Krishna
Andrea is driving in Manhattan (with expensive Gucci shoes and expensive everything) in a cheap car when her boss Miranda Priestly, her boss calls her.
Version 1.0.0She asks Andrea, after she drops off the car, to pick up Madeline and drop her off at her, Miranda’s, apartment and hangs up. No clue on who Madeline is, where she is now or why she wants to go to Miranda’s apartment!
She somehow manages to send the puppy to Miranda’s house and the car to the apartment but is shouted down by Miranda saying that she had wanted both in her office and she has to go visit someone and so needs both in twenty minutes!
It goes on in this vein and the premise is that luxury items are not even coveted items but are essentials for a successful life. The whole story (and I should have been warned by the title) is all about Gucci’s Armani’s and stuff but any attempt by the author to be funny falls flat. The shallowest principles are touted as highly desirable.
Alex, her boyfriend wants to teach to ‘shape the minds of the poor and neglected, in a way that only Alex could be.’ What the hell does that even mean? We high society learned snobs will bring up some group of unworthy slob of students to a higher level, even if they cannot aspire to the giddy intellectual heights we have reached?
They stay a few more weeks in India, and what a mistake it was! Both Alex and Andrea get amoebic dysentery. They stay in a filthy Indian hostel and feels like she is near death. (Supposed to be funny.) It is not the trashing of India with no apparent reason that I object to, of course. It is the entire tone and the values of everyone in the book.
In the supposed humorous vein, the story takes you back to when Andrea goes looking for a job and is introduced to the company headed by one Miranda Priestly.
She gets the job. And is told in an oblique way at a 7 AM phone call and asked to report. The janitor of the entire building looks at her with pity but Miranda has left for a month’s vacation and Andrea is supposed to be trained fully in that time.
Goes on like that. For a long time. Nothing new to add.
There are a lot of incidents like that but all it proves – again and again – is that Miranda is a bitch to work for and does not care one whit about anyone (or appears not to). Numerous incidents make these points repeatedly and do not move the story even an inch forward. Her close friend Lily and her boyfriend are all the equivalent fo bit actors passing through the main story.
Her friend Lily has turned to be a moderate drunkard and gets herself arrested by flashing her current boyfriend in open street in perfect view of all including some children.
Now, all in all, it tries for the vibe of comedy so expertly conveyed by Bridget Jone’s Diary, which we have reviewed, and in my opinion, fails miserably. The move, on the other hand, was great, with Meryl Streep even transforming this insipid little story into something side splitting!
I lost interest half way through and struggled through the rest of it ‘because I had already invested so much time in it, that it would be a shame to leave it half done’.
And then there is preening about the designer brands. Please do me a favour. Unless you are deep into the delights of Versace vs LL Bean, please do not spend time reading this book.
Andrea is being pulled into more and more high level items and when Emily is down with mono once and unable to even attend office, Andrea goes with Miranda on a fashion show tour as well.
Meanwhile her old friend and new room mate Lily’s alcoholism goes beyond any limits.
And if you care, she and her boyfriend Alex are having a raging fight over her unreasoable ‘slavery’ to her job.
Andrea is close to getting the dream job in The New York Times when Miranda says she will recommend her but then Lily is in an accident and is in a coma.
In a moment of clarity, after much hesitation, Andrea publicly resigns from the Runway magazine and goes home to be with Lily.
And a sappy obligatory, next steps ending.
2/10
— Krishna