meghan111 's review for:

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

3.0

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Intriguing, engaging novel about a troubled character - a schoolteacher who wants to be an artist, deeply envious, obsessive and angry. After she comes into contact and friendship with an actual artist, she becomes enmeshed in fantasy and anger and the realization that a relationship which remains vitally important to her is to the other party "...so much flotsam, long jettisoned into the broad ocean of [the] past."

"I thought I could get to greatness, to my greatness, by plugging on, cleaning up each mess as it came, the way you're taught to eat your greens before you have dessert. But it turns out that's a rule for girls and sissies, because the mountain of greens is of Everest proportions, and the bowl of ice cream at the far end of the table is melting a little more with each passing second. There will be ants on it soon. And then they'll come and clear it away altogether. The hubris of it, thinking I could be a decent human being and a valuable member of family and society, and still create! Absurd. How strong did I think I was?"