I LISTENED to the Eve/Joan book instead of reading it for exactly the reason you cited for having a hard time with it. And I appreciated it so much more. I've come to realize, I think Joan was a pill. Eve's voice speaks to me in a more direct way. Joan maybe was more "interesting," a cipher everyone's still trying to figure out, so we categorize it as smarter, more refined, maybe. But in the end, it's Eve I'd rather read. This book made me realize that. But that could be the author's bias getting to me.
I had DA sign my copy on page 103 underneath my favorite paragraph.
“ I could feel a kind of heat behind my eyes that lit up everything I glanced at. It was dangerous, that heat. It wanted to pour out and burn everything up, everything they had that we couldn’t have, everything that made them think they were better than us. I stood in the garden and spun myself around and around, pouring out heat and rage, and the sweet stink of broken flowers.”
I bought Didion & Babitz in LA last week and didn't make it past the first 20 pages, I found her voice so intrusive. Which I didn't understand what was wrong with me until I realized that she also made the Bennington podcast that I should have LOVED for obvious reasons but which I also could not stand because I found her persona so irritating and bigfooting all over the otherwise cherce material. I left the book at my sister's by accident and I'm not going to bother getting it back.
I felt the same way about her voice, and I tried listening to that podcast & I felt the same way. Don’t do Donna Tartt dirty because she won’t talk to you. Sometimes I am reticent to critique someone’s writing voice because I know I am also guilty. But these two things should be gimmes.
Seriously. Sometimes it's such a hard call -- Is it me? Am I the asshole? -- so I was relieved in this particular instance to be able to say, definitively, it's not me, it's Lili Anolik.
I LISTENED to the Eve/Joan book instead of reading it for exactly the reason you cited for having a hard time with it. And I appreciated it so much more. I've come to realize, I think Joan was a pill. Eve's voice speaks to me in a more direct way. Joan maybe was more "interesting," a cipher everyone's still trying to figure out, so we categorize it as smarter, more refined, maybe. But in the end, it's Eve I'd rather read. This book made me realize that. But that could be the author's bias getting to me.
I might try that-thank you! I love Babitz’s writing-she really captures something wild, she’s such a broad.
I had DA sign my copy on page 103 underneath my favorite paragraph.
“ I could feel a kind of heat behind my eyes that lit up everything I glanced at. It was dangerous, that heat. It wanted to pour out and burn everything up, everything they had that we couldn’t have, everything that made them think they were better than us. I stood in the garden and spun myself around and around, pouring out heat and rage, and the sweet stink of broken flowers.”
I remember that paragraph! How could anyone forget it?
I bought Didion & Babitz in LA last week and didn't make it past the first 20 pages, I found her voice so intrusive. Which I didn't understand what was wrong with me until I realized that she also made the Bennington podcast that I should have LOVED for obvious reasons but which I also could not stand because I found her persona so irritating and bigfooting all over the otherwise cherce material. I left the book at my sister's by accident and I'm not going to bother getting it back.
That Come record is so fucking good.
I felt the same way about her voice, and I tried listening to that podcast & I felt the same way. Don’t do Donna Tartt dirty because she won’t talk to you. Sometimes I am reticent to critique someone’s writing voice because I know I am also guilty. But these two things should be gimmes.
Seriously. Sometimes it's such a hard call -- Is it me? Am I the asshole? -- so I was relieved in this particular instance to be able to say, definitively, it's not me, it's Lili Anolik.
We are not the assholes. This time.