Book Review: The Wives of Bath, by Susan Swan
This is one of those books that leaves you feeling slightly unsettled at the end, as if you've just come out of a dark underworld cavern and stand, blinking in the sunlight, confused, but wiser. Indeed, it is a little glance into a darker world, the surreal world of Bath Ladies College and the journey towards womanhood. Sexuality is questioned, and whatever views the reader has on the subject beforehand are not confronted, but rather a tangled story about young girls coming to sexual maturity and coming to terms with their sexuality in a sexually rigid environment (all girls boarding school, 1963 is the year it's set), death, and the world around them, is presented and you are left to judge Paulie for yourself. The voice of Mouse is a unique one, barelessly honest, that will haunt me later, I'm sure.
The movie Lost and Delirious is based off this book, and if I hadn't known that beforehand I don't know if I would've guessed it, aside from the names. The movie is much more glamourous - Mouse is not hunchbacked, Paulie isn't fat, the girls get out more, Kong was only mentioned, a beautiful injured hawk as opposed to a mass grave of pigeons... still, the movie confronted the major conflict more head-on by being omniscent as opposed to just the story through Mouse's eyes. Different, though I wouldn't say either was better. The book was certainly much darker, and I highly recommend both of them, the movie if you don't have much time for reading and enjoy the idea of naked boarding school girls getting it on. :P
Actually, a review on the backcover sums it up:
" Susan Swan has deftly resurrected all the glorious decadence of the gothic - orphans and madwomen, mysterious alter-egos, hunchbacks and eyeless ghosts - and brought this formidable weaponry to bear upon the darker reaches of the Canadian psyche. The results are eerie, and subversive and above all deeply moving."
-- Douglas Cooper
The movie Lost and Delirious is based off this book, and if I hadn't known that beforehand I don't know if I would've guessed it, aside from the names. The movie is much more glamourous - Mouse is not hunchbacked, Paulie isn't fat, the girls get out more, Kong was only mentioned, a beautiful injured hawk as opposed to a mass grave of pigeons... still, the movie confronted the major conflict more head-on by being omniscent as opposed to just the story through Mouse's eyes. Different, though I wouldn't say either was better. The book was certainly much darker, and I highly recommend both of them, the movie if you don't have much time for reading and enjoy the idea of naked boarding school girls getting it on. :P
Actually, a review on the backcover sums it up:
" Susan Swan has deftly resurrected all the glorious decadence of the gothic - orphans and madwomen, mysterious alter-egos, hunchbacks and eyeless ghosts - and brought this formidable weaponry to bear upon the darker reaches of the Canadian psyche. The results are eerie, and subversive and above all deeply moving."
-- Douglas Cooper