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[lecafedezola]

GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER

This book is, more than twelve short stories put one after the other, a whole novel divided in five chapters, subdivided in three parts, each one connected in one way or another to the preceding or following one. I feel like this describes the book better because it is a book about coherence, finding coherence, finding adherence, and roots, to our own story, whether it’s in work, love, family life or friendship, or anything in-between. But the tour de force of this book is that it leaves you picking up pieces, and respects the complexity of the characters to not wrap them up once they’re done : they continue to exist and expand even after the chapter ends. Amma’s chapter ends with her speculating on her daughter :

she hopes she comes home after university

most of them do these days, don’t they?

they can’t afford otherwise

Yazz can stay forever

really.

But it's never told if Yazz actually comes full circle and goes back home. Leaves you wondering, keeps the characters alive and never kills their intricacy. In Yazz’s case, it ends with another beginning for her mother :

and so it begins

The Last Amazon of Dahomey

the play

I appreciated Penelope’s chapter, not so much for the character she is in herself which I found so despicable —but the goal is not to make loveable characters but relatable and realer, logically-built ones (even though I don’t think the latter is an absolute rule at all and we should rather be careful with morally wrong writing and author becoming acceptable for the sake of a good characterisation and popular style), I appreciated it for the work on characterisation : Penelope yearns to be an author and writes and sees the world as such : 

The lie was bad enough, although in years to come she came to understand their reasoning, rather, it was the cruelty in their telling of it

This is Evaristo’s incredible flexibility and realistic, observation-based creativity that transpires in this chapter. She incarnates her characters. Penelope has a way with words, for example :

her brain cells were popping like stars dying off into irretrievable oblivion

Each chapter is different style-wise. Of course she keeps the punctuation-free rhythm-orientated, free verse narration that characterises a lot of her books (the emperor’s babe is entirely written in verse).

the evarisonian portrayal

How does Evaristo build a character?

I. accumulation as a description paragraph

Penelope, on the other hand, was tall for a girl at almost five-nine, with the full natural pout and hazel eyes that sealed her reputation as a glamorous beauty at school, she wore her curly, strawberry-blonde hair in a style à la Marilyin Monroe, had  ‘a light dusting of freckles’ around her nose, and acquired an easily-won suntan in summer, considered très chic because it gave her a St Tropez glow 

à la jet set

II. gives away names and references

quickly scrolling down the reading list for her ‘gender, race and class’ module on her phone, what about Kwame Anthony… Aimé Césaire, Angela Davis, Simone de Beauvoire… Cornel West and the rest?

III. adapts her style to fit the character’s way of thinking, their state of minds.

The rhythm adapts to Shirley’s, we imagine, strict, passive-aggressive, tense tone voice after being interrupted by a younger female teacher she thinks is going to replace her and is her rival : 

now 

as

I

was

saying

She does so without abandoning her own political statement, that she knows how to make catchy. Indeed, sometimes we depart from the character’s very stream of consciousness and own inner thoughts as the backbone of the text to small hints here and there yet visible through the punctuation or the rhythm flow of the sentence : 

she and other young women, bonded by motherhood and little else, exchanged advice on how to manage their children, husbands and cook the latest must-have new dishes

Penelope later gets introduced to the Feminine Mystique and reads it often.

The scattered, one-word-per-line writing matches Penelope’s hazzy state of mind after being revealed a family secret. This is not Evaristo’s invention, but she mastered it :

there was no paper trail

she was a foundling

anonymous

unidentified

mysterious

putting art at the centre

The common thread of the book is most probably the first character introduced, Amma, and her play, “the last Amazon of Dahomey”, which ends the book too. While you read, you get to know a lot of different characters (12) who, depending on the chapters, are either blood-related (Amma, Yazz), friends (Amma, Dominique), were teacher-pupils (Carole and LaTisha with Shirly, or Mrs King), but it’s not excluded you see a unexpected but familiar chapter one name pop out, almost out of the blue, in the third chapter. But Evaristo leaves nothing to chance : even though her free verse writing and free-flowing storytelling can discourage some, or lose others in this warren-like narrative scheme (countless names and character developments, or rather details-deepenings, going from one period of time to another, going from the grandchildren to the children to the mother of a 90-something farm-owner with a big family), there’s a beginning and an ending, something to wrap the whole thing : Amma’s play. I loved that Evaristo put the play as the common thread, the linear goal of all these stories. In the last chapter, we see lots of the characters interacting at the opening night after-party, analysing and debating over the play, without ever giving one easy answer that’d stand as the truth. Each character, whether you agree with their opinion or not, adds something to the whole picture. But the wrapping ending is also one of many messages of the book i.e finding your true family, your true self, your people. 

