You know when you finish a novel, and it just keeps going round and round your head?

[LeB0F]

I've got that feeling right now, after just finishing Louisa Young's amazing story My Dear I Wanted To Tell You, about the First World War, and how it changed the lives of everybody touched by it, whether they fought in it or not.

It touches on the earliest days of modern plastic surgery too, which arose from some of the terrible injuries suffered by the soldiers in the trenches, who were fighting at a time when the mechanisation of war vastly outstripped that of the medical technology available to treat them.

I've just read an interview by the author, and this part of it really strikes me as an important insight, which I wanted to share:

"One of the characters in Young?s book seeks surgery out of pure vanity. Young tells me that she sympathises with this woman, but then the subject launches her into a magnificent rant. No Botox for Young then? ?I?ve got an agreement with friends and relations that if I ever suggest I will have cosmetic surgery, they will strap me down, take my money and send it to a cleft-palate charity. No way.
?The industrialisation of female vanity is shocking. Convince someone that they?ve got an enemy and they?ll pay you loads of money to get rid of it; that works for politics exactly the same way as it works for self- hatred. Now suddenly it?s pubic hair. It was fine until ten years ago, now it?s a multimillion-dollar industry telling women that they should have a weird do on their parts. Someone?s made a fortune out of that bright idea. If we all put the same amount of work into solving real problems rather than women?s appearance, the world would be transformed.?

Anyway, if you get the chance to read the book, please do; it was incredibly moving.

Sorry about the formatting there, I should have previewed

It is a thought provoking read, isn't it? I really enjoyed it.

Bless you for replying...

This thread really took off, didn't it? I should have put it in Adult Fiction, where somebody might give a shit

I'm three quarters of the way through When God Was A Rabbit now- I'm on a reading frenzy!

I might give that a try LeBOF.
I'm fascinated by that period of history (1st world War).
I was quite disappointed with When God Was A Rabbit.
It starts really well and then fizzles out IMO.
This should be in Adult Fiction shouldn't it.

Yes

I may ask them to move it. I thought that the point about getting the fuck over yourself if you felt like getting essentially pointless cosmetic surgery and giving the money to a cleft palate charity deserved a wider audience though. Until I cocked it up and made it unreadable by not checking that my copy and paste had formatted properly, gah.

Could you reformat it or what ever? Then I'll pop back and read it... ta!

I'm going to order the book tonight. I enjoy a good thought provoking book. Have you read 'Room' by Emma Donoghue? That book whirled around in my thoughts for weeks afterward.

LeBof - thanks for the recommendation. It sounds just like something I'd want to read.

For me, Child 44 is a book I've read recently which hasn't stopped whirring around my brain. Stalin's Russia, a serial killer and all the crazyness of the system. Really loved it.

One of the characters in Young?s book seeks surgery out of pure vanity. Young tells me that she sympathises with this woman, but then the subject launches her into a magnificent rant. No Botox for Young then? ?I?ve got an agreement with friends and relations that if I ever suggest I will have cosmetic surgery, they will strap me down, take my money and send it to a cleft-palate charity. No way.
?The industrialisation of female vanity is shocking. Convince someone that they?ve got an enemy and they?ll pay you loads of money to get rid of it; that works for politics exactly the same way as it works for self- hatred. Now suddenly it?s pubic hair. It was fine until ten years ago, now it?s a multimillion-dollar industry telling women that they should have a weird do on their parts. Someone?s made a fortune out of that bright idea. If we all put the same amount of work into solving real problems rather than women?s appearance, the world would be transformed.?

I loved it too. The descriptions in the hospital were particularly vivid. It was one of those books I had to reflect on before diving into the next.

With you (and her) on the pointless cosmetic surgery.

I've got Room downloaded, Sandy, but I've never got around to that one after hearing very mixed reviews. I will give it a go now though, I think.

Child 44 looks very interesting- I will look that up too, thanks.

I like that quotation, and I've been thinking quite a bit recently about how much perfection worship there is (for want of a better word) and people want to remain looking young forever. I think there's a difference between looking old and haggard or mature yet full of life - and that's regardless of actual age.

I think a lot of how we look is due to what is going on in our lives, if we are happy or not, if we're going through a stressful time or are contented. Even on a day to day basis - I's had crappy periods and have looked 10 years older. But then when things have picked up, I look younger again and that's bugger all to do with my crows feet.

Who has defined all this idea of perfect anyway? Everyone's perfect is different and why can't we just be good enough instead?

Absolutely- that is spot on, I think.

Gah - scuse all the crappy typos!

I read Call The Midwife and there was an account of a woman that had admitted herself and her 4 children to the workhouse. On arrival the children had their hair shaved, the mother didn't because she had already sold her hair and teeth.

They then curled up on straw for the night together. It was their last, as her children were then taken away. The children died one by one. She never saw them after that final night, and was simply told when they had died. The smallest never spoke at all before he died, just sat looking at the door.

It was the saddest thing I ever read, and it's stayed with me for months.

Viking, I also googled "injecting parrafin wax" while I was reading the book (don't ask!), in a fit of curiosity, and I found this fascinating article which goes through the rise of marketing 'beauty' practices to women. I'm sure Louisa Young must have drawn on it in her research, because it chimes really closely with some of the things she writes about. If you get a chance, do tale a look, it's really interesting.

EnjoyResponsibility - that's so sad :( I find stories like that with children involved always haunt me as well.

I've just read that article you linked to BOF and it's both fascinating and terrifying to read what people were having injected - mainly in the name of vanity.

One thing I keep coming back to is the idea of certain physical attributes as 'shameful' etc. For example, the depressed noses in the article, as a symptom of syphilis and how society in general regarded people with depressed noses because of that. This is going to sound too idealistic, but I just keep feeling that more energy should be put into society's attitudes and values than into correcting 'socially undesired' physical attributes?

Sounds really interesting Bof. I love a book that kind of sticks with you for a while, even after you've read a few others your mind keeps flicking back to it. Room did that for me last year.

Didn't like it that much, was a good read and story, but many stereotypes and not absorbing characters IMO.

Call the midwife sounds v sad.

Oh, I loved Child 44 too. I'm off to have a nosy at the book LeBOF, thanks for the recommendation. I will not scunder myself by admitting to what utter shite I've been reading this week

I can probably guess

Nobody is allowed to mention THAT book on my lovely highbrow thread though

No 'shades' here! The book that went round and around in my head was bloody 'The Little Stranger'. I am ridiculously suggestible, so have spent nights wondering if that 'squiggle' on the ceiling is a scorch mark! As for the ghost child running up and down the top corridor, following the 'someone waiting at the other end' of the blower tube, well...!

Here's something apt today by the wonderful Nora Ephron, from her essay 'On Rapture':

"Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficity disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss. "

That is exactly how I feel after reading My Dear I Wanted To Tell You.

Thanks for starting this thread, that quote is brilliant.