OPINION:A story of 13 feisty women clubbing together could have lessons for all of us, writes Ann Marie Hourihane
THERE HAS to be a limit to the amount of adrenalin on the planet. There has to be a finite number of photographs one can look at of weary financial workers with their heads in their hands; what are we waiting for, a death?
There has to come a time when the following sentence is no longer pertinent: "Wall Street shares fell sharply on the opening in volatile trading, as fears grew of a widespread economic turndown." (BBC News website, last Friday) There has to be a moment when that sentence lies down and dies, like the bloodhound in Cool Hand Luke, because it is just plum tuckered out.
It's time to move on. We need some stories of how people manage to survive - nay, thrive - in the financial jungle. Like the story of the 13 women in California who had a good idea. One of them has written a book about it.
These women wanted to own and wear a diamond necklace, but they couldn't afford a diamond necklace. So they clubbed their money together and went to the jewellery store. Their collective money still did not come to the cost of the diamond necklace they had decided upon.
But the jeweller liked the look of these feisty women. His own wife did the bookkeeping for the jewellery store and did not have any female friends. So the jeweller put in a payment for his wife, and the necklace was jointly-owned by 13 women.
Note: the jeweller's wife did have other options. She could have socked her bossy husband in the jaw, for example, for making her do the bookkeeping and for choosing her friends. Or she could have had an affair. Jewellery is not always the answer.
However it seems that for these women in Ventura, California, jewellery was the answer. The author of the book, The Necklace: Thirteen Women and the Experiment That Transformed Their Lives, is Cheryl Jarvis. She explains the experience thus: "It's the story of 13 women who transformed a symbol of exclusivity into a symbol of inclusivity and, in the process, remapped the journey through the second half of their lives." Life-enhancing or what?
Of course it could never work here, because there'd be a row. Or someone would have four white wines too many and leave the necklace in a cab, or down the back of a radiator. But in America they are nice people, and highly organised.
The 13 women held monthly meetings. They gave the necklace a name - Jewelia. (Oh God, women should never be allowed to give names to inanimate objects; and nor should men.) They arranged that each woman should have the use of Jewelia (cringe) for one month. And that the woman in possession of the necklace had to make love at least once while wearing it (most unhygienic; you'd have Health & Safety on to you like a tonne of bricks over here)
Then - and this is why one has to love Americans, particularly American women - the wearer of the necklace began to indulge in all sorts of wacky pursuits, such as riding motorbikes and skydiving, wearing the necklace all the while. And the wearer of the necklace had to be photographed doing these things. Apparently one woman wore the necklace to a gynaecological examination - photographic rule still applicable, presumably - but there are those of us who feel this is carrying things too far.
Of course we can see that all of this female bonding has already been explored in fictional stories like Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and the Joy Luck Club and Calendar Girls and Mamma Mia; all those heartwarming stories of communal female activity and support, which often star very good actresses who began their careers in vehicles that were way much better.
In America, before the crash, The Necklace was taken straight to the bosom of People magazine. The book was published a couple of months ago, when sharing was still a luxurious lifestyle novelty. By now it has probably been featured on Oprah. The Irish Times happened on it in a very funny review in the New York Times by Janet Maslin, who recommended that "the best way to honour the book's principles is to share your copy with a friend" .
Not, one would have thought, exactly what Cheryl Jarvis had in mind when she spent all those lonely hours at the keyboard, bashing out the pearls of wisdom she and her 12 co-owners had learned through this brief experiment in joint ownership, eg "Women friends are essential to a happy life".
One brief scavenge round Grafton Street last Thursday would lead one to believe that this is just as well. The only till I saw in use was the one in the tights department of Marks & Spencer. At the hour which used to denote the start of late-night shopping only one store was buzzing: Awear, a budget store for young women, which was having a sale.
These days it looks like the theory of The Necklace could be extended to less exciting possessions like pensions, cars and health insurance and even jeans.
Far from being a whimsical experiment in personal development, sharing might be about to become necessary again. It will be interesting if we are able for it . . . but no photographs, please.