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A review by jonscott9
No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
4.0
“Not everyone has to be literate, there are some great reasons for resisting language, and one of them is love.”
So goes the lilting logic in Miranda July's self-fashioned world of wonder and regret and pain and hilarity. One wishes continually when flipping through this book that he could be part of her microcosm. Playing observer to the tragicomic plights of her characters is damn good fun, though.
The wrenching-yet-light "The Shared Patio" leads off, sufficiently whelming from the start. July renders the fine line between utter sadness and true joy to a blur. It's the bearable lightness of being that gets her characters through, and that maybe gets her through too. One can see how these short stories are a form of self-therapy for the scribe.
And what a whimsical pen it is that she wields:
“That is my problem with life, I rush through it, like I’m being chased. Even things whose whole point is slowness, like drinking relaxing tea. When I drink relaxing tea, I suck it down as if I’m in a contest for who can drink relaxing tea the quickest. Or if I’m in a hot tub with some other people and we’re all looking up at the stars, I’ll be the first to say, It’s so beautiful here. The sooner you say, It’s so beautiful here, the quicker you can say, Wow, I’m getting overheated.”
I am hardly doing her justice. Even so, a recap of a few of the tall, lean tales she weaves: "The Man on the Stairs" is actually spellbinding stuff in the vein of Roald Dahl or Edgar Allen Poe (no, really). "The Sister" is chuckle-inducing before and after it is immensely sad. "Making Love in 2003" is perhaps the most taut of the longer stories, and July hilariously introduces the children's fantasy writer Madeleine L'Engle as one of her characters (it's not really her, and L'Engle herself actually just left our swiftly tilting planet in 2007).
The people populating these stories are flawed and fabulous. You want to know them all, even the disagreeable ones. Through the sharp eyes and tart tongues of her creations, July relays her thoughts on love, romance, pain, and more. Her takes on friendship are most real and convincing of a lot of real and convincing statements. She simply adds a real lightness to the weight of being human. We could all learn from that.
“Are you angry? Punch a pillow. Was it satisfying? Not hardly. These days people are too angry for punching. What you might try is stabbing. Take an old pillow and lay it on the front lawn. Stab it with a big pointy knife. Again and again and again. Stab hard enough for the point of the knife to go into the ground. Stab until the pillow is gone and you are just stabbing the earth again and again, as if you want to kill it for continuing to spin, as if you are getting revenge for having to live on this planet day after day, alone.”
So goes the lilting logic in Miranda July's self-fashioned world of wonder and regret and pain and hilarity. One wishes continually when flipping through this book that he could be part of her microcosm. Playing observer to the tragicomic plights of her characters is damn good fun, though.
The wrenching-yet-light "The Shared Patio" leads off, sufficiently whelming from the start. July renders the fine line between utter sadness and true joy to a blur. It's the bearable lightness of being that gets her characters through, and that maybe gets her through too. One can see how these short stories are a form of self-therapy for the scribe.
And what a whimsical pen it is that she wields:
“That is my problem with life, I rush through it, like I’m being chased. Even things whose whole point is slowness, like drinking relaxing tea. When I drink relaxing tea, I suck it down as if I’m in a contest for who can drink relaxing tea the quickest. Or if I’m in a hot tub with some other people and we’re all looking up at the stars, I’ll be the first to say, It’s so beautiful here. The sooner you say, It’s so beautiful here, the quicker you can say, Wow, I’m getting overheated.”
I am hardly doing her justice. Even so, a recap of a few of the tall, lean tales she weaves: "The Man on the Stairs" is actually spellbinding stuff in the vein of Roald Dahl or Edgar Allen Poe (no, really). "The Sister" is chuckle-inducing before and after it is immensely sad. "Making Love in 2003" is perhaps the most taut of the longer stories, and July hilariously introduces the children's fantasy writer Madeleine L'Engle as one of her characters (it's not really her, and L'Engle herself actually just left our swiftly tilting planet in 2007).
The people populating these stories are flawed and fabulous. You want to know them all, even the disagreeable ones. Through the sharp eyes and tart tongues of her creations, July relays her thoughts on love, romance, pain, and more. Her takes on friendship are most real and convincing of a lot of real and convincing statements. She simply adds a real lightness to the weight of being human. We could all learn from that.
“Are you angry? Punch a pillow. Was it satisfying? Not hardly. These days people are too angry for punching. What you might try is stabbing. Take an old pillow and lay it on the front lawn. Stab it with a big pointy knife. Again and again and again. Stab hard enough for the point of the knife to go into the ground. Stab until the pillow is gone and you are just stabbing the earth again and again, as if you want to kill it for continuing to spin, as if you are getting revenge for having to live on this planet day after day, alone.”