The Camera My Mother Gave Me

by Susanna Kaysen

(random photo, of no relation to book or author)

          Under the imrression that I would soon tire of my books from school, I sat down with a Susanna Kaysen. Now, those who have read any of her works would probably have noticed her sly and borderline nature of writing. The pattern which she uses flunctates and yet the story itself is rock hard, this is probably due to her borderline being "her". What I mean is easily explained in the shortest chapter of her book. It goes, "Why I am Opposed to Antidepressents.". The seven sentence chapter was so enlightening that I had to swallow down the constant urge to go back and rip that page out, fold it and stick it in my pocket.

Why I am Opposed to Antidepressents

Because I think depression has something to tell me.

Because often depression is an appropriate reaction.

Because I am terrified of changing the functioning of my brain in any way.

Because I believe that depression is "me," and that without it I would not be "me."

Because I can't imagine my life without the time off from periodic depression.

These are the typical idiotic reasons people give for not wanting to feel better. So in this respect, I am quite normal.

          The book consists of plain, yet insightful opinions set in amusing situations. As for the expressions she retires to due to these instances that occur, they make this book difficult to put down, all the while keeping it's readers entertained in a slightly bored manner.

          As I mentioned above, I needed a break from all the strife and relationships from the classic reads of Bronte and Kundera, I needed something contemporary as could be in a sense that it would be about me, not another character or characters. The perfect author to do this is Susanna Kaysen. When memoirs bring in new faces and introduce them to readers we feel as if we are meeting "Rosie" in a very comfortable zone where we can relate if we want to and the new face will never get a chance to relate back. It's all very personal and we sometimes even form relationships with the situations the author writes about. Kaysen on the other hand is entirely different. The thing I love most about Kaysen is how self-centered she is when she writes. It is not even close to being about her vagina and the constant pain it was feeling at the time. It is about her. The comic encounters with her various "health experts" and the dialogues between them just expose HER more.

          At first, I decided this book would make me feel better seeing as it was about the vagina. People just don't read stories about vaginas, and yet here was one. Alas, this isn't about vaginas or any other part of the human body. There isn't really any sexuality in it whatsoever. It's about Susanna Kaysen's life, as if running on her own personal joke she writes about something happening now, because of before. Even as the book goes on about the "V" word and it's exceedingly ferocious pain, it never prevails; for the books main feature is Kaysen, not her body parts.

          Kaysen finds that her once quiet and not so disturbing vagina has started to fall into a pit of unidentifiable malaise. The book aligns one specialist after another to find out what's wrong with Kaysen's vagina. And through it, she discovers parts of herself she'd never encountered or hesitated to ponder upon.

The Camera My Mother Gave Me is intimately witty and provvokingly intelligent, arousing a once lost, but newly found perception towards mind, body and soul.