Maraboutée

To continue the queue of songs I’ll queue “Pictures of You” by The Cure. I don’t know why but when I finished the book and started reading other blogs (Sydney and Sofia’s), the first song I thought of was that and I imagined the narrator driving off in a red convertible after she finally gets rid of all his pictures and all that reminds her of him.

I should start by saying that while reading I thought the emotions the narrator went through were some of what I have definitely experienced. I mean of course I have. I don’t think these emotions were excessive at all. Feelings of jealousy, obsession and desperation that lead to your body and mind being in their possession. Your life revolves around this dilemma that has been created.

But beyond that, I want to touch on a recurring theme which is the fear that the narrator experiences and I think is what consumes her. That it is not love but her fear of being alone, fear of not being chosen and being left out which has become her new reality after W left for the other woman. She gets stuck in this never-ending cycle where she lets herself be consumed by this jealousy in other words “possessed” and to a certain point what calmed her down was his thought at the end of the day. The brain works in funny ways. As I was reading, I was thinking of how our brain makes the most meaningless connections sometimes to get us to think of something or someone, like anything reminding her of him. She also sticks to memories of him and is scared to let go because they are the only thing that still connects them. What I find very interesting, and I observed is that she loves how he makes her feel and his presence in her life, and not him as a person. I may be mistaken, but the whole time she talks about how he makes her feel and not what he has that is good or what makes him a good partner or how well he treated her. It also comes from the feeling of “look at what he does for the other woman” and wishing that she had that with him which goes back to their relationship being one of pleasure not one of true love necessarily (or at least based on what we are told from her perspective). Closer to the end she mentions that she is even confused about whether she really wants him to come back and whether that is the end goal of her obsession where she finally starts to realize that maybe this is just something to keep her busy and occupied. We also see her reflecting on herself and wondering what does the other woman have that makes him stay with her? as in was I not enough for him? But I was happy that she finally realizes how exhausting the jealousy game is and she gives up.

Something else I was thinking about is how I could fully understand what she was going through and was thinking whether I would feel the same way if a man wrote the novel? Would I feel any different? Or if the narrator was a man? Would I have this much empathy for the narrator or would I judge them differently?

My question to you is whether you think who writes a novel has anything to do with how relatable it will be for the reader (Using this novel as an example)? To clarify, if a woman writes about a woman’s experience does it make that more relatable or closer to reality compared to if a man wrote that story or is it more about the quality of writing and not gender based?

Okay going back to the idea of fear or love. For our narrator I think it was the pleasure of being possessed by the obsessive thoughts of what you may refer to as “love,” but in reality it’s fear; fear of the truth that one is not ready to face, fear of change, fear of letting go, fear of loving yourself by yourself and not seeking that love/attention from someone else, fear of someone else enjoying what you once had the pleasure to enjoy, fear of being the second choice, fear of being alone, fear of not being someone’s choice. These are things that I am sure all of us have at least thought about, if not experienced. Is this about womanhood? Or is this just about being human? I think it is about being human, but I am not sure. However, I do think that this was very well articulated and communicated through this novel because the writer is a woman and the narrator is the creation of a woman’s mind. Maybe yes, maybe not, but I am looking forward to hearing your take on this.

What I also found interesting is the realization at the end where she realized that as she was going through all of this in the past six months, the other woman was going about her life, laughing, talking, enjoying W’s company while she was left in her possessive obsession that was the cause of her suffering. That is what obsession is. It takes over you, it consumes you and it becomes what everything gets defined by in your life for that period of time. I read somewhere that obsession comes from a lack within, and I never fully understood that, but now I think obsession is a lack of something. I need to give it more thought as to what that “something” exactly is, but I will leave you with that for now.

Thanks for reading my overly long blog.