Essay: Dressing for the post-modernist narrative
I have a terrible habit of bookmarking books mentioned in other books and never reading them, but this time I actually followed through. I came across Malcolm Lowry while reading Guibert’s To the Friend who didn’t save my life— a raw and pedantic account of the author’s last years, after being diagnosed with AIDS, flitting between Paris and Rome obsessively searching for a cure— either to AIDS or life itself. The Lowry mention was such a throwaway; Guibert said Under The Volcano was his friend’s partner’s favorite book at the moment. I googled. I found this piece comparing Lowry to Joyce, describing how modernist fiction has eclipsed Lowry’s complete dedication to stream of consciousness in critical favor of more famous, controversial authors.
As the story goes, apparently Lowry never came close to writing something as good as Under the Volcano ever again. It’s free on Kindle, so I read it. The truth is, I didn’t like the book, sort of. I found the concept interesting, following a tryst of lost souls and an ex government employee through the Mexican country side in an ever shifting point of view riddled with the lens of alcoholism and the ghosts of their past in the duration of a single day (aptly, Day of the Dead.) The literary critics were right— it’s an admirable commitment to narrative invention, similar to Dalloway and Ulysses, that isn’t recognized in modern literary canon; but the truth is, I wish this book had made me feel something.
That being said, if you have the time and the wish to spend a full day with your characters, there are plenty of ways to do so —seriously, Mrs. Dalloway is the best one for this, but others include: Ulysses (obviously, and also one of the most misread-unread books of all time as frustratingly described by Sally Rooney), Fairview (an impeccable and culturally laser focused, Pulitzer winning play ) by Jackie Sibblies Dury, The Fawn (the story of a girl, by a woman, for women and girls) by legendary Magda Szabó who examines the cost of censorship, self imposed or otherwise, and Old Masters: A Comedy by Thomas Bernhard— a venerated and harshly observant Austrian author who’s talent apparently plagued Guibert deeply (we’ve come full circle) and inspired Ingeborg Bachmann to write Malina— which is one of the best books I’ve ever read (The New Yorker concurs).
Writing this now, I realize that, with the exception of the odious VSCO girls present in Fairview, these novels possess endlessly creative women— creative in their environments, escape plans, and verbal platitudes. How do you dress like this? Because it’s not solely minimalism— as Rian Phin so delicately explains in her video essay on Sandy Liang (and I so briefly touched on in NYLON this past spring), and it’s NOT that Toteme felt jacket (that isn’t lined, stop! You will be cold if you wear it!). Being a minimalist is a type of look, being minimalist in your personal style ethics; however, does not forbid you from using a bow to tie up your hair.
The feathered hats in Dalloway are as intellectual as Malina’s esoterically-nicotine-stained fingertips yet the former is looked upon with disdain. Conscious aestheticism is inherently intellectual though intellectuals frequently view applied effort as anti-so-and-so. Yesterday, I saw a TikTok that presented a crumpled up napkin on a diner table that had been used to wipe the lipstick off of the poster’s mouth captioned: “constantly a woman dressed like a girl” (I can’t find the video again) signaling that the feminine expression is at conflict with the viewer’s need to appear less girlie-divine and more “the woman question”.
Styling our clothing is no different— it’s the visual extension of our internal snobbery serving as a runged ladder of bias on which we place other’s (the thought of separate consciousness differing from your own aesthetic tastes frequently gets lost in this debate). Because how could frivolous accessories that communicate our standing in the world hold the same mathematical power as Prada’s FW1994 Mao jackets, where Miuccia Prada specifically told the models to limit their movement as an act of anti-emancipation towards fashion’s growing self expression (on the runway at least).
The reality is, as a “writer is always selling someone out” (I just read my first Didion), we often sacrifice one or the other for the sake of dressing to appease anyone but ourselves. because if we did appease ourselves, the conversations surrounding what makes “true style” and “true sartorial spirit” would probably drop from infinity to two, and both of those remaining conversations wouldn’t happen in an online newsletter. That being said, we can often still turn to others for recommendation, guidance, and judgement (of others, some people do dress badly and that is their prerogative.)