'I don't think i wear melancholy very well. I can manage self-pity for a bit, but i'm too happy, fundamentally.'
Sophie Dahl
Playing with the Grown Ups by Sophie Dahl is one of my favourite books. It's a coming of age story to end all coming of age stories featuring those eccentric British characters you love in Wodehouse or Gibbons, but modernised (and, thus, more brutal). And, like all good fiction, it has a whiff of fact about it. For was not Sophie herself, like Kitty (her heroine), carted around from school to ashram, city to city, by a famously erratic and flighty mother? Sophie was always quick to deny any autobiography within the novel, but one of the few things i do know about writing is that it is very difficult to separate the self from the object. a bit of you always always always ends tangled up in the story, for better or for worse.
what i love most about the book is the unending happiness that emerges from it. You get the sense that Kitty, like Sophie herself, is unable to be really well and truly sad, despite all the terrible things that happen to her. She is a creature of ecstasy, resilient to a fault, for whom bumps in the road are merely that - hurdles on the path to a smile.
I think I'm rather like that. I would say my best feature is my smile, it is terminally plastered on my face, happy or sad, although to tell you the truth i am happy far more than i am sad. I get sad so easily - it is the marianne dashwood in me, i suppose - in movies (everything from atonement to con air), books, speeches, farewell dinners, a good episode of law and order SVU. But it is a sadness that merely passes through, for mere minutes later I am able to grin from ear to ear. I'll smile at everything and anything, babies, helpful people who give me directions, bunches of flowers, a particularly yummy dinner, the sight of old friends, the promise of new ones... Just like Sophie I have been known to wallow in the self pity, but at the end of the day I am too delighted at life to stay sad for very long. Perfectly whipped cream can bring me out in raptures.
clothes to be happy in
diane von furstenburg coat, proenza schouler ps1 clutch, christopher kane cardigan, lanvin belt, cutler and wilson bangle, savant skirt, miu miu clogs, miss selfridge sunglasses.
Life can get you down, undoubtedly. Sophie knows this, Kitty knows this, I know this (and how i know it). Despite everything thrown at me I still find so much joy and happiness in life. That's the thing, really. When there will always be the promise of sales at lands end, surprise chai lattes, picnics in the park at dusk and spontaneous karaoke parties sodden with alcohol and wild with happy oblivion then i will always be able to smile. That ability is very childlike - naive, but not in the bad sense of the world. It reminds me of that movie, Happy go lucky, or that fantastic Lily Allen song, LDN. When the sun is shining and your feelings are high nothing, nothing can rain on your parade.
I think i got it from my mother. The word most often used to describe her is 'jolly' - and what a lovely word that is. She has a great smile too.
X
Sophie Dahl
Playing with the Grown Ups by Sophie Dahl is one of my favourite books. It's a coming of age story to end all coming of age stories featuring those eccentric British characters you love in Wodehouse or Gibbons, but modernised (and, thus, more brutal). And, like all good fiction, it has a whiff of fact about it. For was not Sophie herself, like Kitty (her heroine), carted around from school to ashram, city to city, by a famously erratic and flighty mother? Sophie was always quick to deny any autobiography within the novel, but one of the few things i do know about writing is that it is very difficult to separate the self from the object. a bit of you always always always ends tangled up in the story, for better or for worse.
what i love most about the book is the unending happiness that emerges from it. You get the sense that Kitty, like Sophie herself, is unable to be really well and truly sad, despite all the terrible things that happen to her. She is a creature of ecstasy, resilient to a fault, for whom bumps in the road are merely that - hurdles on the path to a smile.
I think I'm rather like that. I would say my best feature is my smile, it is terminally plastered on my face, happy or sad, although to tell you the truth i am happy far more than i am sad. I get sad so easily - it is the marianne dashwood in me, i suppose - in movies (everything from atonement to con air), books, speeches, farewell dinners, a good episode of law and order SVU. But it is a sadness that merely passes through, for mere minutes later I am able to grin from ear to ear. I'll smile at everything and anything, babies, helpful people who give me directions, bunches of flowers, a particularly yummy dinner, the sight of old friends, the promise of new ones... Just like Sophie I have been known to wallow in the self pity, but at the end of the day I am too delighted at life to stay sad for very long. Perfectly whipped cream can bring me out in raptures.
clothes to be happy in
diane von furstenburg coat, proenza schouler ps1 clutch, christopher kane cardigan, lanvin belt, cutler and wilson bangle, savant skirt, miu miu clogs, miss selfridge sunglasses.
Life can get you down, undoubtedly. Sophie knows this, Kitty knows this, I know this (and how i know it). Despite everything thrown at me I still find so much joy and happiness in life. That's the thing, really. When there will always be the promise of sales at lands end, surprise chai lattes, picnics in the park at dusk and spontaneous karaoke parties sodden with alcohol and wild with happy oblivion then i will always be able to smile. That ability is very childlike - naive, but not in the bad sense of the world. It reminds me of that movie, Happy go lucky, or that fantastic Lily Allen song, LDN. When the sun is shining and your feelings are high nothing, nothing can rain on your parade.
I think i got it from my mother. The word most often used to describe her is 'jolly' - and what a lovely word that is. She has a great smile too.
X
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