When I borrow books from my father, I inevitably have to contend with his notes and underlining and navigate which passages resonate with me because of my own reading, or because he has marked them before me - a fitting comtemplation given the themes of Heti's incredible book, Motherhood, and how imperative it is for the narrator/Heti to establish her own importance, purpose, desires, legacy.
This passage resonated with my teenage self:
I loved this book - particularly how it holds nuance and conflict and allows multiple things to be true, including both ugly and tender thoughts about one's life and the lives of others. The narrator's internal dialogue (not monologue!) and questioning, the back and forth, the using of coin tosses to answer profound and consequential questions reminds me so much of conversations with female friends and the amount of analysis that goes into decisions and life changes as well as just the need to formulate one's own perspective and take, whether or not action ensues.
I found the following passage provoking, especially the denoting of having children or becoming a mother as 'submitting to nature' and choosing not to as 'resisting nature'. My own version of this binary thinking takes the form of 'domestic' vs 'fiery' as they both apply to 'Jess' (always in third person) - my conclusions (if I could be said to have any) are merely that this is not made of simple stuff, and often we don't choose one or another but are always both, moving from one version to another throughout any period of time.
No comments:
Post a Comment