I’ve seen critiques saying that this book is “exuberant” “sexy” and “bold” and I agree, but I think I would add that this book is also genuine and cherished. It may be a pretty bland thing to say about a piece of work, but I haven't exactly felt this level of passion and attention in an author before. But it is because Evaristo writes logically-built, coherent, realistic characters whom she seems to care for deeply and by doing so, she achieves the ultimate goal for an author : to put your reader in your characters’ shoes, even when they do and say things you’d hate, or simply when you don’t agree with them. Her complex character’s building and intricate storytelling are more than enough to make every single character interesting and outstanding, and to take something out of their stories for you to carry with you. Because another thing about girl, woman, other is that it’s generous : it gives you art, queer experience and healthy and unhealthy lesbian love, details, black womanhood and black identity, poetry, humour and literary experience, so much so that you’ll never want to drop the book, and you’ll be left with an overwhelming, fuzzy feeling once you’re done. And before you know it, you’re back at it re-reading your favourite characters’ life stories!

the sixteenth of august twenty twenty-two

[lecafedezola]

ILLUSIONS PERDUES

Un film d’une rafraîchissante et étonnante attache, il nous emporte et nous engouffre dans les travers et les débauches de personnages singuliers, nous transporte d’une Charente fleurs-des-champs, familière et étouffante, à ses récitations molles d’après-messe, au tout-Paris, à l’assourdissant tapage de ses publicitaires, journalistes, critiques, artistes et vendus, aux provinciaux fiers d’être libéraux et vendus, et aux provinciaux honteux de faire la cour aux monarchistes ; dans ce portrait riche et fourré de détails, de beautés dans le geste et l’image, au narrateur à peine subtilement emprunté à Balzac, l’on plonge dans son roman, et l’on voyage de tableaux en tableaux, des jardins aux confidences aux appartements de jeunes nouveaux-riches qui font l’erreur de se pavaner, des salles de bals dorées de noblesse aux théâtres classiques, des rédactions fumeuses et singeuses aux champs de marguerites, l’on traverse avec Lucien, chante avec lui, déplore et, c’est vrai, parfois, devine, au fil des mots de Dolan, ses malheurs, ses intrigues, ses coups bas, ses aventures risquées et, enfin, ses illusions. Car Lucien est un personnage digne d’un anti-héros héroïque, du provincial qui rêvait à mieux, étouffé dans ses champs et entre les quatre lignes de la gazette régionale, il voulait vivre sa flamme à Paris et avait choisi de s’éteindre à Paris, car là-bas était l’intrigue la plus folle, celle qui méritait d’être vécue —les jeux de magouilles et d’argent, de réputation et de critique malhonnêtes, des libéraux chez qui résidait la vraie liberté de la presse et qui avait compris où naissait le nouveau monde, toutes ces affaires qu’il avait d’abord naïvement pris pour l’amour de la littérature.

En somme, un film que l’on essaye et dont on ne se détache plus tant il s’accroche à nous dès les premières scènes et nous suit partout, dans son humour satirique et franc, ses acteurs extraordinaires aux répliques et scènes de ping-pongs virtuoses (cf. Dolan, Lacoste et Depardieu), sa lumière sublime et son ton très moderne et vif sur cette époque napoléonienne qui nous semblera toujours un peu plus familière que l’on n’aurait d’abord pensé.

vingt-deux avril deux mille vingt-deux

[lecafedezola]

