What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal: A Novel
by Zoë Heller
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Book Summary Information
Author: Zoë HellerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-06-01
ISBN: 0312421990
Number of pages: 258
Publisher: Picador
Book Reviews of What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal: A Novel
Book Review: An old maid sweetens her tea with scandal
Summary: 5 Stars
Barbara Covett, a sixty-ish spinster (complete with a cat), is our unreliable narrator in Zoe Heller's "What Was She Thinking: Notes on a Scandal." She befriends Sheba Hart, a much younger, upper-crust and married teacher at the London comprehensive where they both teach. When the hippie-styled Sheba begins a "love affair" with a 16-year-old pupil, Barbara documents not only the affair as related to her by Sheba, but her own intense obsession to be part of Sheba's life as well. The book is structured as Barbara's manuscript.
The primary focus in the novel, surprisingly enough, isn't really the scandal but the dynamics between the two women. The scandal-Sheba's criminal affair with the minor, Steven Connolly-serves to ignite Barbara's creepy fixation with Sheba, something which Barbara carefully masks as a "relationship de chaleur," a warm friendship of reciprocal intimacy and trust. Barbara is a very lonely woman, one who "constructs an entire weekend around a visit to the launderette," and sees the beautiful Sheba as someone who could fill that loneliness. Unfortunately for her, Sheba has a much different take on their relationship, and is more invested in her infatuation and assignations with Steven. Having been unceremoniously pushed aside at a time when she most needed her friend, Barbara sees a chance to use her knowledge of Sheba's crime to her advantage resulting in an unplanned act of revenge and betrayal. Remembering her mother's axiom that evil will out, Barbara muses, "...I rather think she was wrong about that. Evil can stay in, minding its own business for eternity, if the right situation doesn't arise." For Barbara, the right situation did arise.
I don't know if my having seen the 2006 film with Judi Dench (who did her usual magnificent job) predisposed me to liking this book. The film was more of a thriller with Barbara portrayed as an obvious sociopath, whereas the book is more of a drama with some psychological suspense. It also ended quite differently. At any rate, I find both the book and film to be very well done. I think Zoe Heller is a fantastic writer and I find her prose cleverly witty, perceptive, and provocative, and has fashioned a character in Barbara that's a fitting outlet for all that wit and insight. The bitter Barbara sees St. George's, the school where she and Sheba teach, as "the holding pen for Archway's pubescent proles." The acute Barbara regards the idealistic, politically-correct and so-called progressive way of teaching with disdain: "It strikes me as not coincidental that, in the same period that pedagogical ambitions have become so inflated and grandiose, the standards of basic literacy and numeracy have radically declined." (Think it's hot air? Look into the literacy level of some youths graduated from high school, and see how many can make change without aid of a machine.) In all fairness, as intelligent as our Barbara is, she's also sick in the mind.
It's odd that the book succeeds with nary a sympathetic character. Barbara, I've already covered. Sheba, the center of all the sturm und drang, regresses into a love-sick teenager, rationalizing her indefensible impulses, and becomes the tabloids' deviant du jour. Sheba's husband, Richard, is a condescending fool, if we're to believe Barbara. Even their daughter, Polly, is a spoiled and vulgar brat. Steven is a user, and given his pubescent caprices, strings Sheba along for no other purpose than coital. But the author skillfully elevates the narrative from what could have easily been a farcical and lurid Jerry-Springer-like story to one that is smart, touching and disturbing all at the same time. I highly recommend both the book and the film.
Summary of What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal: A Novel
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Now the Major Motion Picture Notes on a Scandal
Schoolteacher Barbara Covett has led a solitary life until Sheba Hart, the new art teacher at St. George's, befriends her. But even as their relationship develops, so too does another: Sheba has begun an illicit affair with an underage male student. When the scandal turns into a media circus, Barbara decides to write an account in her friend's defense--and ends up revealing not only Sheba's secrets, but also her own.
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