“You think you are about to possess what men have hopelessly yearned for throughout the ages: the soul of an innocent, trusting, dependent child inside the opulent body of a radiantly lovely woman.”

I recently watched the adaptation of Poor Things (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) and I was blown away by it. I found it breathtakingly beautiful but even more haunting and heartbreaking. When I found out it was an adaptation of a book of the same name written by Alasdair Gray I couldn’t resist reading! I do think my reading experience was influenced by my recent watch of the movie, the descriptions were very much supplemented by the films gorgeous visuals, and the narration with Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe’s strong voices. However, the book and the film had so many differences I don’t think it took away from my reading experience either! It was still very unique and stands on its own very well. I couldn’t pick which I enjoyed more, though I will admit I enjoyed how much more outwardly feminist, socialist, and just political in general the book is.

In Poor Things, we are introduced to the story by the student of a man who has saved a pregnant woman’s life, after a suicide attempt, by removing the brain of her unborn child and replacing hers with it. The product is, of course, a child’s brain in a woman’s body. Dr. Godwin Baxter, or God as Bella refers to him, plans to turn her into his bride, but as Bella begins to learn about the world and life she craves independence and learning experiences. At this point, Godwin’s friend/colleague Archibald McCandless has proposed to her and she agrees, but first she runs away with another man for exploration. Bella travels the world while committing the great crime of being a confident, honest, sexual, and educated woman. At every turn, men see her innocence and take advantage of it, get their feelings hurt by her honesty and assuredness in not being in love with them (invented getting manic-pixie-dream-girled lol).

In both iterations, the most heartbreaking, sickening aspect was Bella’s naivety and the way men treated her. Despite knowing full well that something about her wasn’t quite right, they prioritized their own desire because of her beauty, and then coerced her into situations that were unfair to her. Seeing through Bella’s eyes, or reading her thoughts via letters sent home, as she sees extreme poverty and the effects of war, as she learns about politics and can’t understand why we don’t just… help our fellow people. Utterly heartbreaking! Seeing a child being treated as a woman and experiencing the whole world in such a short period of time and being broken by it so quickly was painfully relatable. Regardless of all her hardships and heartbreak, Bella is motivated by it all and returns home prepared to do whatever it takes to make a change, becomes a doctor, and does everything in her power to help women and children with her skills.

Spoiler warning for the end of the novel, but after the general “book” ends, the titular “Poor Things” portion of the book written/recounted by Bella’s husband Archibald McCandless, Bella has her own note to add, that her husband made it all up! She was not the product of this Frankensteinian brain-swap and she has no idea why he wrote all of these things about her! I had not considered the possibility of an unreliable narrator and I still don’t know what to think! That was followed by the author editing everything Archie and Bella had written and correcting them on historical errors, etc., which did kind of take me out of it and I was bored until it ended. I really loved the story following Bella’s adventures, it made me hate every man in her life, even the ones she really liked and that had better intentions. Such an interesting perspective to have most of her story be told through letters she was writing to Godwin on her adventure. I will think of this story for a long time and already want to watch the movie again!