Introduction
Looker is a psychological debut novel by Laura Sims, in which she describes how a woman gradually and inevitably loses her mind due to her fixation on a successful and attractive actress. The protagonist observes the actress’s life, imagining their meetings and dialogues. Her object of obsession is “a kind of paragon of femininity”, and her appearance is adorable (Schama). This attraction is tangible and manifests itself in the actress’s lifestyle, brownstone, husband, child, and even in “overpriced toys, clothes, and food” (Sims 16). The conflict arises when the narrator starts contrasting the life of the actress with her own. The purpose of this essay is to explore the theme of beauty in its various manifestations in the actress’s life as opposed to the emptiness, bad character, loneliness, and mental disorder of the narrator.
Beauty vs. Emptiness
The first contraposition to harmony is emptiness or the absence of the possibility to fulfill certain wishes. As Bunn points out, “bodily beauty… is something which does, and which moves, as much as something which is”, meaning that physical appeal requires being active and full (36). The actress has well-bred children and a handsome husband, an exciting job, and much attention. All these aspects of the narrator’s life are incomplete. Moreover, the emptiness in her life is depicted literally: the narrator is severely concerned not to miss any giveaways the actress leaves on the sidewalk near her house. When she collects one of the discarded belongings, she feels happy for the first time in many days. There is not enough space in her home for the “trash,” but she is ready to store it in “the baby room,” to make it less empty (Sims 73). The word “empty” occurs 21 times in the novel, for example in “empty fridge” and “empty, neglected brownstone” (Sims 121). But the narrator is the one to blame for such a state of things, for instance when she forgets to put on the wedding ring, and her students notice her “empty” finger (Sims 80). The narrator’s relationship with her husband was warm, but her willingness to fill her life with another person’s trash, both literally and figuratively, ruined it. She was right only in one way, “the world is changed by something’s existence”, and one can find charm in the most unexpected things (Bunn 104). Still, something attractive, in terms of the novel, shall be full, while emptiness is an antonym to harmony.
Beauty as Ideal vs. Reality
The second contraposition is female virtue vs. vice, where the former is deemed beautiful, and the latter is presented as ugly. The narrator possesses “the worst stereotypical attributes of femininity”, which are contrasted with the beautiful femininity of the actress (Schama). The actress’s fascinating image as an ideal wife and mother was created in the narrator’s eyes: “we don’t know what or who she is beneath the veneer the narrator sees” (Schama). Beauty in the beholder’s eye turns out to have a reverse side, creating envy and poisoning the soul of the beholder. In the interview for Vogue, Laura Sims said that she saw the narrator as an ordinary human: “flawed, delusional, funny, and teetering on the verge of chaos we all are” (Schama). The observer was left by her husband; she cannot conceive a child, and her job does not give her a chance for self-fulfillment. She is similar to everybody else, with their problems, concerns, and broken dreams of a happy life. Therefore, in this aspect, the theme of beauty is presented as an idealized object of obsession, in comparison to the unflattering reality.
Beauty vs. Loneliness
The third contrast is between physical attraction, which raises attention and love vs. loneliness, deprived of these benefits. As has been mentioned above, the narrator has no family, as the husband left her, and she is childless; she does not want to spend time with her only best friend either. The obsession with another person’s life deprives the narrator of her joy of communication. At some point, she even pronounces, “I am unloved”, looking into the mirror (Sims 120). She wonders if her students hate how her lips move just as she does, which suggests that the narrator does not deserve being loved because she does not love herself. She starts losing her mind when she kills her husband’s cat, the only living creature that has stayed in her life. Loneliness, unlike handsomeness, has a repulsive force, as people consider those who are favored to be more attractive.
Beauty vs. Mental Disorder
The fourth contrasting theme to beauty is a mental disorder. A sane mind is reasonable, logical, and practical, but the narrator’s mind is losing its ability for reasoning: “At first, her aesthetic focus scans as idiosyncratic; later, gradually, as insane” (Waldman). The following sentence from the novel shows the narrator’s divorcement from reality: “They look like they’re being filmed right now… but there’s only me watching” (Sims 15). She is delusional; she tries to live the lives of other people, even though it might only be possible in her mind. But it is just the beginning: the “narrator starts losing control of her life” (Lindsey). After several years of failure to conceive a child, the husband leaves her, and her career is under question after the affair with a student, so she is lonely and unhappy. All this stress is too much for one person to remain sane. The narrator even kills the cat not to return it to her husband. The actions, thoughts, and mental state of the protagonist are repugnant and ugly. If she had not tried to fill her life with another person’s charm, she would not have lost her mind. Therefore, a mental disorder is a supreme contrast to goodliness, as it spoils both the physical appearance and the inner world of a person.
Conclusion
Given everything mentioned above, beauty is the essential theme in the novel, but it is too multifaceted to be treated as a positive or negative phenomenon. The main message of the book is pronounced by the teenage girl, the actress’s daughter: “You don’t even know who you are, Mom! How can you tell me to be “myself”?” (Sims 128). The author suggests that physical appeal can provide money, success, attention, and love, but it cannot make one happy or ideal. Perfection exists only in films, poems, and novels. That is why the narrator is obsessed with an actress: she can be whoever she wants, and her entire life is performance. Therefore, beauty is not limited by human weaknesses, but it is always more visible in the background of emptiness, harsh reality, loneliness, and mental disorders.
Works Cited
Bunn, Stephanie, editor. Anthropology and Beauty: From Aesthetics to Creativity. Routledge, 2018.
Lindsey. “Book Review: Looker by Laura Sims.” A Rambling Reviewer, 2019, Web.
Schama, Chloe. “How Laura Sims Turned the “Torturous Limbo” of Infertility Into Fascinating Fiction.” Vogue, 2019, Web.
Sims, Laura. Looker. Tinder Press, 2019.
Waldman, Kati. “In Laura Sims’s “Looker,” a Sad Voyeur Mistakes Her Own Life for a Poem.” The New Yorker, 2019, Web.