84 (of 339) pages into my second Virginie Despentes novel, and I am really beginning to fall in love with her writing. Thus far, Vernon Subutex 1 is mostly about a guy who has lost his record store and then his apartment, and is trying to deal with being homeless as he moves from one friend's apartment to the next. It reminds me a little bit of Frederick Exley's Notes From a Cold Island...a book I recently tried to re-read, but abandoned because of Exley's unrelenting misogyny and general mean-spiritedness. But to be honest...and this hurts, because despite this recent disillusionment, I've spent over forty years lionizing Exley...the truth is that Virginie Despentes is a much better writer than Exley ever was. Not only does she create characters who are clearly not limited by her own biography, but she also has a way of startling you with observations that reveal things which you immediately recognize as true. Like this: "Past the age of forty, everyone is like a bombed-out city." If you don't feel the truth of that, then you're either (1) not old enough, (2) oblivious vis-a-vis the true state of your consciousness, or (3) drunk or high.
Also, as I noted in a previous post, Virginie Despentes holds nothing back when it comes to criticizing women, whether it be with regard to their mode of robing or their sexual motivations and / or manipulations. For instance:
"This is the problem, when women start talking among themselves, they come up with conclusions that defy all reason, and let’s not pretend that, deep down, it doesn’t stem from a profound hostility toward the masculine libido."
That doesn't sound like something that would come from a Punk Rock Pro-Pornography Anti-Gender-Typical Feminist.
Or maybe it does. The women I've met who would fall into that camp all have one thing in common: serious anger...no, serious RAGE...against anyone who dares to be a heterosexual white male. And although it's easy to allow personal experience to become Truth, it's at minimum a good idea to be open to the idea that your Truth might be a skewed perception. Maybe Virginie Despentes' vision is the more realistic PRP-PA-G-TF perspective, and the Rage View is just the mindset of the fucked up people I have personally known.
Which might even explain that horrorshow of a movie (Mutantes) Despentes directed. I didn't get the impression that she was critiquing the "Mutantes" in any way, for sure...but maybe my mistake was in assuming that she was approving their perspective. After all, real writers don't mount soap boxes or the hoods of their battered automobiles...they put on their hard hats and start chiseling the rock face.
At one point in Vernon Subutex 1, Vernon reflects on a woman who had written vile messages to him on his Facebook page. He concludes that "He doesn’t hold it against her, he knows sometimes people go batshit crazy."
I wish that I could reach that point of centeredness...the ultimate of Judge Not.
Okay. Time for more novel. Just thought I'd check in.
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