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=                            Poor Things                             =
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                            Introduction
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'Poor Things: Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless
M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer' is a novel by Scottish writer
Alasdair Gray, published in 1992. It won the Whitbread Award and the
Guardian Fiction Prize the same year.

A postmodern retelling of the gothic horror novel 'Frankenstein' by
Mary Shelley, the narrative follows the life of Bella Baxter, a
surgically fabricated woman created in late Victorian Glasgow. Bella’s
navigation of late 19th century society is the lens through which Gray
delivers social commentary on patriarchal institutions, social
equality, socioeconomic matters and sexual politics.

The novel itself is epistolary, being composed of a fictional novella
entitled 'Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D.,
Scottish Public Health Officer', several extended letters, a spread of
original illustrations, as well as an Introduction and Critical Notes.
The bracketing Introduction and Critical Notes feature a meta-textual
component, in that they simultaneously exist in the novel’s fictional
canon, but are also credited to real-life author Alasdair Gray.

The novel is illustrated by Alasdair Gray, despite the text claiming
the illustration were created by Scottish painter and printmaker
William Strang.


                                Plot
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The story begins in 19th-century Glasgow with Archibald McCandless, a
young medical student who becomes involved with the eccentric and
brilliant surgeon Godwin Baxter. McCandless meets Bella Baxter, a
beautiful, childlike woman who lives under Godwin’s care. According to
McCandless’s account, Bella is the result of a radical experiment:
Godwin discovered the body of a pregnant woman who had drowned and, in
a grotesque act of science, revived her by implanting the brain of her
unborn fetus into her adult body. This experiment supposedly created a
new life--Bella--with the physical form of a grown woman and the mind
of a newborn.

Under the guidance of Godwin and Archibald, Bella quickly matures
intellectually and emotionally, developing into a curious, assertive,
and sexually liberated woman. Though McCandless falls in love with
her, Bella resists his romantic idealization and seeks her own
experiences. She leaves with the decadent lawyer Duncan Wedderburn on
a whirlwind trip across Europe and the Middle East. During their
travels, Bella confronts the inequalities and absurdities of the
Victorian world, eventually realizing that Wedderburn sees her more as
a possession than a partner. Disillusioned, she escapes him and
returns to Glasgow.

Back home, Bella becomes a champion of women's rights, social reform,
and public health. She and Archibald eventually marry--not as a result
of submission, but as a conscious, equal partnership built on mutual
respect and shared political ideals. Together, they work to improve
the lives of the poor, challenge the hypocrisy of the upper class, and
confront the outdated moral structures of their time.

However, a letter from Bella herself--now known as Arabella
McCandless--completely contradicts McCandless's memoir. She reveals
that the resurrection story was a fabrication, a romantic fantasy
created by Archibald to mythologize their relationship and his own
sense of loss and failure. Bella insists that she was always a fully
formed, intelligent woman, and that her life with Godwin and later
Archibald was nothing like the fairy tale described in the memoir.
This revelation casts doubt on everything the reader has just read,
turning the novel into a postmodern puzzle about truth, memory, and
the way stories are shaped by those who tell them.


                               Notes
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'Poor Things' contains illustrations by Alasdair Gray, which the text
claims are by the Scottish etcher and illustrator William Strang.
There are also punning additions of fragments of images from 'Gray's
Anatomy'. One feature of the novel that has attracted comment is the
page of review quotes, featuring a printed erratum strip. Some of
these reviews are patently fictitious (such as those from the
'Skiberdeen Eagle' and the 'Private Nose') and others are attributed
to real publications, but seem so harsh that their authenticity is
called into question.


                          Film adaptation
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A film adaptation of the book was produced with Yorgos Lanthimos
directing and Tony McNamara writing the script after the presentation
of Denisse Nichols. The cast includes Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem
Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Kathryn Hunter, and Jerrod
Carmichael.
The adaptation was released in theatres on December 8, 2023. The film
enjoyed rapturous acclaim, winning several prizes including the Golden
Lion at the 80th Venice Film Festival as well as four Academy Awards
later that year.


                          Further reading
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*"Alasdair Gray, 'Poor Things'". 2008. In Nick Bentley, 'Contemporary
British Fiction', 44-52. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. .
*Kaczvinsky, Donald P. "Making up for Lost Time: Scotland, Stories,
and the Self in Alasdair Gray's 'Poor Things, 'Contemporary
Literature' 42.4 (2001): 775-799.
*Hobsbaum, Philip. "Unreliable Narrators: Poor Things and its
Paradigms." 'The Glasgow Review' 3 (1995): 37.
*McCormick, Ian D., "Alasdair Gray and the Making of the modern
Scottish Grotesque" in 'Proceedings of the Conference on Regional
Europe: Voice and Form' (Vitoria, Spain; University of Liverpool,
1994).
*Gray, Alasdair, James Kelman, and Tom Toremans. "An Interview with
Alasdair Gray and James Kelman." 'Contemporary Literature' 44.4
(2003): 565-586.
*March, Cristie. "Bella and the Beast (and a Few Dragons, Too):
Alasdair Gray and the Social Resistance of the Grotesque." 'Critique:
Studies in Contemporary Fiction' 43.4 (2002): 323-346.
*Hammond, Jennifer. 'Alasdair Gray: A Postmodernist Reading of"
Lanark"," 1982 Janine," and" Poor Things".' Diss. University of North
Carolina at Wilmington, 1999.
*McMunnigall, Alan. "Alasdair Gray and Postmodemism". 'Studies in
Scottish Literature' 33.1 (2004): 26.


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