Reading Reflections
'Vladimir' by Julia May Jonas
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I recently commented that I missed writing my monthly reading reviews, but that I had found myself, after almost three years here on Substack, craving something slightly different in the way of an end-of-the-month reading reflection.
After suggesting that I might just start to reflect on one interesting book or piece of writing a month, my good friend
said this:“I would love that... what is the one thing you read in the past month that just captured you the most.”
This is what I am aiming to do with this month’s reading reflection. I can’t promise this will be a regular monthly feature, but I’m trying it out. I’d love to know what you think!
After reading (and loving!) The Wedding People by Alison Espach, I asked for recommendations for books featuring a female academic narrator or central protagonist.
Not that Espach’s novel is actually set in the world of academia as such, but the female narrator is an English Literature professor who often spirals into thoughts about her writing and her subject, including (of delight to me, of course!) her obsession with women’s literature, such as Jane Eyre.
My good friend Petya (again!) came up with the goods when recommending I read Vladimir by Julia May Jonas. (Honestly, if you don’t subscribe to Petya’s Substack, I can only suggest you get to it! But please, read this first…)
June Book: Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
First Impressions
It wasn’t what I was expecting. I saw the red cover and Esquire’s blurb that it was “A deliciously dark fable of sex and power,” and I wondered how that was going to transpire. I expected a “sexy” kind of affair taking place, with the unnamed female academic narrator pursuing (or being pursued) by the new young novelist on campus, Vladimir.
Opening lines
“When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell that they also loved me.”
This first sentence pretty much sums up the unusual thought processes of the narrator. A sharp, popular English professor in her mid-fifties, she holds no sympathy whatsoever with the seven young female former students who have brought a complaint against her charismatic husband for sexual misconduct. I found this an interesting, kind of brave stance for the author to take. I wasn’t sure I liked her at this point, and I certainly didn’t agree with her stance, but I respected the author’s choice of subversive narrative voice.
Story/Plot
The narrator and her husband, John, work at the same liberal arts college in upstate New York. Whilst John is under investigation for his inappropriate relationships with seven of his former students, his somewhat ambivalent wife is in the midst of an infatuation around the new young celebrated novelist on campus, Vladimir.
Although the couple have always had an understanding about their extra-marital affairs, these new allegations are making life uncomfortable for both of them.
Vladimir, in turn, has a young wife, Cynthia, whom it is well known has recently been released from a psychiatric hospital after attempting suicide. Vlad appears to be caring for her as well as their young daughter, Phee. He even ensures his wife is offered an adjunct teaching role at the college whilst she works on her second book. Cynthia has also published a successful memoir.
John and the narrator’s lawyer daughter, Sidney, has also returned home after a breakup, disgusted by her father’s behaviour and disillusioned at the ruin of her idyllic picture of her parents’ marriage.
Pace
I found the book a bit of a slow burn, at first, although I think this had more to do with me reading it in a particularly humid heat wave during June, as I suddenly just clicked with the storytelling and the narrator’s voice. This happened after I allowed myself a full, uninterrupted reading afternoon one day, reminding myself that reading is something that needs attention. I soon realised that the pace of the book was essential to the unravelling of the narrator’s mind and processing of events.
Once I accepted that the narrator had some unusual ideas around relationships and autonomy, I could also start to appreciate her a bit more. I love to be in the mind of an intellectual narrator, and the book contains many references to literature and art that I found interesting.
Themes
Morality, or lack of it; sexual agency; power structures and dynamics and how they work. Class systems, race, privilege, money. Marriage and fidelity. Impulses and human frailty.
There are also a lot of thoughts by the narrator on her value based on her looks and age. She was the one who suggested the open marriage, she tells us, believing that her husband would need to have sex outside of his marriage as she alone wouldn’t be enough for him, and she is critical of the way she looked even when she married him. She doesn’t seem to know why he chose her as he was popular at university when they met, and although she is outspoken and confident in much of her life, in this area, she clearly struggles.
I found this an interesting tangent of Jonas’s, and wondered if she intended to show that even intelligent, outwardly successful women struggle with self-image and issues around their weight, as well as the negative societal view of the ageing woman.
I found the way the narrator often disregarded herself as being old and therefore no longer attractive to men, when her older husband was still capable of sleeping with young women, a sad indictment of how older women are often perceived (or perceive themselves).
Stand-out quotations
When considering a possible affair with Vladimir:
“But also people would laugh at how ridiculous it was that this specimen of man with his conventionally attractive wife would make a pass at a postmenopausal creature such as myself. I would be a joke.”
There were sadly many such critical viewpoints in the narrator’s internal dialogue such as this, which I found a little depressing.
On living out her fantasies:
“...a feeling of pleasure revved within me, like the acceleration of a motor. The sight of him, the fact of Vladimir’s bound body, chained up in my hideaway cabin in the middle of nowhere, was fantastic and absurd.”
This part of the book took a sudden twist and was revelatory!
Commenting on Vladimir’s judgement of his wife:
“His wife was a writer, entitled to her own process and troubles…Even if she was at risk, she was her own person, not his child…Just like a man to believe a woman had to keep her behaviour in line while also churning out a work of genius.”
I found the unnamed narrator’s admiration of the object of her desire’s spouse an interesting take on the relationships within the book, and in fact, felt that Cynthia would have made a far more interesting infatuation for the narrator than Vladimir.
On solitude:
“...there were times in the past when Sid was at school and John was away, and I would go for a long drive to another town, or take the train a few stops north and sit in some establishment I would normally never frequent, simply to be somewhere nobody would expect.”
I particularly warmed to this idea: staying perfectly safe and within reach of home but feeling briefly apart and anonymous from the usual places and routine sounds like an inspiring idea to try!
Final thoughts
This is a book that turned out to be different than my initial impressions led me to believe.
I was expecting a story of a middle aged woman’s experience of a late affair with a younger man in revenge at her husband’s betrayals. I expected lust and an erotic charge (my copy has a seductively red cover).
What I found was a book I would find difficult to categorise: smart, at times funny, ironic, surprising, twisted, and intelligent. It caused me to pause and reflect, and I am still thinking of it days later. Generally a sign of a well-written and thought-provoking text!
Please let me know if you enjoyed this shorter look at the text that has activated my readerly juices this month.
Also let me know in the comments…
What you’ve been reading (always my favourite part of the monthly roundups!)
If you have any books featuring female academics to recommend.
Whether you have read Vladimir, and if so, what did you think?
Talking books is literally my favourite pastime 😂
Really enjoyed this. For me, your take at the end using Cynthia rather than Vlad' really added flavour.
It is beautiful. Endlessness of water and our reading. Openness of water and the books. Mystery of water and a book. Wisdom of water and a book. Enjoyment of water and a book. Danger of water and a book…