![]() ![]() The driving force is all from these grown men and their collective memories of infatuation with girls that they knew little about. Upon rereading, she sees that the book couldn’t be about the Lisbon girls because they, as actual characters, are hardly in the book at all. And, most importantly, that the gaze calls attention to itself as a delusion. It’s not just the narration, it’s pretty much the whole damn thing. You know the ones: dead white girls, Manic Pixie Dream Girls, hyper-sexualized teenagers, the male gaze.” She goes on to explain that the male gaze takes on the imperative role in this book. Temple says, “A lot has happened in the last 25 years (honestly, even in the last 25 weeks), and much of it has rather affected the way I view the tropes that are essential to The Virgin Suicides. She describes (apologetically, almost, as though embarrassed) reading The Virgin Suicides in high school after watching the Sofia Coppola movie version and remembering it as a book about those sexy and mysterious Lisbon girls. ![]() The piece was timely, about hesitating to reread a nostalgic book in the political climate of today. ![]() I came across this great article last week, “Does The Virgin Suicides Hold Up 25 Years Later?” by Emily Temple on twitter and it really made me think, even though I couldn’t really relate to the initial argument (The first line points out that the novel debuted 25 years ago. ![]()
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