On animal cruelty, getting roofied and losing one’s convictions (Part 2).

Dear God is it October already?

Why?

Why?

I’m back, millions of my followers, so stop worrying, sending me tons of messages and please, please call back the hounds. They scratch my front door and annoy the hell out of me.

I want to finish the romance novel commentary, this time on the book Untamed, by Nora Roberts. It is by far, one of the (if not THE) worst books I have ever read. And to that list I include the ‘’books’’ I tried to write as a teenager, so the bar is pretty high.*

I’m reposting the plot, just in case anyone missed it.

 

Plot: Jo Wilder had the heart of a lion and the temper of a wildcat. And when Keane Prescott crossed her path, she bared her claws (we get it, she is a fierce feline woman). Jo was certain her charming new boss imperiled everything she cared for, but she couldn't deny the attraction between them. Though Keane's kisses left her breathless, it was his tenderness that threatened to tame her heart (cause, you know, she is Untamed).

The book was written in the 80’s and takes place in a traveling circus. Not a Cirque de Soleil, cute acrobat circus. No. It is a full on, animal show circus, along with a couple of acrobats. 

Cringe. It gets worse.

Jo (whose real fucking name is Jovilette, if you can believe it) is a lion tamer**. She grew up in the circus and inherited her talent from her father, also a lion torturer tamer. Both her parents are dead, of course. She is a 20something beauty,*** who has time to read truckloads of books,**** tame (sorry, torture train) her lions, do her routine, participate as an acrobat and be funny and apparently amazing.

The book opens with the news that the son of the recently deceased owner, a father figure to them all, will come to inspect his property. He is a high profile, young, successful Chicago lawyer and everyone in the circus is unsure about their future. Jo swears her hatred towards that unknown man. While putting up the main tent for their show, Jo, atop an elephant, spots a handsome man in the crowd. She talks to him, gives him a ride with her elephant, they flirt.

DUN DUN DUUUUUN It turns out he is the new owner. 

I will not bore you with the flirting details, because, honestly, who cares. They have chemistry, she hates him, or at least tries to stay honest with her hate commitments, he is charming and ooooh so very, very painfully male and he sticks around while trying to decide whether he’ll keep the circus or not. 

I swear to you, the most compelling character was some dude who is a clown, has a heart of gold and speaks a total of four times.

While Keanan lurks around at the circus, he bonds and aggressively flirts with Jo. He crosses the line of sexual harassment so many times, it’s not even funny. The line is a dot to him midway through the book. At some point Jo (the untamed, brave one) thinks to herself something along the lines of: oh well, what can I do with his advances, I don’t think I can resist, he is my boss after all.

The peak of his rapey vibe comes when one of the lions dies of old age, or of just giving up on life.****** Jo is distraught and something goes wrong during her torture training session. She gets attacked by one of her lions, who apparently had it with her. She gets a few cuts, described, very confusingly, shallow and deep at the same time, and she is in shock etc. Keanan takes her to her caravan, to tend for her, where she soon falls asleep. She wakes up, in her bed and wearing her jammies. When she asks him what happened and why she had no recollection of her falling asleep he blurts out THAT HE PUT A SLEEPING PILL IN HER DRINK. 

HE FUCKING ROOFIED HER. 

He drugged her, got her naked and put her to sleep, like a creep. How can I NOT imagine that he raped her as well? Or maybe he stared at her while feverishly masturbating.

She asked, why didn’t he ask for her permission and he replies something along the lines of: You wouldn’t have agreed.

OF COURSE SHE WOULDN’T, YOU FUCKING CREEP.

She meekly accepts that and goes on loving him, while at the same time being in conflict with herself, since her life is freedom and the circus and she wouldn’t change it for the world. She really stresses that point when he decides to go back to his normal life.

IF the book ended there, it would have been the 80s roofie fantasy we all needed and craved for, where the woman remains intact as a person, and goes on with her life, taming (sorry, torturing training) her lions*******.

BUT NO.

The book ends with her finding him at his extremely 80’s home (that even has a white fur rug), and asking him to allow her to become his mistress. She is willing to leave her life at the circus that she so much loves and swore would never abandon. 

He be like, ok.

