The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger sent me into a fit of white-hot, completely incomprehensible rage, to the point that I wanted to find the main character of the book, grab her by the shoulders, and shake her as hard as possible, in the hopes that it would jar her brain into functioning. This report will be an exploration of exactly why I could not accept this perfectly normal jaunt into chick lit without resorting to violence.
First, just to address it and get it out of the way, I absolutely cannot stand the way the book was written. I don't know if it was just the tone the writer took, or if she is just deficient in the area of the English language, but it's poorly written. Which is painfully ironic, since the book is written from the first-person perspective of someone who aspires to write for The New Yorker more than anything. Sigh. Anyway, that's not what sent me into my fit, I just figured it needed saying.
I'm sure everyone and their brother is now well acquainted with the story, but to shorthand it: Girl fresh out of college with no experience in fashion gets a job as an assistant to the incredibly powerful editor of the premier American fashion magazine, said editor turns out to be ludicrously demanding to the point of insanity, girl attempts to learn an important lesson about something (note: she does not). Adding a good hook to the whole thing, the author spent a real-life year as an assistant to the incredibly powerful editor of Vogue, giving it at least the potential to be somewhat autobiographical. The book has since been adapted into a (far better (and far worse, in certain ways)) movie recently, which prompted this reading in the first place.
Where to start? My primary problem with this entire setup is that continually throughout the entire book, Andrea (the assistant/narrator/my nemesis) displays such continuous contempt for her job/boss/co-workers/everything, that it makes her utterly unlikeable. Utterly. I assumed that this would be addressed at some point near the end of the book as one of the lessons that she was going to learn, that part of the reason her job was so untenable was her own outlook. I was incorrect in this assumption, to a gigantic degree.
Yes, her job does suck. Badly. She is forced to do all the menial tasks of an assistant, without the slightest notice of her work (or even her name) unless she screws up. She is given completely impossible and ridiculous tasks (getting an advance copy of the latest Harry Potter, tracking down a restaurant review from a newspaper without even the basest of information) and is berated even when she manages to be mildly successful. She has to work horrible hours and misses many important dates.
But really? Whatever. It's your job, you do it. There are so many moments of sheer pettiness and ridiculousness on her part I want to stop and question her whether or not she understands what the concept of an assistant is. When she has to remind herself not to spit in the coffee that she was picking up for her boss. When she gets upset that her boss does not acknowledge her as she is dropping off a book at her apartment. When she literally sighs at requests given to her but [paraphrased] "not loud enough to be commented on." I understand that it's a cumulative sort of thing, that the larger abuses build up to make everything seem like unbearable, but for the purposes of the book, it makes her look incompetent and unprofessional beyond words.
Not only that, but she actually is a bad assistant constantly throughout the book. She gets four times the orders of coffee at Starbucks to hand out to the homeless and gets frustrated when she gets in trouble for taking so long. She spends an extra 20 minutes talking on the phone for a personal call on the way to pick up her boss's lunch, and then is enraged when her boss has already eaten lunch.
She has this sense of complete entitlement that makes absolutely no sense, that she thinks she is so much better than everything she is a part of. The running line in the book that she uses as her ironic fallback - everyone always tells her "a million girls would die for" her job. Like, haha everyone would die for her job but actually it is so horrible, amirite? Except no, really, this is an incredible opportunity that she is fucking up, because she thinks she's somehow above it. Yeah the job itself sucks, but the perks and connections she is getting are incredible and the job is exceedingly short term. At least in the movie version, they address this issue and she sort of rolls with it and grows with her new understanding. In the book, by the end she decides she was completely justified in her contempt and is proud that was able to escape from it all without being changed.
I... seriously... white hot rage. I could easily go on and on with my issues, but my blood pressure would probably suffer as a result. I just cannot wrap my mind around how anyone is expected to identify with this girl. Yes, her boss is crazy and it's mind-blowing how demanding she is. It's interesting to read to find out how far she will actually do next, and the potential for the real-life connection makes it even moreso, but my final result is to just want to punch Andrea in the face, and read more about the crazy boss.
Just a horrible, horrible book, that I absolutely could not put down.
And we're not even going to get into my problems with the movie, lest I break the blogger.
1 comment:
Why can't you ignore the blatant bad writing and focus on the clothes and make-up, like I do? Character shmaracter, who needs to learn a lesson when she was able to sell all that stuff at the resale shop?
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