12/01/01

Cathryn Michon, repeating Pandora’s gesture, gives hope (back) to women. Hope, self-respect, confidence, humour and the ability of laughing at ourselves. Michon can pass these on very efficiently for the simple reason that she has just rediscovered them for herself; the conception of the book, as we learn, was parallel to the process of recovery from the breakdown of her marriage and a crisis in her career. Tragic twists in life often enable us to renew ourselves with a new philosophy of living. Moreover, these moments can indeed award us with a sense of mission. Whether it is a sense of inward duty to spread the word around or the promise of some nice figures on her bank account, or – most probably – both, Michon provides the reader with a survival kit.

The immeasurably charming book has a ready-made ideology you can employ in situations when you don’t feel appreciated, let alone loved as you would need to be. The key is to start appreciating and loving yourself. Giving yourself strength is expected to lead to others’ appreciation of you. The idea of treating oneself as the center, the reliable and almost exclusive base of one’s life is not novel either in the history of philosophical thought or in our contemporary individualistic world. Nevertheless, one of the most typical pitfalls of this world is to depend on the most uniformist views of how to make a good X or how to become a good Y. When religious creeds, political or educational agendas are arrogantly pushed aside, because they wish to enforce ideologies upon us, one reaches out for a book that instructs him/her what colour to put on for an interview so as to make a good impression, and how strong a first handshake should be. And this is something at least I kept in mind when reading and continually enjoying the most entertaining and wittiest book of this kind.

The crucial difference between The Grrl Genius Guide to Life and other (step-by-step) self-help books is that the former is testified by a personality into the (reinterpreted) memories of whom the reader has an insight throughout the text. It is not only the impersonal guidebook tradition that comes into the picture, but that of self-analysis and autobiography too, a genre so crucial to Western culture, if you like, from Augustine on. By the way, the same Augustine, whose mother, Monica would have definitely made it to be awarded the title Grrl Genius had there been such a thing in those ancient times. (Instead, she became one of the numerous female saints of the Catholic church.) This short digression enables me to call the attention to the fact that Michon’s book has a tendency of digging up forgotten or distorted female figures from the history of humankind, like Nannerl (Mozart’s sister, another child prodigy in music), Mileva Maric Einstein (Einstein’s first wife, without the mathematical expertise of whom Einstein wouldn’t have got too far), Catherine Littlefield Green (Eli Whitney’s landlady, ‘the actual inventor’ of the cotton gin), Lady Augusta Ada Byron Lovelace (the first computer programmer), Mildred Hill and Patty Smith Hill (authors of "Happy Birthday to You") – again not a novelty in the history of feminism.

The most capturing about this guide, however, is the personalization of the tone. Let me quote just one of the innumerable passages of self-criticism and self-vivisecting humour.

"I have to say that birth control is one of those things I just cannot get enough of. The pill is just an appetizer for me. Condoms, diaphragms, foam, whatever. Honestly, if I could build a dam of mud and twigs up there, I would" (142-143).

Issues of family ties, mother-daughter relationship, cultural roots, housework, career, liposuction, aging, postbreakup sex, mortality, belief in the supernatural, etc. – these are the points where the genre of the allegedly best-selling ‘how to’ book of our day seems to be bended with that of the (confessionary) autobiography. This co-presence of genres raises for further investigation the immensely exciting question of the implied author of the book: to what extent is it Cathryn Michon and to what extent is it a carefully constructed image (also cf illustrations, photos on the book cover)?

Cathryn Michon, at least the voice we encounter, is definitely the prophet of the self-saving program. She takes up the role of the mystical seer of some universal Grrl Genius. With a move both onomatopoeic and Derridean, the Grrl Genius jumps into being. Any woman can be a Grrl Genius provided she calls herself one. Here is how Michon, the narrator explained this to her seven-year-old goddaughter: "Here’s how it works. In the Grrl Genius Club, you are a genius because you say you are, and all your other Grrlfriends can be in your club too, as long as you’re willing to say they are all geniuses." When Juliet asks her, "Why do we call ourselves geniuses?", the reply is, "So that we can feel confident, so that we can be proud of ourselves" (222-223). Men who are sympathetic to the movement can become Enlightened Males (a possible answer to the old question whether men can be feminists).

What does a woman, sorry, a Grrl Genius do when she longs for love? She eats chocolate or eats Krispy Kreme doughnuts, has sex, has a chat, even when the other party has to make the pope wait at the other end of the telephone line. "Sex itself is a substitute for the transcendental" (56). So are doughnuts. Or, "maybe they’re a substitute for sex. So what" (56). This can vaguely recall contemporary feminist mysticism(-con-pleasure), like Michélè Roberts’ well-known preference for food, sex and God. The personal is definitely political for the narrator of our book; the Grrl Genius expresses her view of homosexuality, giving a reinterpretation of the Sodom and Gomorrah story from the Old Testament. She also underlines that female workers are frequently underestimated and despised at the working place. She criticises baby showers and partial judges at Live Salad-Making Competitions.

Besides the humour of the anecdotes and fantasies, the tone sometimes reaches a state of poetic resignation, still in a humorous way, "Do you stay together for the freckles?" (137), poses the rhetorical question Cathryn Michon of the Grrl Genius Guide to Life.

Several sentences could become life-slogans, pinned on the kitchen/bedroom/office etc. wall, and I’m trying to do my best here to advertise them:

After all, another day, another doughnut.(62)

And now, Grrl Genius, the bitch is back. (27)

Putting on lipstick can make you think better. (28)

I am beautiful because I say I am. (119)

Some of them, however, would need the scientific background provided by Michon to be understood:

So, if you always wanted to do splits, get knocked up! (120)

Having an air of naturalness and levity does not stop the book from concealing that there is a great deal of scholarly reading in the background. The author reflects on numerous classics of feminist writing, from Naomi Wolf through Maya Angelou and to Rita Mae Brown – either in the main text or in the form of choosing mottos for the different chapters from them. You could almost track down the influence of different generations of feminism on the book. Precursors like Sappho, Emily Dickinson or Jane Austen are warmly embraced by the founder of the Grrl Genius sorority. (By the by, a strong canon of Grrl Geniuses is provided at the end of the book.) The detailed and amusing (quasi-)etymologies of words, like genius, idea, bitch and cunt, as well as the cultural critique of witch-hunting, etc., also give away the author’s familiarity with cultural history. A thorough knowledge of applied sciences is visible when Mychon elaborates on how wearing lipstick affects one’s brain, how fat makes a woman sexier (in the sense that it makes you enjoy sex), or in how many ways chocolate betters your life.

Thus, The Grrl Genius Guide to Life can be retitled ‘Feminism for Beginners’ – although, for a less benevolent reader this would be homespun feminism, backed up by homespun science, homespun theology, homespun philosophy… For me, it is home-spun in the traditional and most positive sense of the word: originated in a personal, domestic background.

The witty, con-genial illustrations by Kelly Burke should also be noted, e. g. the series called ‘The Dawn of Grrl Genius’ on the development of Grrl Genius from pre-ape stage through Cro Grrldon, Neandergrrl, etc. stages.

The book also recalls the genre of the feminist (amazon) utopia: if you follow these twelve magical steps you will... Beginning to live the program is said to be very-very simple, like in the fairy tale, "Just click your heels together and say three times…"(12). Well, we shall see, but why not having a go at it... At least let us have a go at reading it, preferably on a beach with a couple of chocolate-gazed, Bavarian Kreme Krispy Kreme doughnuts.