just finished reading ‘this immaculate body’ (american version ‘creep’) by emma van straaten and let’s gooo another good one from my favorite genre “unhinged women” ♥︎
An unsettling portrait of loneliness, obsession, and identity which asks: if a stranger was left alone in your house, how well could they truly get to know you--enough to fall in love with you?
Alice and Tom are made for each other. Deeply connected, they share a flat in London, go to galleries together, enjoy the same books and wine. They even share a toothbrush. It's all picture perfect.
Except Alice and Tom have never met.
Alice has been cleaning Tom's apartment every Wednesday for a year. With every smudge wiped from his coffee cup, every multivitamin counted in the jar, Alice spirals deeper into infatuation, imagining a love so powerful it might erase a lifetime of self-hatred and loneliness.
But as Alice prepares for the moment when she and Tom will finally meet face-to-face, she discovers that love might not be the cure she thought it was. Instead, their coming together sets off a chain of events that shatters everything Alice thought she knew and burns her world to the ground.
Told in Alice's compelling, deliciously acidic voice, Creep is a literary study of unreliability and unlikability. Exploring alienation and loneliness, class and race, it's a skilled debut with resonance in the way that we view women, mental health, and the lost in society.
Two books recently finished and two books currently reading.
Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig / This Immaculate Body by Emma van Straaten
Stoner by John Williams / The Iliad by Homer (translated by Caroline Alexander)
Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig explores the pitfalls of pity, whether for another person or oneself, the weight of guilt, shame in deception when unable to fulfill expectations. I think in some way, it also explores man's duty, especially in the context of women or people they are responsible for. The main character, a young man, has three significant conversations with older men who influence the course of his life. The three are virtuous and self-sacrificial and attempt to sway him to the same path. Zweig is an okay storyteller. I found myself laboring through some pages only to be hit by profound, well-crafted words that it was enough for me to keep going and to want to read more from him.
This Immaculate Body by Emma van Straaten. This book. My god, this book. The American title is Creep: A Love Story, which is very apropos. About a self-isolating woman who could not overcome her shame and instead goes through life with hidden vitriol for those around her. She becomes a house-cleaner for a man she is obsessed with. Obsessed to the point that all the men that appear in her life, she gives the same name because there is only one "He." And the things she fantasizes about and does in his apartment had me cringing from second-hand embarrassment for most of the book. I read somewhere else the words, "there is narcissism in self-hatred" and she is the embodiment of that. A mix of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, The Bell Jar, and maybe Fleabag? Poor self-image, unhealthy attachment, mommy issues, unaddressed trauma.
Stoner by John Williams. I am enjoying? Not sure if enjoying is the right word, maybe appreciating it so far. The son of farmers attends university to learn agriculture, but falls in love with English literature. Like his parents, he only considered the practicalities of life, but when he was challenged by a Shakespeare sonnet, he changes the direction of his entire future.
The Iliad, Caroline Alexander translation. I've been meaning to read this for the longest time and I'm determined to finish it this time around.
They all actually have some parallels. Beware of Pity and This Immaculate Body explore love and pity from both sides. Stoner and The Iliad explore purpose from what I've read so far. Stoner was initially just going to live a normal life, taking over his family's farm, not concerned with getting any more meaning out of life. Achilles, a warrior on his way to earning immortal glory, but grappling with the meaning of war and whether it would be better if he were to live and die in obscurity.
A very happy publication day to my fellow Disco writer, the wonderful Emma van Straaten! This Immaculate Body is available now in a bookstore near you.
