How To Build A Girl readalong: Part three

Chapters 11-15

This readalong is hosted by Emily at As The Crowe Flies (and Reads.)

When we last saw Johanna Morrigan, AKA Dolly Wilde, she had just been assigned an interview with musician John Kite, all expenses paid, in Dublin. This is her first time on a plane, first time out of the country, and she loves it. She meets Kite and finds him a real kindred spirit, someone who she can really relax around, have fun with, and she ends up besotted. John Kite seems charming enough, in a drunken-rock-star sort of way, but I don't trust him. I don't trust him at all. I feel sure that he's going to betray "Dolly" in some way and break her heart, turn out not to be the person she thinks he is.

Back in England, disaster strikes when her father receives an ominous brown envelope informing him that his claim for disability benefit is being investigated, and the family get a reduction of 11% in their income. 11% may not sound like the end of the world, but for a family with five children who have no luxuries, no savings, they just can't spare that money! "Dolly's" payment for her writing is slow to arrive, and after her first major feature turned out to be a page of gushing fangirling, the work dries up.

Her father makes another attempt at getting his music noticed, but I can't help but feel that if he is too sick to work a regular job - even a part-time one - would he be able to deal with the demands of working as a musician? I think he views "being a rock star" as an easy way out of his desperate situation, without thinking through the reality of the hard work required. Johanna is the only earner of the family: what about the mother, or the eldest brother? But it is easy to say "get a job!" yet last week we saw the extended family all made redundant by Mrs Thatcher's slashing of British industry. Just like today, the jobs just aren't there! 

Still, "Dolly" eventually gets another phone call from the magazine and she goes back to London for some more work, where she gets some gentle pointers as to where she went wrong with the Kite article. She despairs for a moment when her teenage years of musical education just don't seem to be enough, and timidly asks if she can claim expenses for borrowing CDs for the library at 20p per time.

In reply she is told that all she has to do is phone up the record companies and get as much music as a person can handle for free, and even sell the CDs on afterwards: a tidy business plan that could solve all the family's troubles - or at least help a little. Then, on to her first music-industry party, where she pulls out all the stops in making herself seem as fun and quirky and loud as possible. I was cringing on her behalf at times - there is nothing less British than obviously trying too hard.

Still, her colleagues seem to find her amusing rather than embarrassment, and as she got into the character I found myself laughing aloud. I loved the scene with her carefully calculating how to not look like a pig at the buffet table, making up a fictional friend who liked different food from herself, then leaving the loathed scotch eggs in the ladies' room with an explanation that they were dragon eggs, about to hatch! (Query: is what she did really that different from pretending you're not home alone when you order a massive pizza and lots of sides from Domino's? I suspect it isn't.)

Key Quotes:

I don't want anyone watching me change. I will do all my changing in private. In public, I am, always, the finished thing. The right thing, for the right place. A chrysalis is hung in the dark.

I am getting incredibly high on a single, astounding fact: that it's always sunny above the clouds. Always. That every day on Earth - every day I have ever had - was, secretly, sunny, after all.

The house is too small, and nothing happens, and I will never be older than twelve here.

(Minor grumble: in typing up these quotes, I found myself wondering whether Moran really needs all those commas.)

The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose, Diana Janney

While reading The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose, I realised that I have two different versions of my teenage years in my memory. The first set of memories are those of my everyday experiences: trying to get through school, keep my friends and shake off the attention of the bullies. The second is the world in my head: my daydreams and stories, of romance and popularity and stardom. In Harriet Rose I found myself taken back to that second, kinder world, with the understanding of an adult who sees beneath the glittering surface.

For her fourteenth birthday, Harriet's mother and grandmother self-publish her book of musings, or "Philosophical Meditations" and thanks to their efforts as her publicity team, she becomes a sensation and is voted as the Face of London. But along with admiration, Harriet finds misunderstanding and hostility from those around her, and finds herself more of an outsider than ever.

For all her faults, I liked Harriet immediately. She is different from so many largely interchangeable teen protagonist archetypes: intelligent, confident to the point of arrogance, but good-hearted. She has been indulged by her mother and especially her grandmother - as evident by their birthday present of publishing her book! Yet for all her intellect, Harriet is also naive when it comes to people, and Janney skillfully puts two layers of understanding in her narration: Harriet's interpretation of events and people's meanings, with their real intentions clear underneath. This leads to several hilarious but rather cringy moments, as you wait for Harriet to realise when she's mistaken.

As the story progressed, I found myself getting a little impatient with Harriet. She was a little too confident, and I felt embarrassment on her behalf when she genuinely didn't realise she was being rude. Yet I found myself recognising aspects of myself at fourteen in her - and indeed myself at twenty four! I felt that maybe she wasn't as sure of herself as she would have us believe. Maybe she's even deluding herself, as Harriet Rose is narrated in the first person. I wondered whether she is after all insecure, as the narrative shows that she does not know how to relate to her classmates, teachers and boys. In asserting her superiority, Harriet comes across as arrogant and pretentious, her dialogue stilted and formal, and in setting herself above the "airheads" of her school, she inevitably sets herself apart and betrays her vulnerability.