The (outrageous) end.

I acknowledge that the book was written in the olden days, but, COME ON. The sexism, the cringe, the roofie, all of it…

A plus was the fact that she researched circus life and it was depicted fairly well.

But, COME ON. I would be inclined to forget all the above had she stayed true to her beliefs and need of freedom. But no, she had to chase the man and become his mistress (not even his wife, mistress, although he was not married).

Why?

Why?

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*I shit you not, they were a take on Charmed, with 5 sisters who discovered their magic powers. I wrote I think 2 and a half books before I realized that is was extremely shit. I have kept all of it, in its handwritten glory, and I intent to post some (translated to English) parts.

** She claims lion torturer trainer, which makes things soooooo much better, I guess.

***I was expecting big, curly hair, given the period it was written, but I was pleasantly 

surprised when I read that Jo had straight hair, escaping the norm. That was the only pleasant surprise in the book. There were many unpleasant ones.

 **** She speaks like, five languages, so she tries to read books in the original language they were written.

****** Did I mention that the lions come from Africa, born free and then captured, only to spend a lifetime in the circus. COME ON Roberts! Make them at least born in captivity, to ease the fucking blow. Every time the lions were mentioned, I cringed so hard, I thought my face would freeze like that.

******* Which, by the way, refers to as ‘cats’. Serves her right for these shallow and deep cuts.

 

On summer, romance and animal cruelty (Part 1)

It’s summer. Rejoice. I cannot fucking wait for my vacation. I think that my last day to work, before vacation, a gin&tonic will magically appear on my hand the minute I step out of the office, my chair spinning behind me.

In view of this and of my need to escape, I have started a book club with my friend AnnaMaria. I would like to note that we are both intellectual women, keen on reading books, going to art galleries, theaters and talking about history while terribly, irresponsibly drunk. And we try (we really do try) to be classy. 

However, we are weak.

Allow me to explain. We always talk about books together, suggesting and discussing authors, themes and plots. It is an important part of our friendship and we decided to enrich it by starting the book club. It’s worth noting that the past 6 months haven’t been kind on our lives so we needed to blow off some steam and relax.

One would suggest Austen, Dickens, maybe some Sedaris or even Pratchett.

No. 

We went the highway. 

We chose a romance novel. And I am not talking romance like Romeo & Juliet or romance like Catherine and Heathcliff. I’m talking about romance like she-is-a-25-year-old-ex-model-with-a-son-and-reluctantly-falls-in-love-with-her-tenant novel (literally the plot of one of the two novels (YES, TWO) that we are reading. We have no shame and we love it, seeing the ridiculousness, sexism and clichés and we cherish every cringe.

Here is my very biased commentary on the books, written by Nora Roberts, a best-selling titan of the industry.

Book no. 1 The Best Mistake, written in the 90s. 

Plot: Ex-model Zoe Fleming is now a hardworking single mom—and she wouldn't have it any other way. Though she would like a tenant to share household expenses. What she gets is confirmed bachelor J. Cooper McKinnon. Coop quickly befriends her son and in no time has the reluctant Zoe charmed, too. But she has zero room in her life for a man! Either this was a recipe for disaster or the best mistake she's ever made.

Let me start off by saying there are literally no mistakes made in this book. Except maybe when the 4 year old son uses a word wrong.

While reading this I had the feeling that I kept reading the script for a cheesy made-for-TV 90s film. Both protagonists are the quintessential 90s male and female archetypes. She is tall, thin, a Kate Moss meet Claudia Schiffer ex model who is charmingly messy, listens to rock music (I bet its Bon Jovi)*, owns her house, raises a boy against all odds, works 2 jobs and reads books about everything (even books about drafting tenant contracts I shit you not). The man is tall, athletic, a bit rugged looking, 10 years her senior, a sworn bachelor, basically a tall Tom Cruise. He hates commitment, loves order, doesn’t like children and only wants to relax, drink beer and write about sports.

 

What could possibly go wrong?

