Angela, Couples, Updike, Women, Humanity

I've observed something curious recently and, after I started reading Updike, I managed to recognize it in one of his characters in Couples, Angela.

Updike describes her v well. She's gorgeous and unhappy because she denies her humanity. She's no longer a body, no longer an animal, only ether. She feels closer to the stars in the sky than to any physical reality which surrounds her. She's polite to a fault in order to avoid real emotion. Her husband, Piet, is cheating on her with at least two women, one of whom was 5 months into her pregnancy when the affair started. Angela knows he cheats but pretends she doesn't. (I have not finished the book yet, but it seems she's about to undergo a bit of a transformation...)

There are women who have distanced themselves from their human reality. They've somehow decided that to be detached is better. They're often v good-looking women who dress well and have good taste in all things, are refined and sophisticated, but have somehow stopped living. Angela is like this.

I saw a woman at the café yesterday while sipping a cappuccino. She was sitting at the table to my left, drinking a herbal infusion of some kind. The busy and necessarily pretty waitress came to collect the money; the woman in question fiddled with an impressive number of coins inside a tiny little purple leather pouch which she took out of her soft-leather handbag, almost like a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, only more slowly and far more gracefully. A purple leather rabbit.

The waitress didn't want to wait for her to sort out the change, turned on her heel in a bit of a huff and went to another table ... I thought she'd get annoyed. She didn't. She didn't really seem to be there physically, it was v curious. Her female friend had gone to buy cigarettes at a Tabac two blocks down. I glanced at her discreetly ... she smiled politely but absent-mindedly and I wondered when was the last time she'd had an orgasm. A real one, the kind that makes ppl forget themselves and just ... attempt a shot on goal from the midfield at the 89th minute of the 2nd half. Just go for it.

I thought about Angela.

Then I wondered if there are any men like that. I've never met a man who was this removed from his humanity and body.

I wonder what causes this. Excess cosmetics? Excess preening? Do we women run the risk of beginning to think we're made of porcelain and might break or melt if we come into contact with sweat? Forty-two years after women burnt their bras in the public squares throughout the West and we're back in a corset, albeit invisible (thus sadly unsexy)? Why do our societies dislike the human body so much? We're encouraged to make an effort to look our best all the time, but doesn't this lead, paradoxically, to a state of mind conducive to worrying about how we look at a time -- even if one looks good! -- when it is preferable to pay attention to how we feel, our sensations?

This probably is nothing new and I'm the one who's behind, only noticing it now, with Updike's help.

Maybe it's Paris, full of very good-looking women with a lot of money and haute couture; appear to be, look the part, wear the luxury velvet and silken armor. Makes them feel stronger? No idea. Of course it's pleasant to feel good about how we look. It does make a difference, it is far better than feeling bad about it, but when does it become an obsession?

Or does it even have anything to do with appearances?