Until Mary came into the picture I was enjoying this read, apart from the few racist comments (which were especially weird coming from someone in another ostracised group seeking acceptance - a warning of use of the n word in Chapter 36 Part 2. Caught me completely unawares) and Stephen's occasionally overwhelming elitism and out of touch-ness. 

 

I also think it’s actually SO fucking rude that this is labelled as a 'lesbian classic'. Stephen goes through SO much gender questioning, and I’m half convinced she was actually a trans man. 

 

Martin's flip from friend to lover towards Stephen, and Stephen’s feelings about it, was the most seen I’ve ever felt reading a book. None of my trans experiences have ever been reflected so accurately. 

And I know it’s just a result of developing word usage over time, but I loved that strange-‘queer' was used to describe Stephen's LGBT-queer emotions. Gave me a few chuckles here and there. 

 

Then, unfortunately, Stephen’s relationship with Mary ruined the book for me. Right from the offset, she thought of Mary exclusively as a ‘child’ and a ‘young creature’, yet I just knew their relationship was going to turn ‘romantic’.  

When Stephen takes Mary home to Paris (and has so much fucking power over her and splashes her considerably larger wealth and intelligence/knowledge/experience about), she literally has an argument with Mary because she says Mary is tired, but Mary refuses saying she isn’t. Such a parent/child interaction - and Stephen says OUT LOUD to Mary 'Come on, there's a good child...'.  

Stephen even calls herself Mary's 'father, mother, friend and lover' and Mary 'the child, the friend, the beloved' in her head while they’re actively together. Pretty impossible to route for a love story when it’s so fucked up. 

I know the book is almost 100 years old, but was the concept of a relationship between two mature equals really so difficult to grasp??
 
I just can’t read any more of this. The relationship is gross, and looks like the rest of the book centres on it. What a disappointment.