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Nov. 11th, 2024 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deemoyzaI recently read Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente. It's a short read, only about a hundred pages, but I found it gripping. Valente's prose is lean but lyrical, effortlessly sliding from sweet to sour as Sophia discovers the cracks in the façade of her seemingly perfect life. From the size of her house to the neighbors' fear that Sophia misinterprets as reverence to the unusual hostess gifts she presents to a trio of women who invited her to tea, the slow-dawning realization that something is very Not Right in Sophia's world drives the story. The beats are familiar enough, as are the symbols, but the presentation is where this story shines. It is, in a spoilery nutshell, Bluebeard meets Genesis in a master-planned community.
Now, smarter readers than I might have put the pieces together by the time of the tea party scene, given the characters' names, but I am a bit slower and was just along for the ride, letting each little revelation hit me with its full weight. And the weight of Sophia's husband's casual, even flippant, cruelty hit me with the force of a train. It wasn't unexpected, it was just very ugly: the dismissiveness, the constant shift of responsibility, all of those things we have come to know and (sadly) expect from the worst kinds of people.
So, as the reader can probably guess, Sophia's husband is Adam. As in, that Adam, and Arcadia Gardens is Eden. And Adam behaves exactly as you would expect the most "special" of God's creations to: translated into a modern setting, he is a spoiled man who has never had to take accountability for anything, and constantly finds ways to make his shortcomings his wives' fault. He is the blueprint for the beloved celebrity, the billionaire, the billionaire's son -- et cetera, et cetera, over and over -- those we see today who gleefully harm the vulnerable and never face punishment for it. It is infuriating to read, and then heartbreaking, when Sophia asks the question that so many of us have wondered about forever:
Why, indeed. Why? Indeed.
This story is painful but all too familiar, laying bare the entitlement some men feel toward their own happiness and women's bodies, the rewards they expect simply for existing, and implying that, according to the stories some of us have inherited (stories on which governments are currently being -- and shortly will be -- run), it has been there since the dawn of humanity, since the dawn of time.
What are we to do, then? It might feel hopeless, but I believe there is value in bearing witness to Sophia's story, value in learning to recognize the warnings and the clues left behind by women like her, so that someday, maybe, we can break free of these cycles of abuse and control, one individual at a time.
There is hope in the name of the next wife, for we know that she will destroy this perfect prison. She may not get far afterward, depending on whose stories one believes, but she will make that crucial first break. Progress, however incremental, still is.
Given the subject, it feels strange to say that I "enjoyed" this book, but I did. I thought Valente's mashup of legends and modern settings was brilliant, and infused the story with urgent relevancy. I loved the slow-dawning horror, I loved putting the pieces together, I loved the snippets of HOA contract that got stranger and stranger until they culminated in a God-given edict. Despite the fear and fury this incited in me, or maybe because of it -- I cannot deny that rush of hope and vindication I felt watching Sophia piece together the answer, even knowing her fate -- this quickly became one of my favorite stories.
Now, smarter readers than I might have put the pieces together by the time of the tea party scene, given the characters' names, but I am a bit slower and was just along for the ride, letting each little revelation hit me with its full weight. And the weight of Sophia's husband's casual, even flippant, cruelty hit me with the force of a train. It wasn't unexpected, it was just very ugly: the dismissiveness, the constant shift of responsibility, all of those things we have come to know and (sadly) expect from the worst kinds of people.
So, as the reader can probably guess, Sophia's husband is Adam. As in, that Adam, and Arcadia Gardens is Eden. And Adam behaves exactly as you would expect the most "special" of God's creations to: translated into a modern setting, he is a spoiled man who has never had to take accountability for anything, and constantly finds ways to make his shortcomings his wives' fault. He is the blueprint for the beloved celebrity, the billionaire, the billionaire's son -- et cetera, et cetera, over and over -- those we see today who gleefully harm the vulnerable and never face punishment for it. It is infuriating to read, and then heartbreaking, when Sophia asks the question that so many of us have wondered about forever:
"Your Father is my Father too. He made me too."
"So what?"
"Why..." Sophia raises her eyes to the ceiling, searching for a divinity that is not there, not for her. Her eyes fill up with hopelessness. She asks a question older than day and night. "Why doesn't He love me like He loves you?" Tears fall down her perfect face. "Why does He let you do this? Why won't He tell you to stop?"
Why, indeed. Why? Indeed.
This story is painful but all too familiar, laying bare the entitlement some men feel toward their own happiness and women's bodies, the rewards they expect simply for existing, and implying that, according to the stories some of us have inherited (stories on which governments are currently being -- and shortly will be -- run), it has been there since the dawn of humanity, since the dawn of time.
What are we to do, then? It might feel hopeless, but I believe there is value in bearing witness to Sophia's story, value in learning to recognize the warnings and the clues left behind by women like her, so that someday, maybe, we can break free of these cycles of abuse and control, one individual at a time.
There is hope in the name of the next wife, for we know that she will destroy this perfect prison. She may not get far afterward, depending on whose stories one believes, but she will make that crucial first break. Progress, however incremental, still is.
Given the subject, it feels strange to say that I "enjoyed" this book, but I did. I thought Valente's mashup of legends and modern settings was brilliant, and infused the story with urgent relevancy. I loved the slow-dawning horror, I loved putting the pieces together, I loved the snippets of HOA contract that got stranger and stranger until they culminated in a God-given edict. Despite the fear and fury this incited in me, or maybe because of it -- I cannot deny that rush of hope and vindication I felt watching Sophia piece together the answer, even knowing her fate -- this quickly became one of my favorite stories.
