female reality.
The other thing that would happen is that she would be appalled and outraged by the world's inequalities. ‘You find the world horrifying, Bell,’ she is told by one English cynic, ‘because you have not been warped to fit it by a proper education.’ Her solution on a political level is to become a socialist, and on a personal level to become a doctor. ‘Our vast new scientific skills are first used by the damnably greedy selfish impatient parts of our nature and nation,’ her mentor warns her, ‘the careful kindly social part always comes second.’
Gray's anxious self-doubt about his own work – exacerbated here by the fact that his central character is female – finds expression in the layers of post-modern playfulness with which he buttresses the central narrative. There is an introduction from ‘Alasdair Gray’; a frame story from the Victorian doctor Archie McCandless; the first-person narrative from Bella; a letter from the ‘real’ Bella, who claims the preceding narrative is nonsense; and finally Gray's critical notes, which pick up on mistakes, plagiarisms and references and include many excellent pastiches of contemporary writers.
The result is a glorious mishmash of memorable characters and madly productive literary games, whose symbolic import and supposed truth are left entirely up in the air, and which all add up – as one character puts it – to ‘a complete tissue of facts’. It's very good fun.
January 3, 2024
i am actually so angry that the film adaption of this incredible work of fiction is what it is. i cannot comprehend someone reading this and trying to turn the unreliable account of a successful woman's jealous loser husband into a story of sexual liberation and empowerment when the book itself, which presents three perspectives of equally dubious reliability, trusts the reader to come to those conclusions on their own. doing what the film did is no different from the terrible adaptations of lolita sympathetic to humbert and entirely from his perspective (but way worse because at least you could argue those only do what the book does). i implore anyone who enjoys metafiction to just read the book instead.
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