I’m reading a novel titled The Smartest Girl I Know by the young Spanish writer Sara Barquinero. I’ll be honest, I’m only halfway in, and this is a young author (she’s 32 years old, which is pure childhood for a writer), so there is every likelihood that she will fumble things closer to the end. Still, it’s a brilliant novel. It’s exceptionally gutsy because it lays waste to every leftist belief about gender roles, dating, and #MeToo.
Barquinero describes a Department of Philosophy at a Spanish university. Male students are eager to date their female colleagues. The young women grapple for a bit with the complexities of the material they are learning but soon realize that what makes the most sense is to attach themselves to a professor who can give them access to financial stability and an intellectual lifestyle without having to make that much effort.
The female students pursue their professors with intense dedication. There aren’t enough professors for every female student. Plus, many of them are already married, so feelings are bound to be hurt. The spurned female students organize #MeToo witch hunts against male professors to vent the grievances they often conceal even from themselves.
This is very well observed and completely true. I find it very entertaining that people see graduate students who have relationships with their thesis advisors as some sort of damsel-in-distress victims. These women invariably concoct complex schemes to get with these men and battle other female pretenders ferociously for their prize. It does happen in the opposite direction, with female professors and male students, but very rarely, because no social prestige accrues to either side in this kind of pairing.
The Smartest Girl is the Spanish equivalent of Jem Calder’s novel I Want You to Be Happy. But since it’s Spanish and written by a woman, which means that the author doesn’t have to fear being excluded from getting published quite as much, it’s a lot harsher. There is no English translation, unfortunately. I’ll keep you updated on whether the author manages to maintain her courageous stance until the end of the book.
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