Lessons in chemistry review.

Lessons in chemistry review:

Lessons in chemistry by Bonnie Garmus was a novel that, until earlier on this week, I had brushed aside as I deemed it was a novel not meant for me. I thought it a Tik-Tok craze, a high school romance style novel that would have swooning females and athletic males, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Under its brightly coloured cover, Lessons in Chemistry is a feminist masterpiece that shows just how far women are willing to go to be seen without the prejudice of men.

Elizabeth Zott is a chemist, something that she is eager to remind everyone throughout the book, and a damn good one at that. But being a woman in STEM in the 1950’s/60’s is mainly unheard of and Elizabeth faces fight after fight for her intelligence to be seen. Fired from her job and unable to find another lab that would hire a female chemist, Elizabeth turns to hosting a cooking show Supper at Six, where she shows the nation the importance of the female role at home, sparking women to stand against their oppression and suggests that cooking is chemistry. I was hooked from the very fist page, where Elizabeth packs her daughter’s lunch including notes about ‘not allowing boys to win’, and I ingested the entire novel within twenty-four hours.

I am getting a little bit tired of the quirky narrative, the protagonist who lacks social skills but that is completely forgone because they’re a genius. Other readers have suggested that Elizabeth may be autistic and while I understand this assessment of her nerodiverecy- her blunt tone, directive way of speaking, special interest in Chemistry and little interest in much else- but this has yet to be confirmed by the author. Despite this, Elizabeth isn’t just some arrogant genius. We see her form strong, genuine relationships with those who matter most to her, while her bluntness may be construed as self-entitlement, but it is rather an urgency for no bullshit. She is not the post child for autistic women, nor should she be pitied- I find that she instead inspires admiration.

At first glance I thought Calvin was going to break Elizabeth’s heart. With a relationship built on unconventional ideas and ignoring the social norms, I surmised that when Elizabeth found out that she was pregnant, Calvin would leave her to be a single mother. Never did I consider that he would die, and this would unleash a whole new depth of heartache and fight that Elizabeth must face. Calvin is a kind of character that you grow to love, especially as Elizabeth grows to love him. He can’t seem to fathom why men wouldn’t want women in science because the more people in science means the more discoveries made. It is this naivety that makes him both likeable and dislike-able all at the same time. He loves Elizabeth, that is evident, and this is why he is unable to stop himself from meddling in her career at Hastings Laboratory. Calvin leverages his famous status to help Elizabeth maintain her funding despite her asking him not to. While this comes from a loving place, Calvin makes it harder for Elizabeth to be seen as capable on her own- especially once he dies and her colleges at Hastings take great pleasure at poking fun at her no longing being able to “ride Calvin’s coattails.”

I hated Mrs Frask for the first portion of the book, I suppose it was a naturally instinct because she was being awful to Elizabeth who, as our main character, we instantly fall in love with on the very first page. I liked how the author brought it into perspective how women tend to sabotage and belittle one another because they can’t fight back against the men. I’ve looked into the closely within my dissertation and examining the relationship between medusa and Athena as medusa ends up with a head full of snakes because Poseidon can not be punished. I wanted so desperately for Mrs Frask to be on Elizabeth’s side, as a woman why shouldn’t we defend one another but instead she seems to gleam when Elizabeth gets fired and throughly enjoys stirring the proverbial pot by spreading rumours about her resulting in Elizabeth’s life more difficult. I was glad when we got further insight into Mrs Frask’s behaviour. While being raped by her PHD thesis adviser had made Elizabeth resilient and urged her fight against the prejudices of men, the similar rape that Mrs Frasks face makes her afraid so that she will continue to submit to men. While this doesn’t dismiss her actions towards Elizabeth or make her behaviour okay, the insight to her fear and, later, her amphetamine diet pill addiction, marks the reason as to why she conducts herself the way that she does.

Six-thirty, a name I would never consider for a dog, came to be one of my favourite characters within the novel. His running dialogue, the little notes he adds to the scene, made him feel more and more human with every page turned. I enjoyed the fact that her refers to people at the time they arrive at the house, honouring his own name and normalising that as a thought process. Six-thirty is not a talking dog, that would be absurd, but the novel does delve into how much animals can understand us and the world around them.

The inclusion of the family tree comments on the winding few of what can be defined as a family unit. The 1960s saw a change in family dynamic. While family remained within its importance, the family life become more complex as it became less structured, family ties loosened, parents- partially mothers- strived for other things away from the family which lead to children becoming more independent. Lessons in Chemistry shows how neighbours and work colleges can, over time, become an integral part of family- this is how we see Harriet going from neighbour to babysitter to valued friend an almost family.  

I liked the neat ending where everything seems to finally fall into place for Elizabeth and her family unit. I actually gasped, rather audible, when it was revealed that Avery Parker was Calvin’s mother. Of course, throughout the novel we piece together Calvin’s past- his adoptive family family through accidents, the Catholic boy's orphanage and the possibility that his father- biological- might be alive. Through Avery Parker we learn about what was happening to many young mothers throughout the early 1900s, they were being heavily drugged without their consent and their babies were being taken away to be put up for adoption. The sudden and rushing heartbreak of Calvin’s anger for hating a father that he’d never actually met and not being alive long enough to have a family.

Overall I give the novel 5/5.