Completed December 2022
BOY PARTS
I didn't plan to write this entry at first. As I started to read, I found Boy Parts interesting enough, but I didn't expect it would have that much impact on me by the end. And yet, here I am a few weeks after finishing, still thinking about this book. At this point I think I need to write something just to get it out of my system.
To say that our narrator, Irina, is difficult to like would be an understatement. She is selfish, judgemental, uncaring and rude. Her only priorities are her own desires and her work as a photographer. The surrounding cast isn't much better – again, self-interest is rife and there was nobody I found myself truly rooting for. Usually this is a recipe for disaster, and sure enough the lack of sympathy I felt for the characters did mar my engagement with the story initially. But in hindsight, I am so glad that Irina was written the way she was, because her narcissism paved the way for a truly unique read.
Her perspective, although difficult to stomach, became more captivating as the plot developed. It emerged that she was the ultimate unreliable narrator, twisting our understanding of every event that occurred. This also cast doubt on my distaste towards the adjacent characters – were they really as unpleasant as Irina portrays them? Our perspective is dependent entirely on her filter, which we realise is as critical and unsympathetic as they come.
This chaotic approach to the truth was the most interesting aspect of the novel for me. Initially I assumed her dismissal of how her choices affect others was simply down to her ego, but there's something else at play... it emerges that Irina may be questioning her own sanity. This is reinforced by her constant disregard for her safety. At no point does she show fear in the danger she finds herself in, which is unsurprising if she believes that the world around her isn't, in fact, real.
At times, it feels like her actions face no consequences. The novel begins with her workday being disrupted by a mother furious at Irina's photoshoot of her son – who has lied about being above the age of consent. This felt like the set up of a problem which could escalate throughout the novel, and I was left imagining a police visit, an arrest, even a trial? But no, she is assured the photos have been deleted and is never heard from again. This pattern repeats itself throughout the story, whether it be when those who Irina harms fail to hold her responsible (a man she attacks is sent to hospital but never presses charges, a fellow photographer she sexually assaults texts her the next day as if their liaison was just wilder than he expected), or when others hurt her and she shrugs it off as nothing out of the norm (even when she is raped by a friend she thought she could trust).
This lack of any repercussions creates a circling nature to the plot and imparts a dreamlike quality. This culminates in her gradual recollection of her meeting with a homeless boy, who she invites to her home under the pretence of offering him work as a model, a decision which eventually leads her to committing his murder. Her descriptions of such a horrifying act are presented matter-of-factly, in a tone passive enough to make the skin crawl.
But there is conflict in her portrayal, the narrative betraying guilt through her recurrent visions of her victims. Even if she desires to present to us as her audience as totally unfeeling, she would not be haunted by him in such a way if she was – in denial or not. And when she returns to where hid the skull only to find it missing, we are once again left asking whether it ever happened at all, or if it is simply an extension of her cold-blooded fantasies.
The core of the plot comes down to exploring her agency in the world. Irina feels totally powerless, as evidenced by her frustration at those around her failing to take her seriously. Her work reveals that the essence of this feeling is her gender, which time and again leads to her being dismissed as irrelevant and unthreatening (despite her height, build, courage, intelligence – the list goes on). Therefore she goes out of her way to make vulnerable those who make her feel at her weakest – men – at first through her photography and later, when this no longer satisfies, through violence.
There is power in not caring – in the agency it brings. And there is power in her disregard for gender roles. In a way, this is such a shame as her work could have been a truly groundbreaking exploration of female agency in a patriarchal society. And yet it instead descended into indulgence of her mental illness.
The ultimate barrier to Irina's desperation to be understood is the fact she doesn't understand herself. And why would she, when her choices feel so utterly futile?
“Do I have to smash a glass over the head of every single man I come into contact with, just so I leave a fucking mark?”