The washing machine conked out today. Very tedious but a benefit of living in a rented flat that I am only inconvenienced but the landlord has to arrange for the repair.
I say landlord but I’ve only ever met the landlady, a Chinese lady who owns several properties. I had for the past year pictured her an older woman with coiffed hair, dressed in a power suit, a steely businesswoman. When I met her a few weeks ago she turned out to be my age and wearing trainers.
I have started reading The Power by Naomi Alderman. The premise is that one day teenage girls start being able to zap electricity, like electric eels. What’s more, they have always been able to zap. So far it’s gripping and very satisfying indeed. It could have been irritating – I’m thinking in particular of the chapter with the women’s revolt in Saudi Arabia. Yet it’s not. Instead it felt sad and glorious and uplifting, and I thought of myself as a teenage girl, thought of how girls are crushed the world over but especially how they are crushed in Pakistan, of the young women trying so hard to open up public spaces and getting mocked for it, of Malala shot in the face, of every girl who is somehow responsible for respectability and because she is young, believes it and is crushed, or refuses it and is crushed.
I am only a quarter of the way through this book, so the likelihood is that it will not continue like this. At the end of it, it is a superhero novel even if a literary one. But so far I’m enjoying it very much.