Dear Dickhead by Virginie Despentes: book review
Overview: Oscar and Rebecca are two (potentially) fading stars who've brushed with major fame, names known by the French press. Oscar is a successful novelist who's just released his third book. Rebecca is an actress facing what it means to age in the sexist world of cinema. They both grew up together, living in working class neighborhoods when fame seemed very far away, and after an unfortunate social media post from Oscar, they connect again over email. Charting the COVID pandemic in Paris via email, this is a fascinating novel that takes on feminism, Me Too—in the moment and in retrospect—aging, sobriety, fame, and a global pandemic. Overall: 4
Characters: 4 These characters are tough. Not really the kind that you fall in love with. But interesting, nonetheless, whether you agree with all of their opinions or not. While Oscar begins the book reeling from being accused of sexual harassment by an online feminist blogger who used to work at his book publisher and Rebecca is a bit callous, bitter, and not at all sympathetic to modern social dynamics, the pair does start to learn, grow, and evolve on their journeys with sobriety and friendship. They grow more sympathetic with time as they both learn to see beyond their perspectives. The development is slow. There's a lot of Oscar whining and Rebecca telling him to stop being a wimp, but it is ultimately satisfying. They reckon with a world that's changing right in front of them in every conceivable way and ultimately work together in their unlikely friendship to reconcile this.
What's most interesting about this book is that we get insight into two characters that we don't see a ton in literary fiction right now. Those that are controversial in ways deeper than Moshfegh's shock factor and very real. By virtue of this being a book constructed from emails, they're also at their least self conscious in their presentation. They're also older, grappling with the turn of middle age. Additionally, we get a few scattered blog posts from Zoé, the former book publicist who calls out Oscar. She's the villain of the story he's trying to tell, which is never convincing. In her own life, she is her own antagonist as well, putting herself in harm's way of internet hate to run her blog. We see Zoé through Oscar's evolving lens as well as Rebecca's and then through her blog posts on her feminist website. This gives different insight into Zoé in a really interesting way to Oscar and Rebecca. The main pair are trading private correspondence not at all intended for publication whereas the firsthand content from Zoé is very self consciously written for the internet. The author creates this contrast in a way that makes the characterization more interesting.
Plot: 4 I was going to say there's no plot. That's half true. It's a massive email chain. That takes away a lot of the momentum from the plot because each section is a massive, rambling monologue. The progression of Oscar seeing the error of his ways and their dual sobriety journeys are almost hidden in all the musings they send back and forth on random topics. This is definitely more of a meditation on society than it is a novel. It makes for a very slow, plodding read but still interesting. You have to dig for the plot, but it's there.
Writing: 4 Maybe it just happens to be the 2 books translated from French that I've happened to pick up, but I'm getting a distinct impression that there's a lot of French literature deeply preoccupied with dissecting feminism. Which is truly interesting because these two books approach it more directly than any American or British literature I've picked up. There's a distinct feel to it that is interesting. Beyond that, I think that this is a book that'll be a winner if you like books written as emails (and if you have close relationships via email and write lengthy emails on the regular) and don't think that Beautiful World Where Are You is Sally Rooney's worst book. If you don't write novel-length emails, this book probably won't resonate. I happen to be one of those people, so while the book felt a bit plodding at times and it took me over a week to read, I did ultimately enjoy it. I also thought it had a lot of really astute thoughts on navigating fame, so for those intrigued by that element, the theme is solidly delivered on.
Comments
Post a Comment