her body & other parties

partly in my effort to write more fanfic (lol... i've considered reading the bible for that purpose as an atheist but like, that's doing a lot), i've been throwing myself back into reading. i've already mentioned pale fire (which i still Am reading and am enjoying very much; charles kinbote is delightfully funny). anyway, aside from that, i've also mentioned that in the dream house is one of my favorite books ever. reading her body & other parties, that idea is reinforced; i adore the way carmen maria machado writes. it's not as flowery as nabokov's prose is, but it's still so sharp and cutting and i can't help but adore it. i'm about midway through her body & other parties (but i've owned it for years, really, and just never finished) and i think my favorite short story so far is "eight bites". especially as someone who's struggled with body image & the general expectation nowadays for women to be exceptionally skinny and to regulate their bmis (now having a resurgence augmented by the rapid rise of fascism and conservatism), the story just really bites you to the core. i think another aspect that i truly adored beyond words is the fact that the mother, the protagonist in the story, enforces these values onto her own daughter. i've no interest in relationships or children at all, but it just reminds me a lot of my own mother & the remarks she'll throw my way. there are so many excellent lines but i find myself particularly drawn to "a new woman does not just slough off her old self; she tosses it aside with force". there's just such lovely implications there; i love the world "slough" in particular for the image of it evokes which when paired with the story's reality of that being her prior not-skinniness...! she's really an excellent writer. this is a post about "eight bites" in particular but i really do insist that people read in the dream house. the format of that memoir is so haunting and unique and i've not yet read another book like that.