More Joy, Less Misery
Interesting article on the Guardian today. My friend and fellow Aber Scott posted the longlist for the Orange Prize for Fiction yesterday. I’m chagrined to admit I haven’t read any of them yet (though The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver is on my shelf waiting patiently for me to pick it up). But one of the judges, Daisy Goodwin, has made a plea to authors – please more joy, less misery. Goodwin asserts that while it should have been a treat to read the more than 129 novels submitted to this year’s contest, the unhappy, despairing subject matter seemed so prevalent that occasionally the task bogged her down in misery and sorrow.
“There are a lot of books that start with a rape. Pleasure seems to have become a rather neglected element in publishing.”
I think that’s interesting, and I have to say it’s a phenomenon I’ve remarked upon myself, occasionally. Not as a judge of anything, just as a plain ol’ reader and person trying to get through life with some intact sense of joy. I remember how many people recommended Ann-Marie MacDonald’s epic tome of incest, deception and horrific abuse, Fall On Your Knees to me. That book made me want to cut my wrists.
You know who I blame? Oprah. Seriously. She is arguably the most powerful face/name in media, especially when it comes to reading influence, thanks to her book club, and I genuinely feel like she equates horror and anguish with quality and substance. And lady, this is not always the case. Take Push by Sapphire, for example. Granted, I have not read the book, so I come in ignorant on that front, but I did see the movie, and had to crack up when, after I saw it, I read how many critics were applauding it for its “message of hope and redemption” and its “powerful optimistic ending”.
They must have watched a different movie, or maybe had rose-coloured 3D glasses, because good GOD that movie was a cesspool of torture. ****WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD, IF YOU CARE ABOUT NOT KNOWING WHAT HAPPENS, STOP READING NOW***
The main character is hyper-obese, sixteen years old and illiterate, living in abject poverty with her hateful, chain-smoking, poisonous mother, who not only abuses her physically, verbally and emotionally (to extremes), but also sexually, as we find out later. She already has one child – developmentally disabled, and named “Mongo” – by her father, who raped her, and is expecting a second. Partway through the film, there does seem to be a brief glimmer of positivity, when Precious is transferred to an alternative school, and begins to open up a little. And then her mother attacks her and the new baby. And then she finds out her father has also given her not only two children, but AIDS.
Yes, the acting was spot-on superb. But for the love of God, do we really need that much relentless, heart-stabbing pain and ugliness jammed into one story? And Oprah was all about that project.
I understand the appeal in a protagonist triumphing over adversity – struggling, fighting, and making it to the top against the odds. But these days, it often feels like the stories we’re reading for pleasure, in our own limited, all-too-brief spare time, are 90% odds and struggle, and only 10% triumph and redemption.
I’m with Daisy Goodwin – can we shift the focus, and spend a little more time on beauty, joy and goodness?
