【英語で読書感想文】The First Bad Man by Miranda July ミランダ・ジュライ『最初の悪い男』
Title : The First Bad Man
Author : Miranda July
Every time I hear that Miranda July has crafted something new, whatever the art form: a movie, a short story, or a mobile phone application, I know it will be weird. More specifically, eccentric. Naive but absolutely interesting and beautiful. So, my expectations were already very high before reading her first novel, “The First Bad Man”.
In the book, we meet Cheryl, a forty-something year old woman. She lives her life following an odd set of rules she calls a “system”. She thinks her life is efficient, but actually her “system” is designed to avoid interacting with others to protect herself from getting hurt. In the first few pages, we can see that the author portrays many of her characters as Cheryl is: peculiar, quirky and super sensitive. One day, Cheryl’s boss asked her to let his daughter Clee move into her house. Clee is rude, selfish, insanitary 20-year-old girl. Cheryl’s life is totally destroyed by the unwanted roommate.
So, the story follows Cheryl’s roller-coaster-like relationship with Clee. Sometimes it goes very violent (literally they hit, push and kick each other) so some readers may be turned off. I had no idea where the story would take me, so I just kept turning the pages. In the end, I got into the author’s odd world again!
Usually I’m not the kind of person who is fond of a character-driven story. I don’t need to connect to any characters as long as the story or the writing style is engaging. I’m not interested in finding a favorite character in the story, I’m more concerned about how the author writes and conveys things creatively. But, when I was approaching the final page, I was missing Cheryl already. I totally loved her and other strange and lovable people in the book. It was hard to say goodbye to them!
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みんな大好きミランダ・ジュライ。
2024年5月に新しい小説が出た（日本語版はまだ先だろうけど）ので読むのが楽しみです！
元の投稿はコチラ↓です。
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