NOT OKAY

#IamNotOkay —this is the catchphrase of the stunning, fresh new Shephard Quinn satirical movie, starring an incredible Zoey Deutch, a Mia Isaac whose performance doesn’t feel like a performance, but a very real, raw feeling, like the breath-holding “spoken words'' speeches she delivers, and a Dylan O’Brien who mastered the laid-back prick, and who we love to see again and again. The trend of criticising and blaming social media for any and everything has been going on ever since social media have been going on, so it’s not that much of a surprise that the news of a new movie about this very subject announced it, with the exclusivity on the growing platform HuLu. Yet this is not your typical modern-day satirical fairy tale, with the “be yourself, don’t lie for attention, and live in the real, IRL, 3D life” morale-incorporated happy-ending, teens have been getting since 2010s. Here, we get real anti-heroes (Colin, who dumps girls after fucking them raw in the fancy restrooms of some private clubs, Danni, manipulative, unapolegetic, two-faced perpetual liar who we can’t quite pinpoint if she’s truly okay or #notokay) and Shephard excels at writing this truly detestable, cunning, narcissistic, egoistic yet irrationally universal weirdo who doesn’t have any friends, looks over real struggle and pain for attention, was born into wealth class and race privileges and is doing all of this for a guy. I insist on the “anti-hero” aspect of Danni as a female character, and would not describe her as a female villain —because it goes beyond that simple dichotomy, and that I genuinely believe that we need more unredeemable female characters without weaponizing them and villainizing them just because they’re women (just like we get anti-hero male characters and their masculinity/gender identity is never an argument of their villainification). It’s honestly such a fresh movie about minority voices whereas it’s queer and LGBTQAI+ characters, the importance of talking about survivors and their own struggle, and young Black girls, feminist values in a real world with real, flawed characters : Shephard allows her character to be flawed and unredeemable and this is feminism also because it’s not naive and her feminity is not weaponised. Though the ending left me wanting more —leaving me with the need for more of the monster, more of the ever-going cruelty of the character we hate loving and relating to of the watcher's guilty craving, I can honestly assure you that you’ll experience something you may not have experienced often. Not to mention the visual effort to make this work pretty to look at (whose movie poster, I find, feels off and as if unrelated to the overall artistically on-touch influencer-moodboard aesthetic and softly eccentric character of the movie and its main protagonist and her milieu). The mix of neatly designed costumes and props and settings and the time bomb-structure of the movie is an attractive combination : you’ll never really get this gut-wrenching, ‘when is it going down’ feeling out of you until the third half of the movie and you’ll never find yourself lost among the fast-paced narrative thanks to the sequenced and titled subparts.

the paris effect & the emily in paris satire

I could spend hours writing about the Paris effect (meaning, the high expectations and excitement foreigners have upon the prospect of going to Paris, seeing the Eiffel tower, going to Le Louvre, eating a baguette and simping a cup of espresso with a croissant at the terrace of a cute little café by the Seine, watching beautifully styled people —if this gave you an orgasm, you suffer from the Paris effect, but don’t worry as it also works on French people, romanticisation of places and cities can work wonders sometimes) and its evil twin, the Paris syndrome, or in Japanese パリ症候群 as it seems to be a Japanese people thing, which is the extreme sense of disappointment when visiting the city which will never be what you expected, and is in fact quite a dirty and overly priced place (to be fair to Japanese people, I think French people suffer from a Tokyo overhype, too). This duality of Paris in cultural products, because this romanticisation that is responsible for the, it appears, inevitable disappointment that the city offers is ultimately imagined, constructed and perpetuated by Hollywood movies like Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen movies or any movies with these parisian apartments that display the Eiffel tower on all its window, but also French movies like Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, binge-watchable platform shows like Emily in Paris (the ultimate guide to the numb and dumb romanticisation of Paris, a common point with NOT OKAY is featuring influencers), aesthetic, unrealistic Pinterest moodboards and Instagram posts that must include haussamien buildings streets, baguettes, croissants and cup of coffees, glasses of rosé, gold, beige and soft pink tones, the Eiffel tower or le Sacré coeur melting in front of photoshopped sunsets, and these keywords : #paris #parisfashion #eiffeltower #parisvibes #parismonamour #parisianstyle #parisjetaime #montmartre #emiliyinparis. We understand that Quinn wanted to mock these products by showing ultra-American characters like Colin finally listening when it comes to Paris, Paris the ultimate glamorous city of love, art and all your life’s opportunities, and addressing the romanticisation of a city that already suffered from at least two terrorist attacks in the last 10 years. We won’t miss either the satire towards Emily in the “now, where is my baguette?” scene, a clear reference to the pain au chocolat scene.

All in all, NOT OKAY depicts in a very smart, yet not always subtle (but the point of this movie doesn’t seem to be to be subtle) way the glamorisation of the city of love, that is also the city of terrorist attacks and tourist disappointment, using Emily in Paris, and all that the Netflix show represents, as a widely-known, cultural reference point for its satire.

the ninth of august twenty twenty-two