Lucky Woman

This is not one of Quindlen’s lovely novels, but a non-fiction where she writes her thoughts on life and life’s lessons. It was a highly enjoyable read because I relish her writing voice, its clarity and charm, and also enjoyed disagreeing with a lot of her conclusions probably because our life experiences have been so different. Her take comes across as very much a product of her environment, in a very particular place and time, and her life lessons therefore many do not quite hold for those (which will be in the majority!) who have not had her particular lifestyle and conditions. However, perhaps she anticipates a readership whose life experiences are quite similar to her own, and so perhaps her generalisations are aimed at them. This criticism not withstanding, the memoir is beautifully written, thoughtful and sincere, lively and honest, and my enjoyment of it is the enjoyment of disagreeing with a good friend, in good natured spirit, and mulling over why she says what she says, and finding many truths in her generalisations if limited to her context, however untrue they are for myself.

She mulls over growing old, changing society (particularly where it relates to opportunities for women and expectations of women), relationships of course, the importance of girlfriends to women, and makes a case that

“when things go wrong, they [women] reach for either the kids or the girlfriends. Or both” (p35).

(This is one of those generalisations I cannot concur with, but I see where she is coming from.) She writes about how we have too much stuff – when she lists the stuff she has, I am staggered – 5 colanders?? She seems to think everyone also has a lot of stuff, but even if we discount places where people live in poverty and only consider those of similar socio-economic levels as Quindlen’s own, it is still untrue for many – think the Nordic or the Japanese minimalism, for example – and also, just many others like myself who don’t own much stuff, not even a sofa, let alone 5 colanders! Quindlen’s reality seems so much based on a very upper-middle-class American experience, where indeed, it seems the norm to have large homes overflowing with ‘stuff’.

That said, her point that most of us have far more stuff than we need is probably true, since we actually need very little. Her other point about how stuff brings responsibilities also holds true. Quindlen goes on to further extrapolate that too much stuff is unhelpful given that women have a lot they need to take on board mentally already. She makes an interesting point that women in this age have more than women in the past ever did – not quite sure again I quite agree – but she does say in the past, women only had to think about domestics, but now women have to manage domestics, working for income, banking and finances and everything else too. But I am not quite sure women have more to think about in this age than previously – maybe we think less about other stuff (like religion perhaps?) than we used to, so dis/replacing rather than increasing our subjects for thought?

I chuckled aloud many times as I read this memoir, because Quindlen can be very droll. This was one such piece which made me laugh:

“One day, doing laundry, it occurred to me that the continuum in which I found myself included the demise of women’s underwear. I had stacks of my own bikini pants on top of the dryer, and I was comparing them in my mind to my mother’s remembered granny panties and my daughter’s own barely-there lace thongs. If you laid that lingerie in a line, it not only gave you a road map of the differences in sexual mores and openness through the years, it also suggested that the next generation of young women, my granddaughters, would wind up going commando” (p54)

A lot of her memoir is in this same good-humoured tone, extremely openhearted even while unabashedly stating subjective opinions strongly. Great combination.

However, I disagreed with this vehemently:

“The term ‘soul mate’ – which I’m proud to say, I have never once used until now – suggests two people who have everything in common. But our gender, with all the differences it implies, divides us” (p21)

I thought her definition of soul mate was wrong; I had taken the term to mean a deep connection between two people, rather than necessarily having things in common let alone everything in common. Moreover, I don’t know if I agree with her following analysis that her husband, a man, is not her soul mate because they are different due to their different genders. Maybe it is her generation that perceives men and women are intrinsically so different; I do not think it is gender that makes people incline to behaving differently in a pattern which can be observed, but perhaps gender roles, social constructs, and of course, personality types. But I felt sorry for Quindlen as I read this, realising it is probable she never experienced that depth of connection with another mind or being, which makes that person a soul mate indeed, and not in any soppy or sentimental sense. I was surprised by this realisation, having erroneously assumed someone so wise and experienced as Quindlen must surely have had this depth of understanding and intimacy with another person at least once in life, but then had to rethink my own assumptions that the experience of a soul mate is the norm rather than the exception. So this has been a great read even when I disagreed, because the way it was written encouraged me to rethink my own assumptions. Which of course is the mark of a good writer, whose writing leaves you space to question yourself, and also leaves you sufficiently unjudged, to find the encouragement to do so. 

It is a great title too, reflecting how Quindlen clearly has felt herself to be a lucky person, with an abundance of blessings – plenty of cake. Lots of good things and lots to celebrate. The issues raised in her book are all first world problems of course, she herself recognises this. But that’s fine, because this really was what she struggled or grappled with in her life, this was the stuff that made up her circles and her world, and this memoir is a fine period piece, capturing what a middle-upper class, successful woman of her time and age, in America, engaged with and had on her radar. 

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