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A review by guiltlesspleasures
The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen
3.0
I'm a big fan of Liz Jensen. This book was very readable and the character of Louis Drax is compelling and well drawn - but something about the story didn't sit right with me. For one thing, the main narrator, Dr Dannachet, is a fool and quite irritating.
But the oddest thing is Jensen's approach to her female characters. There are two main ones: Louis' mother, Natalie, and the detective, Stephanie Charvillefort. They seem to have been set up as polar opposites in terms of gender: Natalie is delicate, fragile, nervous; the detective is butch, blunt, dogged. And -
when Louis' mother is found to be the crazy one, not her husband, Charvillefort says to the doctor, "I hope this doesn't colour your view of all women!" And this is accepted as a reasonable question. Why on earth would you assume that the actions of one woman would taint a man's view of all women, except if that man was seriously disturbed on a par with Elliot Rodger? It was seriously odd.
Even more infuriating was a subsequent comment that some guy (another doctor, if I recall correctly) made to the detective, jokingly, when she ruefully mentions that, in contrast to the delicate Mme Drax, she can come across as a bit coarse. "Maybe you should wear make-up!" he says. And they all chuckle, including her.
It was just BIZARRE, how this creepy little tale of a unique little boy and his disturbed, manipulative mother got turned into some sort of odd tract on femininity. Can't quite work out why she did it.
But the oddest thing is Jensen's approach to her female characters. There are two main ones: Louis' mother, Natalie, and the detective, Stephanie Charvillefort. They seem to have been set up as polar opposites in terms of gender: Natalie is delicate, fragile, nervous; the detective is butch, blunt, dogged. And -
Spoiler
when Louis' mother is found to be the crazy one, not her husband, Charvillefort says to the doctor, "I hope this doesn't colour your view of all women!" And this is accepted as a reasonable question. Why on earth would you assume that the actions of one woman would taint a man's view of all women, except if that man was seriously disturbed on a par with Elliot Rodger? It was seriously odd.
Even more infuriating was a subsequent comment that some guy (another doctor, if I recall correctly) made to the detective, jokingly, when she ruefully mentions that, in contrast to the delicate Mme Drax, she can come across as a bit coarse. "Maybe you should wear make-up!" he says. And they all chuckle, including her.
It was just BIZARRE, how this creepy little tale of a unique little boy and his disturbed, manipulative mother got turned into some sort of odd tract on femininity. Can't quite work out why she did it.