i have read shopgirl last february, when i was deeply deluged with estranged and unrewarded emotions. i was buried in school work then, so i also needed to read something that is light and feel-good. the book is only 130 pages, and there are enough chapters for pausing and digesting steve martin's brilliant thoughts. his words are effortless and straightforward, hence the weightlessness (almost) of the novella. the way he introduces the characters is, when left to stand alone, a beauty already. and for emphasis:
"There is nothing too mysterious about Ray Porter, at least in the usual sense of the word. He is single, he is kind, he tries to do the right thing, and he does not understand himself, or women, or his relationships with women. But there is one truth about him that can be said of a man who asks a woman to dinner before he has exchanged one personal word with her. Mr. Ray Porter is on the prowl."
i have seen the movie beforehand so i knew how the story would turn out. mirabelle works behind the glove counter at neiman marcus, just a level above the perfume hierarchy of channel no5 and whatnots. along with the monotonousness of her 8-6 job, mirabelle is intermittently suffused with a hollowness inside her that she subdues with serzone in a night-to-night basis. but she can be humorous too, if she wanted to. and that side of her was best exhibited when she tried to impress mr. ray porter on their first date. mr. ray porter, however, made it clear that what he wanted is just an affair. after all, he's smart, charming, wealthy, and already pushing 60. meanwhile, jeremy, a penniless graphic artist whom mirabelle slept with out of loneliness, had been making a name in the music industry as he bunks with roadies on tour and sells 'ultimate' amplifiers. although his job requires a lot of his time, he never failed to keep mirabelle posted of his day-to-day encounters. eventually mirabelle reunited with him after realizing that falling in love with ray porter was "the pain that changed her life".
plot wise, shopgirl is a coming of age novella resonating with love and its other dimensions. i like how pain is always reminded to be attributed with love, and it is with pain that lives would transmogrify into something better or at times, worse. i can feel the pain that mirabelle endures as her relationship with ray gradually collapses because the pain isn't exactly about ray, it's about herself.
i particularly like this quote:
"At breakfast, early because she has to get to work, Mirabelle becomes age seven. She sits waiting to be served. Ray Porter gets the juice, makes the coffee, sets the plates, toasts the bread, and pours the cereal. He gets the paper. Mirabelle is so dependent, she could have used a nanny to open her mouth and spoon-feed her the oat bran. She speaks in one-word sentence, which requires Ray to fill the silences with innocuous queries, like an adult trying to break through to a disinterested teenager. In this snapshot of their morning is hidden the definition of their coming relationship, which Ray Porter will come to understand almost two years later."
it speaks to me in volumes about the interdependency of love. when in love, we lose ourselves like mounds of clay used to mold a completely different masterpiece born out of passion and desire. and as these mounds of clay lose its nature to individualize, our thoughts, ideals, and principles soon follow in the path. soon enough, we'll realize that it all materializes to how helpless we become every time our hearts are in full bloom.
i highly recommend this book as it is a story that all walks of life have been living through/lived through/will live through and resuscitating/resuscitated/will resuscitate from.
