Madonna in a Fur Coat
I think Madonna in a Fur Coat is like the problematic and worse cousin of White Nights by Dostoyevsky. Both are about loneliness and short, intense connections, but White Nights felt more genuine and emotional and an actual romance? There were definitely some beautiful passages in this book. A lot of quotable sentences. But overall, I didn’t enjoy it that much. I had issues with Raif. He came across as a maniac and what we already mentioned: creepy. Not like Maria as a character was much better, lmao. They kinda both were okay with each other how they were and they were not… healthy. Maybe that was a point? As mentioned before for me, this book isn’t a love story really it’s more about loneliness, longing, and people not really knowing how to connect. Trying to understand what love actually is, I guess that conversation I liked. I feel like this book really tried to reverse roles or at least show Raif as not the “typical man”, but more sensitive and emotional but those creepy, not at all romantic scenes… Again I think it’s just different times unfortunately.
I think my hatred for storylines like that is for sure coming from a personal perspective, with personal experiences and ethics.
And I think one thing that I dislike about stories like that is how it portrays a wrong picture of which behavior is appropriate. I am not saying that every media should have morally pure characters, that would be so boring.
I just disliked the fact that she was not scared, that she liked having a stranger stare at her picture, have a stranger follow her to her work. I get that he is inexperienced, maybe I would have liked it more if she told him off. Told him that she thinks he is cute (or whatever) but that behavior like that does not fly with her, they can meet again, but under her conditions.
To me, it felt a bit like "it is justified if it is the right person". Again, I am sure my perspective there has a lot of personal influences because of my hatred for behavior like that.
