La Plagne Dec 2013 |
I remember how
one guy I was seeing in my twenties badgered me for not having a
sense of urgency because in his opinion I had zero sense of urgency and he was so convincing that I actually
felt pretty bad about myself though I had believed then that one must go about one’s life in his or her own time. Now that the sense of urgency is so omnipresent that it is
giving me anxiety attacks and causing much distress as I must seriously examine what and how I am doing with seemingly
endless multitasking and resolve to focus on what I feel really matters.
I know that if
something is not right for me, do not ignore the sign or the voices that are
telling me so. But the question is how to fix something that is not right and
has not been right for a long time. I am still thinking of a way to break out
of a habitude and hope to get organized and prioritize what I need to do before
things spiral in a manner that is leading towards more disorder and disarray.
“ Welcome
to South London, to one of the nicest streets in one of the
country’s vilest boroughs: Lark Groves, SE5. A determined middle-class oasis of skips and bay trees,
where Volvos sniff each other’s bumpers, and men called Giles live with women
called Samantha. This is a satellite- dish-free zone of tall houses with big
front doors,standing shoulder to shoulder, five floors apiece.Come inside, shut
the door and smell the coffee. You could almost be in Kensington.’
When Anna and
Chris Cunningham first moved into the Pink House in the
neighbourhood, Josephine Alexandra Travis who is married to Nigel George Metcalf was eager to get to know her
new neighbour who was very pretty and very pregnant. Characters like Anna is
extremely self-centred and vain. She has a diploma in drama and had nearly been
an actress so she ended up doing work in casting. Jo has always been the kind of woman who is intelligent and
capable. At school , she was the head girl and she continues to try hard to be a reliable homemaker and she runs a second hand bookshop that has been bought by Nigel, a phenomenally unfaithful husband. She reasoned why she
wanted to befriend Anna: “
Part of wanting to be Anna’s friend was practical; we both had girls around the
same age. Useful, you see? A little pal up the road , jolly handy, we mothers
can be quite scheming.”
Though the
characters are not likeable, the way the story is told has kept me going. The
narrations are done by Anna and Jo in first person respectively and also in
third person’s voice.
There are some
funny quips.
‘It is only
recently that I have realized that the greatest appetite suppressant is abject
misery ; Without really trying my waistbands have become loose and I no longer
have to lie on the floor to zip up my good Agnés b black trousers’ - Jo
‘ I am
drinking gin today, mother’s ruin. Isn’t it a shame that you can’t edit your
life? That’s what I’ve been thinking ; if the last ten years were on tape, I’d
just chop out the bad bits and
keep in the good moments. That’s what they do with films, they leave the shit
bits on the cutting –room floor...'–
Anna
Indeed how
wonderful it would be if we could just cut out the bad bits and keep in the
good moments only.
Jenny Eclair is
observant about contemporary life of
the urban couples . Some of the narrations are wickedly funny. Voila.
‘They were
all getting older. Age creeps up on you, one day you bend down to tie up your
shoe and you find yourself thinking, now is there anything else I can do whilst
I’m down here? Women usually fare worse than men in the ageing process, just
take a look at the newscasters on the telly. Middle-aged men, despite their
spaniel jowls and pink-tie tendencies, manage to achieve some headmasterly
gravitas, whilst women of the same age get a faraway, desperate look in their
eyes as if they might be about to bolt off to some Caribbean island and marry a
twenty- year- old native with a spear and a hundred conch shells around his
neck. It’s that ‘last chance’ time.
Jo thought it
might be a good idea to learn conversational Italian. Chris bought himself some
golf clubs. Anna began to moisturize her neck and Nigel started taking ginseng
and a fungus which he kept in a jam jar in the fridge.’
Camberwell
Beauty is not like typical chick-lits, its
ending is sad and rather upsetting. There are touches of reality in the story.
It is true that we cannot edit our lives and often we have to live with the
consequences of our actions. As Eclair writes, ‘Some people are luckier than
others : they have nicer lives with more things. But luck can run out and whose
fault is that ? Fate has a fickle finger, and when you’re least expecting it ,
she can poke you in the eye.’