Are you familiar with this situation? You pick up a book because it looks like it will be a good read and you really want to get over your reading slump? Then you read something that takes you out of a reading slump but into an existential one?
People raved about this book? They didn't just like it. They recommended it. Strongly. They pushed it on to you as a must-do item - this piece of storytelling that was positioned to be a comet in your dreary little sky. This book?
Okay, so no surprises what I think about this book. But it is a quick read. The torture does end quickly.
Actually, I am being harsh. It is not bad material. If it were an instagram carousel with a set of 7 photos and plot points, it would work. As a slightly longish Facebook post, sure. That is easy to stomach. But a book? With so many pages? In print? Occupying shelves in a bookstore?
Erm.
Now I am going to write about the book. There may be spoilers - although the term 'spoilers' may not apply if you stopped caring about anything by page 15. But yes, I will be giving out the twists and turns.
There's a young woman, Millie, who is released from prison. She gets a job as a maid/ housekeeper in a posh place, the Winchester family. She notices some strange goings on after a while. The lady of the house, Nina, messes things up and denies that she has done this, only to double the work for the maid. The man of the house, Andrew, is handsome. And as pulp fiction would describe all handsome men, he wears 'crisp' shirts and suits and is cleanshaven. (There is a man who does not shave. He is a poor gardener. Yes - this is that kind of book.)
Anyway, one thing leads to another and as we follow the story, we find that Nina actually knows about Millie's 'troubled' past. She finds out that Millie had clobbered someone to death and Andrew, our sweet, handsome Andrew, is a wife beater. He locks up Nina in some small attic which is supposed to be dangerous. But I am from Bombay and a description of that attic would have brokers lining up here. Anyway, dangerous man, beaten up wife, killer maid, and then how one thing leads to another and revenge is extracted.
The book ends with Nina turning into some vigilante force for abused women. And this is the equivalent of scattering sequins on a perfectly ordinary craft project. Maybe something will stick and we will not notice that the palace is lopsided cardboard.
So, that's what this book is.
But a while ago, Gone Girl was equally celebrated and equally recommended and it had equally got me out of a reading slump. But that one was a treat!
As I read The Housemaid, I wondered why I had liked Gone Girl so much. Yes, I had not seen the twist coming. But more than that the writing actually was deep. It was more than just about plot and character. There was something deeper about the society that we lived in. Gillian Flynn's observation on what passes for a 'cool girl' is brilliant. As is the husband's observation of society that has moved on to consuming everything on Twitter because we have dwindling space to hold anything more or deep.
I feel that that is what makes a good thriller really good. Not just the plot - although that is really important. But a lot of books have good plots. The Silent Patient by by Alex Michaelides had good plot. We used to live here by Marcus Kliewer was decent plot-wise. The Girl in the Train by Paula Hawkins did a good job of using an unreliable narrator. But...they weren't Gone Girl.
There's something that Flynn got in Gone Girl and her other novels (like Sharp Objects - which was not too bad) that other thriller writers don't seem to get. That the fear factor doesn't end when the crime is solved or the killer is caught. Why did he kill? Why did she destroy? Those still remain and that's what a good thriller leaves you with - a relief in your heart that says "Whew! This story's over!" but a knot in your stomach that says, "But another one just like this is around the corner."
Anyway, the Housemaid is not something I would denounce outright. It still got me to reflect on another work I had enjoyed so much earlier. So, that too is good.
I will end this piece with a couple of portions from Gone Girl that I have absolutely loved.
"Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and a*** s**, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.
Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them.
I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The b**** doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics.
There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point f**k someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)”
And this description that is such a judge and jury to our lot today:
"For several years, I had been bored. Not a whining, restless child's boredom (although I was not above that) but a dense, blanketing malaise. It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism is itself derivative).
We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can't recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn't immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blasé: Seeeen it. I've literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better.
The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can't anymore. I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script. It's a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters. And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don't have genuine souls. It had had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I'm not a real person and neither is anyone else. I would have done anything to feel real again."
Maybe that's what a good thriller means for me. Or any good book, really.
You turn the last page, slump back a little, look at the author's name and say 'Thank you.'
