When I first heard the name of this book during an all-high-school-meeting, I thought I had heard wrong. I later asked a friend what the name of the book was. I was somewhat amused to find that the book was indeed titled The Vagina Monologues. At the time, still in my junior year, I did not think I would ever read such a book. Yet here I am, approximately one year later, having pulled my way through it. The book contains a great many graphic images and it is by far the most revolting book I have ever read. Phrases in the book such as "You cannot love a vagina unless you love hair" made me very uneasy (9). Following this chapter, which is called "Hair," there are a number of sections that are ever more descriptive and detailed. By the time I got to page 24, I was ready to put the book down and never even glance at it again! One small caption on page 25 saved me. The caption, which reads "Jewish, Queens accent" helped me lift my head above this grotesque cloud known as The Vagina Monologues (25). I read this chapter, called "The Flood," with what I thought would be a "Queens accent" and was able to find the chapter a bit more amusing than I found the previous chapter. What I needed to do was to read the book as "amusing" rather than "disgusting" and in doing this, I could walk through the book mentally unharmed.
The way The Vagina Monologues is written also helped me get through it. Although I did not initially realize this, the book is written in a very "quick" way. What I mean by "quick" is that the speaker changes almost every paragraph. At first, I thought it was the same person speaking, but when I realized that it was a collection of phrases from different people, I found it very interesting. The way that Eve Ensler, the author, put these phrases together to make this monologue, making sure that it made sense the whole way through, is an incredible feat. This also made the book easier to read for me because I wasn't, in a sense, lingering on the same thought for too long. Lingering on a single thought in this book for too long could be fatal. What I had to do was to keep moving quickly from one idea to the next, never stopping until I reached the end. It was like running across a gorge with skinny pillars as stepping stones, where if I stood on a single pillar too long it would crumble from my weight. I have to be light and skip through it, not letting the gorge take me. I suppose this is quite a dramatic example for a book, but this is the first book, and hopefully the last, that I have read with such endless uncomfortable imagery. I am glad it is over. Moving on to Mrs. Dalloway is a nice change, coming back to the ground on the other side of the gorge.
The way The Vagina Monologues is written also helped me get through it. Although I did not initially realize this, the book is written in a very "quick" way. What I mean by "quick" is that the speaker changes almost every paragraph. At first, I thought it was the same person speaking, but when I realized that it was a collection of phrases from different people, I found it very interesting. The way that Eve Ensler, the author, put these phrases together to make this monologue, making sure that it made sense the whole way through, is an incredible feat. This also made the book easier to read for me because I wasn't, in a sense, lingering on the same thought for too long. Lingering on a single thought in this book for too long could be fatal. What I had to do was to keep moving quickly from one idea to the next, never stopping until I reached the end. It was like running across a gorge with skinny pillars as stepping stones, where if I stood on a single pillar too long it would crumble from my weight. I have to be light and skip through it, not letting the gorge take me. I suppose this is quite a dramatic example for a book, but this is the first book, and hopefully the last, that I have read with such endless uncomfortable imagery. I am glad it is over. Moving on to Mrs. Dalloway is a nice change, coming back to the ground on the other side of the gorge.