What follows in the next pages is the clichest of all clichés. The Tom Cruise look-alike befriends the little boy, takes him to a baseball match, and teaches him how to throw (because his mother throws ‘like a girl’ as he said, great) and reluctantly starts loving the little guy. The fact that Zoe is jaw-droppingly hot helps a lot to fall for her. She is not just easy on the eyes, she has endless perfect legs that  our hero never misses a chance to drool over. He stalks her at her sexy workplace (the unsexy one is a florist shop - the sexy one is a late hour’s bar where she serves drinks dressed, well, like a teenager’s wet dream) to criticize her about the clothes she wears and basically be a creep. And then, realistically, she tells him she is in love with him. Come on, this is the stuff of life, it has happened to all of us to fall for the handsome but asshole tenant, no? They have casual sex (mind-blowing first time sex, that, again, has happened to all of us no?***) yet neither can go against their feelings.

And now, for the most 90s plot twist ever: 

When they decide to have the Talk, Zoe insists that he won’t be able to accept her as a mother and embrace his son (which is the only part of the book that makes sense, RUN ZOE RUN!), while he agrees since he is a hardcore Man who only wishes to watch sports and have his life in order. If the book ended here it would have been the 90s empowering masterpiece we all needed.

But sadly, it goes on. Tom Cruise realizes that he will lose the girl he apparently madly loves, he throws her a home date that her son helped put together (cue in the candles and many many flowers) and the neighbors brought the food. Touched by his putting-together skills, she decides to spend the rest of her lives together. The book end by her calling him ‘daddy’. Since I read it on a translation, I cannot be sure 100% for the use of the d word, but based on the book, I’m pretty sure it was ‘daddy’.

Shivers. 

Down my spine. 

If you fast forward to a few years, the marriage ends in bitter divorce full of bickering, shouting and regret.

Coming up: my comments on the second book. Spoilers below.

Book no. 2 Untamed

Plot: Jo Wilder had the heart of a lion and the temper of a wildcat. And when Keane Prescott crossed her path, she bared her claws. Jo was certain her charming new boss imperiled everything she cared for, but she couldn't deny the attraction between them. Though Keane's kisses left her breathless, it was his tenderness that threatened to tame her heart.

The plot lines don’t give it away so I’m just gonna say it.

She is a lion tamer in a circus. 

There, I said it. I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

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*Whom I ADORE by the way, he was one of my sexual awakening guys**

** Along with Aladdin from the Disney classic, Johnny Depp, Gambit, Tuxedo Moon from Sailor Moon and many more select gentlemen. I was not very picky.

*** I should mention here that she hadn’t slept with anyone for 5 years (when she was 19) and that the last man was the selfish uber famous tennis player/father of her child)

On blackmail, plants and Pokemon score cards.

I will have to get back on you on my absence. I can confirm that it was not spent on a tropical beach, day-drinking.

I had a conversation with my friend Jol the other day. I said that if I was a Pokemon my score card (you know, the ones that had all the statistics and kids used to exchange and somehow stage fights with, sometime in the early 00s), my two signature moves would be: panic gardening at 10 am and panic face-waxing at 8 pm.

I don’t know why I do this. I get home from work, relax, talk to friends, watch a series (cause my currentlifestyle has rendered me incapable of reading any books) and then, out of the blue, I just have to go to my balcony, inspect my plants and proceed to garden the night away. I suddenly decide to repot plants that I bought months ago and never bothered, somehow believing that they will not survive another day in their tiny, constricting pots*.

But when they wither and they are nothing but twigs, I am at a loss. Momentarily, because of grief and because I can’t let go of things. But mostly because I don’t know how to dispose of the body. What do I do? Cut it in little pieces and let the wind take it? Viking funeral pyre? It seems unfair to just put it in a bag and throw it in the garbage. Not after what it’s been through.

And here’s where I think I may have turned them paranoid (much like me). See, when they die, and I don’t know how to dispose of the body, I just leave it there for weeks. Over time they turn into tiny crumbly toothpicks, bend to the will of the winds.

But here is where the magic (and paranoia) happens. I think that the other plants take this as an example. Their peer, lying there, lifeless, punished for not being glorious enough. Much like Crowley in Good Omens, I think my incompetence in dealing with plant death blackmails them and makes them fight for their existence.

After a few weeks I just shove the plant in a trash bag and they never see it again.

