Iris

Of all the books I have read so far this summer, the one I have enjoyed the most is Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire. I chose it because I loved Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West when I read it two years ago, and my appreciation for the novel developed into an interest in the wonderful musical, which I got the chance to see last June (thanks to some sweet and generous grandparents). Anyway, Confessions had a lot to say about beauty, and so I wanted to post some of my favorite quotations from the novel, sort of as a follow-up of my last entry. Maguire handles beauty carefully, and he presents perspectives that are different, I think, from most everything else I have read.

----

"I'd be a changeling if I could, thinks Iris; turn me into a flounder, a sparrow, a dormouse. Better yet, turn me into an insensible chair with a broken rush seat; a nail on the hoof of a horse! Turn me into sad thick Ruth! Anything or anyone that is too dull to be able to think about herself. It's the endlessly thinking about yourself that causes such heart shame." p. 63

"Self-mockery is an uglier thing than any human face, Iris. No one can pretend that you are a pretty wench, but you are smart and you are kind. Don't betray those impulses in yourself. Don't belabor the lack of physical beauty, which in any case eventually flees those who have it, and makes them sad." p. 178

"'I do not mean to be impolite,' says Iris, flushing. 'You find  a rude English country girl before you, sir; please forgive me. I don't know the ways of this land.'

'You are new enough here still to find Dutch ways peculiar?'

'I am young enough to find life peculiar,' she replies." p. 318

"And Iris herself? Ah, the inner eye blinks, and the spirit trembles, at the dangerous cost of seeing one's self as one is." p. 305

"'Are you still so young that you can't see you have some cachet of your own?'

'I with my nose like a spring carrot, I with my arms like awls, my bosom small and indistinct--'

'You, you, you,' he says, 'aren't only what you look like. Aren't you enough of a painter to realize that?'" p. 336

"'And what about the kind act, as my mother said? ... The small gesture of charity? Isn't that sort of beauty more beautiful than any other?'

'And equally evanescent,' says the Master, 'for small charities cannot this wicked world amend. But perhaps charity is the kind of beauty that we comprehend the best because we miss it the most.'" p. 313

"Her hands didn't fiddle with the pleats at the gathered waist of her gown. She seemed, if not at peace with herself, then at least interested in developing herself, whoever she might be." p. 306

---

I know it's kind of a hodgepodge of quotations... I'd like to hear your thoughts if any of these catch your fancy, though, or if you disagree with any of them outright.