A year in Van Nuys
I grabbed this book for two reasons. It's available in the library where I work, and it's about a suburb in Los Angeles. I kind of miss the Valley so I wanted to read a book about it.
I read the summaries and I got the impression that it was rather a collection of cultural commentaries in general, all relating to living in Van Nuys, and mainly about aging.
Turns out it actually does have a plot. Each event leads into another. Among these events, Sandra puts in her cultural commentary. She starts out as a lazy woman who cannot finish her novel and lies around and eats Zone-approved turkey. Her sister sends her to a therapist, whose advice leads to appearing on a show on CNN, which leads to someone noticing her and inviting her to write some articles for a women's website amelia dot com (it's gone now), and so on. Sandra's husband is around a lot, leading to a lot of commentary on relationships. Sandra uses a lot of drawings, such as a pie chart (shaped like a heart) comparing ideal time spent together vs. actual time spent together vs. actual time that gay male couples spend together. There is also time spent with her in-laws, a failed sitcom idea, and Sandra's difficulty with aging. There's actually a lot more stuff than this, too.
So what did I think? To be honest, there's so much stuff in this book, subjects all over the map, that I'm having trouble writing a review. Every subject hit me a little differently. I will say in general, though, I was hoping to read more Los Angeles-centered stuff. And I don't mean Hollywood. L.A. isn't Hollywood and Hollywood isn't L.A., although most people don't seem to know that. In fact, Hollywood is a dump. Go to the Stars, I dare you, see how clean and pretty it is. But anyway. Valley hoping aside, one's enjoyment of this book just depending on whether you found the jokes funny or not, and whether you understood what she was talking about or not. Having lived in L.A. is not necessary, but being conscious of pop culture is. Sandra's fear of aging depends greatly on the L.A. (and much of the U.S.) emphasis on wonderful, forever youthful looks. When Sandra is preparing to write for a sitcom, she doesn't have to say her age and is told not to, because it's preferred that writers be under 25 (!). Sandra loses it and admits that she cannot be "young, hip, and fresh" and maybe doesn't want to. Here's a clip. Do you find it funny?:
"I mean, I could do what everyone else in this wretched town does--pretend I'm twenty-six so I can get my next job creating the propaganda that makes our Young People feel there is no escape from the fetid blasts from the poophole of Spuds MacKenzie--but you know what? I don't want to be a card-carrying employee of the drecky evil Youth Culture mega DeathStar Spelling Hasselhoff corporation. (Which I think is on Wilshire, isn't it? That big glass building?"
One of my favorite parts of the book was about writing. It explained the one truth of how to know whether you are a real writer: if you just can't stop. Sandra attended some writing class for people who aren't professionals but decided, halfway through life, that they'd more or less like to take time off to write a novel. But some of them have trouble. They start, but they can't keep writing. And the fact is, there are too many people writing or trying to write, and too few people reading.
Anyway, the essays were hit and miss. I found myself getting extremely bored on one tale, and then immensely enjoying another. That I had trouble getting past the first 30 pages had no bearing on how much I enjoyed the middle 10, or indeed that story about the writing workshop, which came near the end.
Sandra ends the book on the note that she should "let go" of the stuff that she wishes she was interested in but really was not. This has been misinterpreting as a "give up on your dreams" ending, but wasn't really. Sandra is a writer/storyteller, but not much of a novelist, and had to realize that she can't really finish a long novel about the Congo and is better off writing a collection of tales and anecdotes like this.
The spellchecker thinks "Angeles" is wrong.
I read the summaries and I got the impression that it was rather a collection of cultural commentaries in general, all relating to living in Van Nuys, and mainly about aging.
Turns out it actually does have a plot. Each event leads into another. Among these events, Sandra puts in her cultural commentary. She starts out as a lazy woman who cannot finish her novel and lies around and eats Zone-approved turkey. Her sister sends her to a therapist, whose advice leads to appearing on a show on CNN, which leads to someone noticing her and inviting her to write some articles for a women's website amelia dot com (it's gone now), and so on. Sandra's husband is around a lot, leading to a lot of commentary on relationships. Sandra uses a lot of drawings, such as a pie chart (shaped like a heart) comparing ideal time spent together vs. actual time spent together vs. actual time that gay male couples spend together. There is also time spent with her in-laws, a failed sitcom idea, and Sandra's difficulty with aging. There's actually a lot more stuff than this, too.
So what did I think? To be honest, there's so much stuff in this book, subjects all over the map, that I'm having trouble writing a review. Every subject hit me a little differently. I will say in general, though, I was hoping to read more Los Angeles-centered stuff. And I don't mean Hollywood. L.A. isn't Hollywood and Hollywood isn't L.A., although most people don't seem to know that. In fact, Hollywood is a dump. Go to the Stars, I dare you, see how clean and pretty it is. But anyway. Valley hoping aside, one's enjoyment of this book just depending on whether you found the jokes funny or not, and whether you understood what she was talking about or not. Having lived in L.A. is not necessary, but being conscious of pop culture is. Sandra's fear of aging depends greatly on the L.A. (and much of the U.S.) emphasis on wonderful, forever youthful looks. When Sandra is preparing to write for a sitcom, she doesn't have to say her age and is told not to, because it's preferred that writers be under 25 (!). Sandra loses it and admits that she cannot be "young, hip, and fresh" and maybe doesn't want to. Here's a clip. Do you find it funny?:
"I mean, I could do what everyone else in this wretched town does--pretend I'm twenty-six so I can get my next job creating the propaganda that makes our Young People feel there is no escape from the fetid blasts from the poophole of Spuds MacKenzie--but you know what? I don't want to be a card-carrying employee of the drecky evil Youth Culture mega DeathStar Spelling Hasselhoff corporation. (Which I think is on Wilshire, isn't it? That big glass building?"
One of my favorite parts of the book was about writing. It explained the one truth of how to know whether you are a real writer: if you just can't stop. Sandra attended some writing class for people who aren't professionals but decided, halfway through life, that they'd more or less like to take time off to write a novel. But some of them have trouble. They start, but they can't keep writing. And the fact is, there are too many people writing or trying to write, and too few people reading.
Anyway, the essays were hit and miss. I found myself getting extremely bored on one tale, and then immensely enjoying another. That I had trouble getting past the first 30 pages had no bearing on how much I enjoyed the middle 10, or indeed that story about the writing workshop, which came near the end.
Sandra ends the book on the note that she should "let go" of the stuff that she wishes she was interested in but really was not. This has been misinterpreting as a "give up on your dreams" ending, but wasn't really. Sandra is a writer/storyteller, but not much of a novelist, and had to realize that she can't really finish a long novel about the Congo and is better off writing a collection of tales and anecdotes like this.
The spellchecker thinks "Angeles" is wrong.