I've stupidly allowed too much time to pass between my reading Otherwise Known As Sheila The Great and now. As a result I find myself without too many words or reflections upon it... except perhaps this one: Sheila is a great big pain in the rectum. I guess that's the point of the book - that Sheila talks herself up all the time because of low self esteem, but having first hand experience of low self esteem manifesting as self obsession (as opposed to the much preferred decline into introversion and self loathing), i don't find it easy to sympathise, empathise... whichever is appropriate.
I think what bothers me most about Sheila 'The Great' is that she doesn't get her come uppance. At the end of the book she is no more self aware and no less self concerned. She learns that... wait for it... her sister isn't that bad ... GASP! Dogs... also not that bad. WOW!
What she doesn't learn is that people don't like people that lie and who think they're awesome. She is really never made to do anything she doesn't want to do and, right to the end, she successfully gets out of things she has talked herself into... like writing and publishing a weekly newsletter for the vacation care centre. In my day as a 13 year old, a handwritten 'newsletter' written by a 10 year old would have earned my derision and would never have gained the support of Mrs Kernick (the lady who operated the stencil machine at Artarmon Primary School) to actually run off copies for distribution.
And now to what is missing from my Sheila dossier... in brief. She claims to hate dogs because she refuses to admit she's scared of them. Anything she can't do she lies about, such as playing with a yoyo and swimming. Why on earth other kids tolerated her at all, I will never know. Why her parents didn't spank her and tell her 'no'... also.. baffled.
That's all.
Oh... no it's not! In the Google Image Search that accompanies every post, I just uncovered some stills from what looks like a stage production of 'Sheila'... and I have realised too late to draw decent, in depth rigorous comparison that Sheila and Erica Yurgen from Hating Alison Ashley are the same character. Thank goodness for dodgy theatre stills or I never would have figured it out!
It should be Sheila the Fcukwit.
ReplyDeleteMy Cabbage Patch Doll was also called Sheila. She was also a fcukwit. She didn't learn the lesson about not hating dogs though. I FED her to my dog.