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.

Off and Reading

A quick post to let you know I've started my first project; it's Elena's offering - The Fran Lebowitz Reader. My review post will follow when I've actually, you know, read it.

But, based on the number of pages E has folded over - her time-tested method of marking particular pages that have something she wants to return to, read again, share with friends - it's going to be a great read!

Kisses,
J

First reviews

It's harder than I expected to write reviews of books, even - or maybe especially - ones I know well and love completely.  I've given Jac three books that I more or less know by heart, but I'm still struggling to come up with interesting things to say about them.  I'm just going to dive in and hope that what I write makes sense; fingers crossed that I'll get better at it over time.

Perfect Skin: Nick Earls is one of my favourite authors.  He's Australian, from Brisbane (well, actually born in Northern Ireland, but has lived in Brisbane since he was a kid), and I think what I love about him is that he writes like my friends talk, if that makes sense.  Better, obviously, because he has the luxury of multiple drafts, but it still feels very comfortable and familiar.  A stellar example from Perfect Skin:

I think you'd like it, Ashley, Oscar says.  It's very sociological.  Very influenced by the icons of our contemporary consumerist digital society.

Sounds good, Ash says, and convincingly too, though we all know that Oscar delved a little too deep into the adjective bucket to make complete sense.

See?  Brilliant.  I've read this book dozens of times, and that line still makes me laugh out loud every time.

Perfect Skin is the follow-up to Bachelor Kisses, but you don't need to have read that to read Perfect Skin - only the main character carries over, apart from a couple of small references here and there.  I preferred Bachelor Kisses for a long time, or thought I did anyway; as time passed, I found myself reaching for Perfect Skin more and more often.  I don't think it's Earls's best book (that would be The Thompson Gunner, which I also highly recommend), but it and Zigzag Street are my favourites.  They're the comfort food of literature, or maybe more like security blankets: when I feel crap, these are the books I pull off the shelf.  I carry them around, I read them in spare seconds, I fall asleep with them on the pillow next to me.  They've become more than just books.

The Fran Lebowitz Reader: My best friend Sarah gave me this book for my birthday several years ago, and it's so battered and exhausted now I'm always a bit afraid it's going to disintegrate in my hands.  It's a collection of articles and essays originally written for magazines, mostly back in the '70s.  Her writing hasn't aged a bit, though: she's dry as dirt, but so, so funny.  She's one of those rare geniuses who can write pieces full of one-liners that don't end up just sounding like transportation for those one-liners.

Generally speaking, I look upon [sports] as dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom I share nothing except the right to trial by jury.

The Reader is a compilation of two earlier collections, Metropolitan Life and Social Studies.  Unfortunately, Lebowitz hasn't actually written much.  Apart from the two books that were then republished together as the Reader, she has one kids' book... and that's it.  A damn shame, because she's been rightfully classed with Dorothy Parker and S.J. Perelman as one of the great modern American humourists.

A Room with a View: I came to the book after falling in love with the movie.  It was the first Merchant-Ivory production I saw, and it resonated with my teenaged flair for the dramatic.  (And the first person to say, '...teenaged?' is barred.)  The book is even better, and not just in that book-is-better-than-the-movie way.  Forster writes beautifully and with surprising restraint given the subject matter (young love in end-of-the-Victorian-era England and Italy), while at the same time being a total, total bitch.  It's that bitchiness - and the very considered ways in which he employs it - that elevates Room from a simple love story to a brilliant social satire:

'Come this way immediately,' commanded Cecil, who always felt that he must lead women, though he knew no whither, and protect them, though he knew not against what.

Take nothing away from the love story aspect, though: it's perfectly rendered.  It's honest and passionate without being overwrought, which is a hell of a trick.  And I would recommend the movie as well, if only to be reminded of what Helena Bonham-Carter looked like before she went crazy and married the 'Nightmare Before Christmas' guy.

XOXO