Four Days 'Til Freedom...

[i_need_the_eggs]

Stuff I've Been Reading

Valencia by Michelle Tea

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Comments

[i_need_the_eggs]

I'll just copy the posts I had with Kel-Z (who loaned me the book) about Valencia.

i_need_the_eggs
Yes I did like Valencia, but it was pretty reptitive for a 200 page book. For me the book just seemed to go in cycles every 50 pages or so and each time it cycled around it got less enjoyable. I enjoyed the first part of the book immensely. It just seemed like the book never went anywhere or had any plans on going somewhere in the first place, which I normally need and you normally don't. I actually think we've had this same argument about a different book (I think "Breakfast of Champions"). But I did like the book and can tell that Michelle Tea is a very talented writer, even if she did manage to make description of lesbian sex hum-drum by the end.

_snarla
2006-04-08 06:07 pm
nooooo...it's a memoir! i didn't think it was repetitive, maybe because often i paid more attention to the language she used than what was really the plot, if you will. and that little crack about lesbian sex at the end there says to me you weren't ready for this book, mister!
(

i_need_the_eggs
2006-04-08 10:28 pm
I am fully aware that it's a memoir, but even so an author can decide what aspects of their life to focus on. I simply thought the emphasis put on her seemingly incessant drinking, drug-use, and sex life could have been done much more effectively. What ended up happening for me was that all of her exploits sort of melded into one singular night of drinking a 40 in a paper bag, going to a dyke bar, doing some random drug, getting partially naked in public, longing after an ex-girlfriend, and then fucking a girl that she wasn't too interested.

I simply thought there wasn't enough character development and focus on other aspects of her life like her work, her poetry, and her friendships that weren't sexually-based, or at least quasi-platonic.

Let me give you an example of what I loved about the book: The 20 or so pages where Michelle goes back to northern Georgia with Iris for her sister's wedding. That is great shit! Talking about trying to quietly fuck, but not wanting to wake her parents up/not having good gloves to use/being in some weird catotonic southern coma; and the car ride with Iris' old BF who is now severely on the wrong side of them tracks along with the great tatoo parlor owners...all that is where her writing's skill met with great subject matter. I just thought the book suffered from an over-saturation of sex to the point where the usually interesting/shocking became mundane.