I really don’t know what I was expecting when I picked up Miranda July’s No One Belongs Here More Than You, but I can tell you it definitely exceeded those expectations.
Honestly, so many of these short stories I think I will need to re-read at a different point in my life to better understand, but the way that these stories are just so completely out there is truly mesmerizing. I don’t know how she did it, but July’s collection of stories in this book is gripping, even if some of them require more than a little thought afterwards for the reader to truly and fully grasp.
Because it’s a short story collection, I think I’ll just touch on a few of my personal favorite stories, and leave the rest for people to discover on their own. Not because I think they aren’t as good; mostly because I don’t understand a good deal of the stories. Not well enough to know what the emotions they are dragging out of me mean, just well enough to know that they are somehow, inexplicably, emotional.
So, here goes, my top two stories from Miranda July’s No One Belongs Here More Than You:
Birthmark
I don’t really know why this story feels so poignant to me. It’s a short story about a woman who gets lager surgery to remove her port wine stain facial birthmark. A few years after the surgery, she gets married, but her marriage isn’t perfect, mostly because she can’t help but constantly wonder if her husband would love her even if she still had her birthmark. Then, one day, her birthmark comes back. The story ends there, but what I can’t get out of my mind is the image July creates for the ending. Here, just read it for yourself and tell me that isn’t some of the most beautiful imagery ever (even if there really isn’t a lot of imagery in the literal sense):
“He found himself kneeling. He was waiting for her on his knees. He was worried she would not let him love her with the stain. He had already decided long ago, twenty or thirty minutes ago, that the stain was fine. He had only seen it for a moment, but he was already used to it. It was good.”
Honestly, the story reminds us that some of our ghosts from the past don’t stop haunting us, even if they no longer really exist, and at the same time, as a reader, I can’t help but feel happy for the woman. She has found a person who acknowledges her ghosts, and more than that, realizes that she hasn’t let go of them yet, and is willing to wait for her and be there for her. It’s also ironic that for the better part of the story we as readers understand that the woman and the man don’t have the best relationship, and yet the moment the thing the woman is most insecure about returns, their marriage seems to become better rather than worse.
Maybe we should all take more risks.
I don’t know. Maybe that’s a weird takeaway from this story. But that’s what I got. Take more risks. Because those who will stay will stay, and those who won’t won’t. How philosophical of me (I’m also reading A Short Introduction to Philosophy, so maybe that’s why).
This Person
This Person is probably the most unique story in the book, because not only is it a good deal shorter, it is written in a stream of consciousness way that thrusts the reader into the world of the person, who’s name we never learn, and just forces us to go along with her motions and actions. The story is essentially about a woman who has gotten engaged, but she leaves her engagement party halfway through and goes back home to go to bed.
Ironically, I can see myself doing that. Engagement parties sound like a lot of hassle, and from the way the person describes her engagement party, it sounds like she’s invited way too many people, and turned it into an event for others rather than for herself.
This is one of those stories that don’t seem to have much of a plot, nor much of a resolution, and yet somehow still manages to dredge up deep feelings from its reader. The way the person is so completely calm and so chaotic at the same time at the idea of abandoning her own party to go home and take a bath makes me question just how many times I’ve wanted to be brave enough to do exactly what she is doing, and really makes me question why I go about to events that I don’t want to be at if I don’t want to be there.
Pretty sure Miranda July didn’t expect her readers to get that message from that particular story, but hey, I live for being unpredictable.
Anyway.
Would recommend this book for multiple readings. It’s a quick read too.
Happy Friday!! (Wish me luck on my interview today.)
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