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books: Reading between the lines.

The Material Girl Gets ImmaterialThe social nuances of The English Roses.

By Polly Shulman
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003, at 12:09 PM ET
Book cover

Like many children of celebrities, Madonna tells us, the Material Girl's daughter, Lourdes, had a problem: The other kids teased her about her mother.

As child-rearing quandaries go, this is a toughie. What's a celebrity to do?

Madonna's answer was to write a children's book that preaches tolerance toward girls who are prettier, smarter, kinder, better at sports, and generally more special than you. There are no ugly ducklings with the souls of artists here, no slobby Shreks who turn into heroes, just attractive preadolescents obsessed with the nuances of their social status.


The English Roses is written from the point of view of four girls—the Roses of the title, whom Madonna says she named for a group of girls who go to school with Lourdes in London. The book's Roses hang out together and pointedly ignore Binah, a blond beauty with milk-and-honey skin, top grades, athletic talent, a good heart, and no friends. One day the mother of one of the Roses lectures the girls about judging people on the basis of their looks. That night, a fairy godmother grants them a vision of Binah's private life. Binah, it turns out, has lost her mother; her father makes her scrub the floor, cook dinner, and do the laundry. Conscience-struck, the Roses decide to be nice to Binah after all, and the book ends with five English Roses instead of four.

Great! Now Lourdes is the daughter of that woman who sings all those pop songs, carries on at music awards, published kinky nude photos of herself, and wrote a charmless, didactic book about how much smarter, prettier, etc., etc., her heroine is than other girls. A month ago there were kids—a few, anyway—who hadn't heard of Madonna. No longer—with a million copies of the thing in print, there's no hiding from her. Thanks a whole lot, Mum.

Madonna says she drew her inspiration for The English Roses not just from her daughter's experience, but from the "spiritual wisdom" she found studying the Cabala. "My creativity was not motivated by ego or greed for the first time in my life," she writes in the book's publicity material. Royalties from those million copies will go to a foundation that teaches children spirituality, which covers the greed part of Madonna's statement. The ego part seems more complex—however you read it, the book still revolves around Madonna. If Binah is meant to represent Lourdes, then Madonna avoids taking responsibility for her daughter's trouble by making Binah's problem be the absence of a mother rather than her overwhelming presence. On the other hand, if Binah represents the author (who lost her own mother at an early age), then she's glorifying herself all over again, this time with an air of virtue instead of transgression.

Its author aside, The English Roses is a dull little thing, though not incompetent. Madonna does understand the basic structure of storytelling—perhaps too well. Cliché follows cliché. Her only unusual move is to tell the Cinderella story from the stepsisters' point of view. But she makes the jealous meanies so passive that they might as well be good: All they really do is respond to lectures about virtue. They're not out there twisting anyone's hair. And the central lesson is muddled and implausible. For one thing, judging by the sugary pictures, Binah is barely distinguishable from the original four Roses—except for hair color, skin color, and eye color, they're identical: all skinny and chicly dressed, with almond-shaped eyes and no noses. It's hard to imagine what the other four see to envy in Binah.

In any case, Madonna's answer is not to show that envy is bad but to suggest that people who look as though they have it all are secretly miserable. What about pretty, lucky little girls whose fathers don't neglect them and make them scale fish—is it OK to ostracize them? In my experience, pretty little girls have plenty of friends. Other girls might envy them, but they seek them out anyway, hoping (perhaps) that the pretty will rub off on them. Madonna's publishers must be banking on this very phenomenon—otherwise, why would they have published this book?

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Polly Shulman is the author of Enthusiasm, a novel for young adults.
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Remarks from the Fray:

If she wasn't as self-confident and larger-than-life as she wants to be, I doubt she'd have the mental presence to deal with all these pitiful people trying to defecate in her cornflakes. I haven't read the book, but I can tell you, I don't know what it's about from the review... apparently, the only thing the reviewer mentioned is how much she thinks Madonna has no business writing children's books.

What the Material Girl should have done to get a fair review is to write it under a nom-de-plume and without great publicity to tie her to it. Once these reviewers get a whiff of her hand in it, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell it will get the review it deserves. It will get the review the reviewer thinks SHE deserves.

--ElboRuum

(To reply, click here)


…Shulman initially assumes that the primary character must represent either Madonna or her daughter, which makes the story yet another egocentric Madonnaism. Perhaps, it never occurred to Shulman that Madonna's point is based on the conflict between "scheinen und sein" (seeming and being). Someone who appears to "have it all" may well be deeply unhappy, and the last thing that person can contend with is criticism and cruelty by peers envious of their own false assumption.

As to the character's unhappiness, it seems perfectly logical that Madonna would draw on her own experience to convey the sadness and despair created for the main character. Even for those of us who know little about Madonna's personal life, it is no secret that she lost her mother while still a small child. Although not an experience we all share, it is intellectually easy to understand how devastating that loss could be -- and why Madonna would use that particular circumstance when attempting to convey the depth of pain the book's main character is suffering.

Shulman also chides Madonna for not showing that envy is bad and takes issue with the book's point that even those who appear to have it all may be secretly miserable. Obviously, Shulman missed the point. The book is not about telling envious critics that they are bad and their envy is bad. The point is to teach people not to assume anything about someone's life, particularly when those assumptions are based on superficial tokens of belonging.

Shulman closes by noting that, in her experience, "pretty little girls have plenty of friends. Other girs might envy them, but they seek them out anyway, hoping (perhaps) that the pretty will rub off on them." Missing the point again, Shulman clearly cannot discern the difference between real friends and hangers-on. Pretty little girls certainly may be able to attract attention, but attention alone is unlikely to create genuine affection or happiness. I suspect that Madonna would be the first to acknowledge that her early fame and immense wealth did not bring her a sense of real belonging, true friends, nor the happiness and fulfillment she surely craved.

--ELE18

(To reply, click here)


Writing books for the children's market is tough and a very competitive market. It saddens me a lot because publishing houses have been overlooking a lot of talented unknown writers to make more money by banking on super stars such as Madonna, Whoopi Goldberg or Jamie Lee Curtis.

When you hear Madonna read the story of this poor little girl Binah (yeah right), cannot help think Madonna is Binah. I think the story is too preachy and unreal. The vast majority of very Pretty Girls who are smarter, prettier, more angelic and better at playing sports have a lot of friends. It's tough growing up, and the vast majority of us have been teased not because we where prettier or smarter, because we wore glasses, or we're fat or we're a different shade of color. Even the prettiest children poke fun at children who are physically or mentally handicapped.

I am not envious of Madonna's life or her child's life but Madonna takes her daughters little problem and turns it around to her explore her ego through her alter ego Binah. Once again Madonna is the center of attention. There are much better children's
books for children on the market that touch on this subject, and they are well written and bettered illustrated and have received numerous awards.

--kokia

(To reply, click here)

(10/1)

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