THE SPA
Fay Weldon
Grove Press
Fiction
ISBN: 9780802118646

It is fascinating to me that in the United States some people don’t expect a reader to have any prior knowledge of literature, so that zingy titles that reference works the rest of the world knows to be "classics" can't be used here. So is the case with Fay Weldon's rather zingy THE SPA, the latest of her 26 novels. The title in England and other parts of the world is THE SPA DECAMERON, but here in the U.S. it is merely THE SPA. The reference to Boccaccio's DECAMERON would be evident to even the most dim-bulbed college student --- a book made up of many tales from different characters, one more bizarre than the next.

The idea with THE SPA is that there is a horrible plague invading the outside world. This pandemic needs getting away from --- it's called the "Sumatra flu" --- but it doesn't seem to be happening too fast because the ladies in this book have time to take to the spa and indulge in the caviar, champagne and mud packs that it has to offer. I have to admit that taking chocolate into a hot tub sounds like a nice way to spend an afternoon. Weldon makes a brave case for these characters that they don't just want to be here --- they need to be here, they deserve to be here, based on the horrible things that have happened to them prior to their arrival. Like the children in the chocolate factory, THE SPA creates a Willie Wonka-like dreamland for stressed-out women in a crazy world. But the stories don't go down as easily as the chocolate might.

The narrator, Phoebe, arrives at the spa because her husband is off working and her house has been flooded. This unfortunate event occurs several days before Christmas, certainly a case of bad timing. And the women who are also residing at the spa that week include some very curious types: the loveless twin who is a well-respected surgeon, the crude and offensive manicurist whose last admirer was a sheik, a hermaphroditic judge with too much testosterone who has undergone a severe alteration in her very being. No one has a good thing to say about guys; clearly the gender wars are still very much at work here. The stories attempt to one-up each other with more lurid and sensationalistic specifics, but it gets to the point where you find yourself rolling your eyes and wondering if all the normal people have died of the flu already.

Weldon has never been, how shall I say, a "soft" writer. She is interested in the politics of men and women and the ongoing movement of civilization towards a place where their differences will force a final battle. To the victor goes the spoils, as it were, and here in THE SPA it feels as if the victors are those who have the opportunity to come through harrowing experiences, many at the hands of men, and yet be able to find a way to relax and still enjoy their lives by bonding together, towel-clad and chocolate at the ready, in hot tubs.

This is a typical Fay Weldon book, filled with anger and derision and females who are victims. However, as in her long-ago classic THE LIFE AND LOVES OF A SHE-DEVIL, she made them the ultimate victors through hard work and clever thinking. THE SPA means to make heroines of these ladies who have suffered and yet persevered. But the fact that they are all victims to begin with tells a sad and well-worn tale about the place of women in this world at large, pandemic or no.

    --- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano

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