Who would have thought a book published in 1992 by a writer who described himself as “a fat old asthmatic Glaswegian who lives by painting and writing” would be in the mix for the Best Picture Oscar in 2024? Such is the case with Scottish writer Alasdair Gray’s (1934-2019) book Poor Things which is riding a revival wave thanks to Yorgos Lanthimos’s dark comedy starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe.
Historically, I go back a ways with Gray. My second published book review was about his book Something Leather (1991) and I wrote about him in my collection of essays, The Book Shopper: A Life in Review (2009).*
Before my longtime partner Denise and I went to the afternoon matinee of the film at the empty multiplex, my daughter who is in her mid-thirties gave us a succinct rundown. She said, “I would never see this movie with you, father, but Denise will appreciate the fashion.” In other words, expect abundant nudity and sex mixed with colorful and outrageous costumes (perhaps leftovers from The Favorite, an earlier Lanthimos’ film set in the royal court of 18th century England).
Poor Things: The Film
The film begins with a young pregnant woman jumping off a bridge into a raging river. Her lifeless body comes into the possession of Victorian-era surgeon Godwin Baxter (Willem Defoe), known for his experiments in swapping brains and body parts of animals, who slices open her skull and inserts her baby’s brain. Using electricity, Godwin re-animates the woman and renames her Bella Baxter (Emma Stone). We first meet Bella three years after this happened, when we see her dancing about Godwin’s black-and-white M.C. Escher-like mansion. Although physically an adult, she has a toddler’s awkward sensibility, body awareness, and vocabulary.
Godwin (known affectionately as “God” to Bella) hires a medical student, Max McCandless (Ramy Youssef), to chart her development. As Bella matures McCandless begins to fall in love with her, but before they can marry a rich rogue named Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) entices her to run off with him on a world tour that includes Lisbon, Alexandria, and Paris. Bella has a formidable libido, but not even Duncan can keep up with her. He tries to control her, but she rebels and seeks out new experiences both sexual and intellectual. Bella meets Dr. Harry Astley (Jerrod Carmichael) on a sea cruise and he introduces her to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and to the reality of pervasive world poverty both of which affect her deeply.
With her newly raised consciousness, she rejects Duncan and chooses to support herself as a prostitute in a Parisian brothel. There she is guided by a crusty tattooed madame and finds friendships among its denizens. Eventually she returns to England to wed the medical student McCandless, but the cad Duncan appears to foil these plans by bringing Bella’s abusive husband from her previous life. He declares she is still his wife and must be returned to him. I will not spoil the outcome.
The film is extraordinary visually, a dreamlike combination of Lemony Snicket’s film A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)and the architectural excesses of Barcelona’s Antoni Gaudi. Bella has a unique sense of fashion with her mix of 19th century billowy sleeves and outrageous mini pants. The music by Jerskin Fendrix sounds, in the words of one reviewer,* “that it was piped in directly from Bella’s subconscious.” I can say confidently that no one will be humming any of that music as they leave the theatre.
Poor Things, the Novel
Because Poor Things was published over 30 years ago there won’t be many who make a better-or-worse-than-the-book argument. Both are creatively bold and unapologetic, challenging and highly visual. The film is unconventional in its black and white fisheye cinematography, disturbingly gory scenes, comic mashups of animals, and horse-head motorized carriages. With Gray’s book it is zany typography, (early in the book Bella’s dialogue is in bold caps with no vowels), medical-dictionary illustrations, and Gray’s signature woodcut drawings. This is standard Gray, judging from his other books that have lingered on my shelf alongside Poor Things, such as A History Maker (1994) and 1982, Janine.
Admittedly, I never came close to finishing either of those other books, but when this movie was released, I was motivated to find my bargain copy of Poor Things and began reading. I wanted a sense of his writing before seeing the nearly three-hour movie that could taint my own reading perceptions.
Gray can be challenging to read but I appreciate writers with a distinct style and a fresh idea or two thrown in. I prefer the kind of prose where I will interrupt my reading to jot down favorite quotes and passages on index cards for future reference. Gray is such a writer.
I am happy to report that the film has the same witty dialogue that Gray might have written. There are even some direct graphic connections between the two, such as the moment when Godwin receives a letter from Bella. Note her distinct penmanship/scrawl (shown here) This letter appears both in the book and briefly in the film.
