In my psychological catalog of Judy Blume books, every little thing is filed in keeping with the adolescent trope it taught me about. It’s Not the Finish of the World is the divorce e-book. Ceaselessly… is the intercourse e-book. Then Once more, Perhaps I Gained’t is the moist desires e-book, which within the fifth grade learn like an intelligence report despatched from behind enemy strains. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, first printed in 1970, is, in fact, the interval e-book.
Or not less than that’s how I remembered it from being 10 years outdated: Margaret and her pals competing to see who will get their intervals first; that terrible Nancy mendacity about getting it after which crying within the lavatory of a flowery restaurant when it truly got here; Margaret alone in her room, fumbling with the mysterious belt that sanitary napkins used to have within the ’70s. Ladies learn Are You There God as a complement to center college well being lessons, was what I vaguely concluded, so they might know what it felt like when their intervals got here. (I couldn’t think about a boy studying this e-book for any motive in any respect.)
So I used to be startled, once I watched Kelly Fremon Craig’s glorious new movie adaptation of Are You There God, to see that there have been so many different plotlines at work within the story. There was all these things about bras, which I did vaguely recall. However then there have been additionally friendship dynamics and household dynamics and new city stuff and faith stuff — my god! How had I forgotten the faith stuff? It’s proper there within the title!
It didn’t make sense to me. The rattling e-book is simply about 30,000 phrases lengthy. May Blume probably have match that a lot in there in addition to the interval plotline? Had Craig added one thing new?
Not likely, I found upon returning to the e-book for the primary time in 25 years. Practically every little thing in Craig’s movie is in Blume’s e-book, too. Because it seems, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is much more than simply the interval e-book. It hits all of the tweenage low factors, and it welcomes grownup readers with a stunning quantity of grace.
Are You There God begins with Margaret Simon, 11 years outdated, shifting out of New York’s Higher West Aspect and into the suburbs of New Jersey. In a gently understated subversion of town child stereotype, she finds when she arrives that she appears youthful for her age than the jaded suburbanites throughout her. Queen Bee Nancy, who instantly takes Margaret below her wing, already performs with make-up and practices kissing boys, whereas Margaret does neither. Nancy appears, Margaret notes, impressed and resentful, “to know quite a bit.”
Poisonous lady friendships are one of many nice themes of Blume’s oeuvre (explored of their darkest kind within the harrowing Blubber). Accordingly, as soon as Nancy enters the image, Are You There God turns into the story of Margaret’s schooling and corruption. Nancy pushes Margaret to purchase a coaching bra and sanitary napkins, teaches her to carry out her crushes, tells her which boys are acceptable crush objects. She plies Margaret with merciless gossip to show her towards the lady of their class who already wears bras.
It’s Nancy who informs Margaret that her secular existence is an issue. The Simons determine as neither Jewish nor Christian after Margaret’s mom, Barbara, was disowned by her Christian dad and mom for marrying a Jewish man. In New York this wasn’t a difficulty, however within the suburbs, Nancy tells Margaret, everybody joins both the Y or the Jewish Group Middle.
Determined to observe Nancy’s directions, Margaret embarks on a analysis challenge to attempt to discover what faith is greatest for her. She isn’t seeking to be proven speak to God: She already does that each night time, alone in her room, pouring out her desires and worries to God as if she’s writing in her diary. (“Please assist me develop God. You recognize the place.”) As a substitute, Margaret needs organized faith to codify her relationship with God, to show it into one thing that Nancy will have the ability to categorize neatly away in the identical approach she does every little thing else.
Selecting a faith wouldn’t solely assist Margaret together with her college pals. It could additionally assist her together with her household. Simmering principally beneath the floor of Margaret’s naive narration is a proxy battle between her dad and mom and her grandparents, with Margaret’s life because the battlefield.
Margaret is dedicated to her paternal grandmother, Sylvia, who dotes on her, paying for her New York Metropolis personal college tuition and her New Hampshire summer season camp. Sylvia feels fiercely that Margaret ought to develop up as a New York Jew, in tradition if not in non secular perception, and to that finish reveals up uninvited on the Simons’ new home with luggage of deli meals to ensure Margaret will bear in mind what it ought to style like. “Mmm … nothing like the actual factor!” she says each time she bites right into a pickle.
Margaret is vaguely conscious that her mom doesn’t significantly like for Sylvia to be so concerned in Margaret’s life, and he or she’s fairly certain that they moved to New Jersey particularly to get Margaret away from Sylvia. She’s much less conscious of what number of instances Sylvia tells her to do one thing after which follows it up by instructing her to not inform her dad and mom. All of it explodes, although, when Barbara’s dad and mom present up on the town to inspect their granddaughter, forcing Margaret to overlook a deliberate go to to Sylvia.
“Margaret is a Christian!” says Barbara’s mom.
“You’re a Jewish lady,” Sylvia assures Margaret.
“I’m nothing, and you realize it!” proclaims Margaret. “I don’t even consider in God!” (To us she provides, “I needed to ask him did he hear that!” She is, on the time, in a struggle with God.)
It’s this plotline that Craig gently expands, principally by remodeling Barbara (performed right here by Rachel McAdams at her warmest) right into a point-of-view character. Craig’s take, although, is much less an addition to Blume’s textual content than an excavation, working with what Margaret tells us to unearth new particulars within the story.
Blume’s Barbara is an artist who appears slightly scattered within the suburbs and flippantly on edge round her mother-in-law. Craig’s Barbara, in flip, is a bohemian who strikes to the suburbs as a result of she thinks it is going to be greatest for her little one after which finds herself shedding her personal identification; who would love her mother-in-law to cease making an attempt to boost her daughter for her now, please. Within the movie, Barbara turns into a stand-in of kinds for all the ladies who grew up on Judy Blume and are watching Craig’s movie now as adults. By means of Barbara’s eyes, we watch Margaret care passionately about issues like not carrying socks with loafers and shopping for a bra properly earlier than she wants one, and we bear in mind what it was wish to care so passionately.
All of it’s in step with the characterization Blume gave us, again when she wrote Margaret as a newly suburban housewife herself, writing books in between caring for her kids. It’s simply the stuff that Margaret, with the complacent solipsism of childhood, by no means bothers to put out for us. She’s too busy making an attempt to determine be the model of herself Nancy and her dad and mom and her grandparents need her to be — till she figures out be a model of herself that she likes as a substitute.
As soon as she figures it out, you realize what occurs subsequent: She will get her interval.