As for panic waxing, need I really dwell on it?

                                                                                             

*Oh, they will. Somehow the plants I get accept their limbo state pretty soon and are forced to adapt in order to survive. They have to patiently sit there, let me water them whenever and try to survive. When they wither, they are dead to me. And this is not because of my indifference,** I want to believe.

**I water them and give them a special medicine. The problem is that I do it irregularly. I overcare and then I care not.     I drown them in medicine, to the point they suffer from poisoning. I give them iron (a disgusting powder that turns water crimson red and makes your balcony like the Red Wedding just happened) and then I let the rotten leaves drown them.

On microclimates, frozen eyelids and old ladies.

I had a discussion once with my friends Kalki and Antinos about Kalki’s mom, who apparently wants to turn the inside of her house into a domestic jungle. This took an unexpected turn, as most of our conversations do; a turn towards the Weird.

Long story short, we concluded that we would love to create microclimates within our apartments. Kalki’s apartment was on its way of becoming a jungle, full of monkeys, vines and a small stream. Antino’s house would be a dessert – he favors warmth more than anything. The dessert would be spread across the apartment, complete with a (small) camel that Antinos wouldn’t ride because he hates them, and a couple of date trees.

Now, my house’s microclimate was not my choice. Fate chose for me. Cold. Imagine an unwelcome land of ice, spread across my apartment. Polar bears chasing fish in the bathroom and penguins sliding across the corridor. The remains of the Scott exhibition in the dining room.

My house is cold. In fact, all the houses I’ve ever lived in were cold, unwelcome and, oh, did I forget to mention, cold? The house where I grew up is old, made of stone and near the sea. This house really set the tone, because every single one after that was cold and drafty, the way I imagine the Middle Ages were. The house I currently live in, a beautiful 60’s apartment*, is cold. It’s so cold, I woke up yesterday night with frozen eyelids. The inside of my soul was cold.

See, it’s not enough that the house is drafty and frozen like a witches’ tit (how does that even work). No. There is no central heating. 2016 marked the year my building filled the oil tank. Oh the tears of joy and reverence***. The central heating is on in the evenings, for 3 precious hours, provided that the outside temperature is 11⁰C (or 52 F). I swear, if it is 11,5⁰C it won’t turn on.

To battle with the polar microclimate, I have a small gas heater, which works really well. But because it’s gas, I turn it off when I sleep, otherwise I dream of a fiery death****. In my bedroom, which has 3 exposed walls and a terrace above. I wake up and I can see my breath forming icicles.

My house is so cold I often catch myself thinking: What if I turn the oven on and just leave the door open? Will it warm the apartment?

Oh, did I also mention that during the summer the heat is unbearable?

Like, Sauron's volcano hot.

______

* Complete with its own service entrance (because God forbid the maids used the main entrance. I shit you not, each apartment in this building has a main entrance and a servant’s entrance that leads to a round metal staircase. You can kind of imagine the maids, chatting on the staircase about their idiotic ladies. To make things shittier, there is also a tiny room, with a tiny closet. Is this storage space? No. It’s the room the maid could curl** in.

** Because it’s not big enough for a human being to stretch their legs. I imagine them sleeping in the shape of a sad semi colon.

*** The tenant’s meeting was amazing. Half of them showed up and I sat there,uncomfortably, on the 1950’s velvet dining room chair. The initial small talk included one of the tenants saying that, based on his experience, girls are smarter when they’re young but get dumber when they grow, while boys are dumber when young and get smart as they go. I was about to perform the Darth Vader force-choke on him, when two old ladies (both tenants) ganged up on him telling him not to pigeonhole people and that women are equally smart, if not smarter. What a powerful moment! Five minutes later the same empowering ladies said that our country is going to hell because no one is a good Christian any more, and they also let out comments with heavy homophobic undertones. I was raised to the skies and crushed within 5 minutes. Please, note here that I was going commando. I don’t know why, I never do. But I picked the day to go to a tenant’s meeting, commando while people spoke about feminism and our impending doom as a nation.

**** My house is so drafty, I do not need to worry about gas leak poisoning. I only need to worry that, in case of a fire, the drafts will only make it stronger.