The Ghastly Gorey
However, what was astonishing was how disturbingly differenent this was, even for someone like, well, like Edward Gorey.
Granted, I, myself, can be known to have an occasionally grim sense of humor, but this particular book? I don't know, it just hit me wrong.
What's the matter with me? Am I getting too old to laugh at dark comedy, now?
Yes, Edward Gorey was a creative genius, but, I still find myself asking:
-- Was he trying to piss someone off with this book?
The title in question, The Recently Deflowered Girl, is unappologetically loaded with so much (uncharacteristic) misogyny that I was stunned. It actually didn't seem like his other stuff. I thought.
Perhaps he never even wrote it, at all. Hard to tell at a glance since he's used so many faux names before. Maybe it was nothing more than an illustration gig in order to pay the rent.
In any case, to use a word he'd approve of: It's ghastly.
I guess what I should say is "Well, B is for Basil..." wasn't exactly PC. Or just "Oh, well, that was the sixties!" Ha, ha.
Or, maybe it's just that now as the mother of two daughters I've simply become too prudish about certain things. You know, like finding the humor to losing one's virginity in a humiliating manner as an underaged child. Funny.
Look, I may have loved every minute of Juno, but, I still never want to think my kids will have under-age sex. With anyone. Ever. Let alone in any of the horrible scenarios as detailed in Gorey's lark of work, here.
I don't know, what do you think? Am I being a prude, or is this even more disturbing than usual?
Behold a few memorable scans from The Recently Deflowered Girl
For closer views click on image scans.
Yeah. Gorey is still amusing, but in light of this last entry "Deflowered in Chinatown," as the mother of severely peanut allergic kid, this one really bugs me. (As if any of the others, don't.)
Oh, well. I suppose should get over it and just say:
"Forget about it, Jake. It's Chinatown."
Comments
The rest of your text rings hugely true also, because I find myself re-reading the Judy Blume books the girls pick up, not only because I love the writing, but to remember what's covered since I am nervous that my girls haven't started to think about things like "rubbing their secret place" and I would rather they didn't start think about kissing and the like for many more years. Not as much because I'm a prude, but I certainly hope their choices are less fueled by a high interest in sex than mine ever were.
How charming.
Not funny, not "dark",
and at the least very bad taste.
How broke could he have been?
As to how broke could have been?
Uhm. Very broke?
Loan shark broke?
Clearly, I don't know what he was thinking.
I know -- Things were really so different back then.
And the world was different back then, too.
That's one of the reasons, and I know you'll agree with me, one of the reasons I find Mad Men so interesting because that time period shaped women's place in society. Or it started to.
It's shocking how little power women had and how little respect they had even from fellow artists at that time.
One more reason I'm glad I'm raising my kids now and not back then.
Thanks so much for your comments!
As always you have interesting perspectives to share.
L.