I was not aware of the author; I got attracted to the title. But reading it was quite a refreshing experience for me. I read it to know this girl’s point of view. She has put forward her views with an earnest conviction. Her approach is interesting and hilarious. I would call it a nutty and peckish approach of a girl. Most of the time, she has first taken a fractious route, to put forward her conviction on various issues and then immediately has tried to defend herself by identifying a specific category of people for her views. She has been able to create lots of light moments for the readers in doing that.
There are some very interesting views on many things, a girl can have that I tried and enjoyed through this book. She has talked about the untrained men under- thirty-five, about a girl’s view on clothes she wears, about woman’s rights in love, about men as lovers, about lovemaking as fine art. She has willfully touched the topics of ‘girls with other girls and ‘subject of husband’ as well.
She says that every woman, at some time in her life experiences a man in the raw. A raw man is someone for her who has not been earlier trained by a woman. She talks about a man who is under thirty-five and is still untrained…
“You can do little to help him If you are the first girl to take a hand at him. You can but prepare him to be a little more amenable to the next girl. His mind is not on you. It is centered on himself. You are only an entity to him, not an individual. He cares nothing for your likes and dislikes, your cares or hopes or fears. He only wishes you to be pretty and well dressed.”
She, in a very witty manner, gives her detailed opinion on clothing …
When a man praises your clothes, he always is praising you in them. You will never hear a man praise even the good dressing of a woman he dislikes; while girls who positively hate another girl often will add, “But she certainly does know how to dress.”
She says men seldom make perfect lovers…
“Men seldom make perfect lovers, I deeply regret being obliged to say this. I do not pretend to say why this is so. I suppose because a man never dwells upon the sentimental side of the life, nor understands the emotions, unless he is either a poet or a Miss Nancy, and it is almost equally dangerous to marry either of those.”
In the latter part of the book, she has discussed various categories of men. She has her views on the self-made man, the dyspeptic man, the too-accurate man, the irresistible man, and the stupid man.Explaining an account of a dyspeptic man, she writes…
“Of course every woman knows that a sick man is sicker than the thousand sicker women, each of whom is twice as sick as he is. We all know that he can groan louder and roll his eyes higher and keep more people flying about, and all this just a plain pain, than his wife would do with seven fatal ailments.”
Finally, she talks about the new woman…
“Why have men always possessed an exclusive right to the sense of humor? I believe because they live out of the door more. Humor is an out-of-door virtue. It requires ozone and the light of the sun and when the new women came out of the doors and mingled with men and newer women, she saw funny things and her sense of humor began to grow and thrive.”
This is interesting to know that this book was written in the 1890s. Its humorous and jolly approach in expressing a girl’s point of view of that time is making it a light and fun read even today.
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