Another comparison worth mentioning came via my two-person “book club” (the Gravity’s Rainbow Support Group*) which recently finished Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein. Both mad scientists were driven in their studies of anatomy to unlock the secrets of life. Both created eager learners who obsessed with exploring their worlds. An important difference though: in Shelley’s book the monster is a scheming and duplicitous creature who murders innocents. Bella does no harm.
Moral Issues
An important subject for discussion about both the movie and the book version of Poor Things is the degree of ethical violations encountered, and there are many. First of course, is the cruel and deranged experiments used to create Bella (and a second creation who has a cameo in the film). We do get some insight into Godwin’s damaged psyche when he recalls—in both versions—his own father’s experiments on him, one result being deformed hands “with thick first knuckles from which the fingers tapered so steeply to babyish tips.” (Shown here is an illustration from the book.)
Later in the story, the enticement by the rogue Duncan of a woman with a child’s brain is morally reprehensible. There can be no true consent in this situation. And McCandless’s personal relationship with Bella (a former patient) is also dubious.
Given these issues, some will find the frolicking tone of the movie to be in questionable taste but remember it is billed as a dark comedy.
Interestingly, at the end of the book is a chapter where Bella, who has gone on to be a medical doctor, writes a lengthy letter to her future grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She wants to set the record straight about her feelings for Godwin and McCandless, and admits that Godwin was the only man she truly loved. Bella writes:
“God was a big sad-looking man, but so careful and alert and unforcing in all his movements that animals, small people, hurt and lonely people, all women (I repeat and emphasize it) ALL WOMEN AT FIRST SIGHT felt safe and at peace with him.”
And with this acknowledgement she seems to forgive him his (rationally) unforgivable actions in creating her. This epilogue does not appear in the movie, but it is clear as Godwin nears death in the film, that she cares deeply for her God.
Movies can disappoint us if we have read the book first. Or if we saw the movie first, we don’t feel the need to bother with the book even if we appreciated the film. It is a rare instance when a film encourages us to explore the book upon which it was based. I found this to be the case with Lanthimos’ complementary Poor Things. Instead of competing with or obliterating the novel the film has invigorated my interest in a book and author that had previously been collecting dust on my mental shelves.
Murray Browne is a writer, publisher and bookseller living in Atlanta (murray-browne.com). His latest book is A Father’s Letters: Connect Past to Present. This is his eighth piece for Tropics of Meta. The author thanks Denise Casey for our discussions and her editing work and for being such a good movie-going companion.
Notes
* “Reading British Fiction is a Question of Taste,” by Murray Browne. The Grand Rapids Press, January 19. 1992. Page C7.
I am not the only one who admires the writer Alasdair Gray. National Book Award finalist Madison Smartt Bell, in the acknowledgements for his novel Doctor Sleep (1991), recognized Gray as one of the people who contributed to his book. However, Bell quipped, ‘Gray will hardly be expecting it.’ For years after I read the acknowledgement, I wondered what it meant. At a Nashville Book Festival I saw Bell on a panel, but I was too shy to quiz him in front of a packed house. Still, it confused me how these two seemingly disconnected writers were linked—Gray, an off the wall writer and illustrator from Scotland, and Bell, a novelist whose trilogy of books about the slave revolt in Haiti is an incredible work of history and imagination.
Finally, I had an opportunity to hear Bell give another reading, this time at Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee. A writer friend of mine was doing the handling of Bell and invited me to attend. After the reading, Bell graciously answered all the standard writing student questions: Where do you get your inspiration? What is your workday like? How do you get a goddamn agent? Since the discourse in the half-filled auditorium was lagging and I did really want to know, I decided to ask my question. Bell didn’t miss a beat in answering that Gray’s bawdy book 1982, Janine (1984) had influenced him while he was writing Doctor Sleep. Afterwards, I ventured backstage to see my friend and was invited to join them for the post-lecture beer and literary chat at a neighborhood bar. Thank you, Alasdair Gray.
Excerpt from The Book Shopper: A Life in Review (2009) Murray Browne. Paul Dry Books, Philadelphia.
* The Gravity’s Rainbow Support Group began during the pandemic reading to plow through weighty books with a lifelong friend. We spent most of 2020 with Thomas Pynchon’s eponymous tome, which I wrote about here in Tropics of Meta. Since then, my friend Francis and I have taken on many other books and we log reading notes that reference our thoughts in a piecemeal manner. Our opinions about Frankenstein are in the 2023 notes, which includes a brief homage to Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein. In the 2024 notes, we provide our latest commentary on Alasdair Gray’s Poor Things.