The Voices in my Head

(AKA Review: The Fran Lebowitz Reader)

I really wanted to like The Fran Lebowitz Reader. Really, I did. And I pretty much expected I would: it’s one of E’s suggestions and I trust her taste; it’s observational humour and that’s usually a hands-down winner for me; and it has stood the test of time (remember, most of the individual pieces were written in the ’70s and ’80s and yet it’s still out there, making good sales and keeping its writer fed and clothed despite her almost two decades’ writer’s block).

And yet? Didn’t love it.

Why? Because of the voices in my head.

Lebowitz is unabashedly, outrageously, completely American. She’s East Coast American. New York American. She is, let it be known, a Capital N, Capital Y New Yorker. With a great many of the pieces in this collection consisting of carefully crafted anecdotes about life in that megatropolis (of which "Diary of a New York Apartment Hunter" is by far my favourite), you are never not aware of that fact. Fran Lebowitz equals New York, here.

And yet, there’s something in the tone in this collection – particularly in the early section “Metropolitan Life” – that doesn’t feel American. Or more precisely, it doesn't sound American. While the subject matter is decidedly so, something in the writing style, choice of words, sentence construction, doesn’t fit. It’s a little … out of whack, somehow. So I’m reading these pieces, smiling, enjoying the tricky callbacks and creative puns when a direct reference to Christopher Street, or a sweater, or Walter Cronkite crops up and I’m completely thrown because – in my head – the whole book is being read aloud by Stephen Fry.

Now, that’s not normal for me. Yes, I love Stephen Fry. No, I don’t usually hear his voice in my head (although this definitely tops my Christmas Wish List this year). But I suspect it comes back to the writing. There’s a – and I can find no better way to describe it, so work with me on this – decidedly British tone to a lot of the pieces which then clashes with the American-ness of its content. Lines like

[…] it is not feasible to bring into one’s own home all the desirable accoutrements of discotheque dancing such as deejay, several hours of tape, and the possibility, slim though it may be, of meeting one’s own true love.

are just screaming “British!” to me. It’s the same with

It was with considerable approval that I listened one Sunday evening to my weekend host instruct his chauffeur to drive us, his guests, back to New York.

Until the last two words, that is.

And while this experience lessens as the book continues, it was so strong initially that I couldn’t get passed it. I started to wonder, “is this a new literary technique Lebowitz is pioneering?”, “is it a greater comment on the subtleties of writing in the English language?”, “Am I going bonkers here?”. In the end, I simply couldn’t reconcile my imaginary, British voice-over with the ever-present American auteur herself and it ruins the book for me.

I love you, E but I’m sorry I’m just not with you on this one.

The Fran Lebowitz Reader: only Two Strings of Pearls from me.

xoxo

PS: Yes, I’m fully aware that this post probably says far, far more about me than it does about The Fran Lebowitz Reader but there you have it: it’s my blog and I get to write about Stephen Fry if I want to.