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Living Section of the San Bernardino SUN October 23, 2005 Issue 
The Undomestic Goddess By Sophie Kinsella 
Back to a Common 1980s Dilemma for Women It wasn't so long ago that we had higher standards for everything - from learning and achievement to the quality of consumer products and delivery of services. In the same way, back then, more discerning readers looked upon the bestseller list with disdain. The general sense was that the bestsellers were mostly scandalous fluff written for the shock value. Our standards for speaking, civility, grammar and nearly everything else seem to have spiraled down into mediocrity. However, many readers would argue that in the case of books it is not so much that the standards for writing have fallen, as it is a situation where the quality of the books has improved. That is not to say that a dreadfully written book does not, still, from time to time, appear on the bestseller list for a fleeting moment. This is the case with Sophie Kinsella's newest book, "The Undomestic Goddess." Kinsella has achieved a dubious fame, especially in England where she lives, with her books on trendy topics such as "Confessions of a Shopaholic" and "Shopaholic Takes Manhattan." Kinsella's books have never enticed me but "The Undomestic Goddess" received favorable reviews and I needed something witty and clever to help me while away days by a sick hospital bed and to keep at bay depressing thoughts. And then, "The Undomestic Goddess" was on the bestseller list. Right up there with "The Historian." Sadly, by the time I finished reading it, "The Undomestic Goddess" had not only vanished from the bestseller list but had also evaporated from my memory. I just couldn't remember exactly what I had read although part of the reason for this might have been the circumstances under which I had read it. Samantha Sweeting, a twenty-nine year old lawyer with the most prestigious law firm in London is "The Undomestic Goddess." Samantha is a mathematical genius and an ambitious workaholic. Her dream is to become partner in the law firm. For that she logs weekly at least 200 work hours and has given up having a life. She doesn't take vacations or work out or have beauty treatments or go to spas or have regular meals or find the time to celebrate her birthdays. Samantha's mother is a famous London barrister who "disapproves of women taking the name of their husband and ...of women staying from Home Unavailable, cooking, cleaning, or learning to type and thinks all women should earn more than their husbands because they're naturally brighter." On the eve of the day she is to be made partner, Samantha discovers an overlooked memo that would cost the firm and some of the firm's clients, millions. This is mind boggling for a person who never makes even small errors. Samantha looses it - literally, and gets on a train to nowhere. When she gets off the train she goes to a house to ask for a drink of water and is mistaken for an interviewee for the job of housekeeper. She is offered the job and in a cloud of confusion, Samantha accepts it. Lucky for Samantha, the gardener, a man with a degree in horticulture, discovers her secret and helps her learn how to cook and clean house. He also shows her how to stop and smell the roses. And as expected, romance blooms between the two. When eventually Samantha unravels the plot framing her and is offered the firm partnership, she turns it down. She has discovered what's it like to have leisure, to have a life. She tells the firm that she would rather be a housekeeper and "clean loos" than be a lawyer. Samantha's predicament explodes in the news media, which puts on it feminist or anti-feminist spins. The author's suggestion that a woman has to make a choice between a career and having a life and that this choice is based on feminist or anti-feminist ideas is as outdated as the huge shoulder pads women wore when this was a burning issue. Today we know that those choices are strictly economic. In order to have a life one has to have the necessary income. And as Barbara Ehrenreich demonstrates in her book "Nickel and Dimed," housekeepers could hardly make ends meet; they don't have the luxury of entertaining notions about leisure or having a life. Ophelia Georgiev Roop Library Director San Bernardino Public Library |
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