tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post7485577542457628997..comments2024-03-12T22:31:46.500-04:00Comments on What Would Phoebe Do?: AcknowledgementPhoebe Maltz Bovyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-39517201978910448502011-11-09T11:20:39.307-05:002011-11-09T11:20:39.307-05:00MSI,
Well of course the rich and dead are less de...MSI,<br /><br />Well of course the rich and dead are less dead. They're all at a great big cocktail party in the sky, where they're served local-sustainable caviar, and the cheeses that those lacking sufficient cultural capital do not recognize at grad student receptions.<br /><br />But I don't think the fact that extremes have been reached means this genre or whatever we're calling it is on the wane. <a href="http://gawker.com/5857593/yale-quarterback-faces-worst-white-boy-dilemma-ever" rel="nofollow">Everyone loves a first world problem</a>. All the better, really, that as Gawker commenters point out, the author herself went to Princeton, and the "white person problem" in question was recently faced... by another person as well, who happens to be black.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-32327418828811335192011-11-08T20:47:41.344-05:002011-11-08T20:47:41.344-05:00Yeah, I also saw that comment and thought we might...Yeah, I also saw that comment and thought we might now stop talking about privilege altogether b/c we've reached the absurd logical endpoint of the premise: if you're privileged and die, you're actually <i>less dead</i> than the un-privileged who also died.Miss Self-Importanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04477849823290773026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-87017201686412707922011-11-08T11:30:29.240-05:002011-11-08T11:30:29.240-05:00OK, this is the comment from a Slate reader that r...OK, this is the comment from a Slate reader that really shocked me, but that seems to sum up much of the complaint:<br /><br />"I think what Didion fails to recognize is that there are people who have the tremendous health problems and early death that her daughter did, but who don't have access to doctors, hospitals, or housekeepers. She's thinking of 'privilege' in terms of healthy versus ill; but the comparison is actually sick people in her position, with the access they have, versus similarly sick people with no insurance and struggling to pay their mortgage because of the medical bills. I can see, having lost a child, that it is hard for her to understand this."<br /><br />How is the comparison "actually" to those with very ill and then dead offspring and less money, and not any number of other scenarios? As in, why not compare Didion's situation to that of someone working-class and non-glamorous but also without any great life tragedies to speak of? Why not compare her situation <i>and</i> that of a less wealthy American version thereof to that of someone in the developing world? It doesn't seem so wild to suggest that there are horrible things that money and glamor do not shield a person from. And having horrible medical problems and dying at 39 would seem to qualify - was Didion's daughter fancy and schmancy for not dying at 35 instead? It just seems so very, very off.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-7907352565091636652011-11-08T11:19:45.034-05:002011-11-08T11:19:45.034-05:00Flavia,
You can read during a migraine? I'm i...Flavia,<br /><br />You can read during a migraine? I'm impressed. And thanks for these additional recommendations. <br /><br />My take on the Slate article was that it was basically a round-up of the reaction to Didion. The reaction itself seems bizarre, and I suppose does make me curious to read what's being reacted <i>to</i>, because there has to be some missing piece. Didion's <a href="http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/12030464482/having-or-making-or-thinking-about-making-a-drink" rel="nofollow">supposed to be too snooty</a> because she refers not to "a hospital" but the specific one in NY where the action takes place? Would it be OK to say which hospital of it were in Nebraska? And how can there be this great big rant about how Didion's too fancy-schmancy of a name-dropper, that culminates in the ranter telling us, "As it happens, I spent an afternoon with Didion back in 2003. We were being interviewed together for a magazine, after which we would pose for a photo that would accompany the interview."? How does that add up? Famous writers will always live more glamorous lives, unless we restrict ourselves to reading the only posthumously famous. It seems better to look into ways to open up the field, to let people who didn't grow up in splendor also get to that place, than to condemn those who, through their own writing and ambition, have reached that point.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-60348918990229493732011-11-07T20:44:12.883-05:002011-11-07T20:44:12.883-05:00I'm generally with MSI on a) my confusion at t...I'm generally with MSI on a) my confusion at the Slate article, and b) the gorgeousness of Didion's writing. In fact, I was just re-reading some essays from <i>The White Album</i> on Friday, after being struck down by an awful migraine, and was admiring her afresh.<br /><br />And FWIW, <i>Slouching Toward Bethlehem</i> and <i>The White Album</i> are both great introductions to her work, and since they're both collections of essays, they make for fine study breaks.Flaviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17832765671541392835noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-50181052066770568222011-11-07T20:30:37.161-05:002011-11-07T20:30:37.161-05:00MSI,
First off, thanks for the reading recommenda...MSI,<br /><br />First off, thanks for the reading recommendation - articles about Woody Allen movies make for lovely study breaks. Whereas a book-length meditation on grief, maybe not.<br /><br />YPIS and STFU are certainly not mutually exclusive, and yes, this instance is one where the two especially overlap. I don't know what about Didion's remark in this latest book set off the YPIS brigade, and to Haglund's credit, it seems he's also a bit mystified. My guess would be that her crime was mentioning that she'd been called "privileged" - the word perks up the ears of YPIS sorts, and of course they prefer to accuse those who've given some hint that they might get defensive.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-55689314217282626322011-11-07T19:40:59.827-05:002011-11-07T19:40:59.827-05:00I don't think I understand from the slate thin...I don't think I understand from the slate thing just what the problem here is. She wrote about her daughter dying and mentioned that she was given dresses, and people were upset by this b/c like it would be a better story if she died w/o dresses, or naked in a gutter? That would be, what, more representative of the 99 percent? I think the better acronym for this objection is STFU.<br /><br />This should be the apotheosis of the ypis angle, but I doubt it will be. Of course didion's life sounds glamorous--she and her husband were hollywood screenwriters and she's reported on many famous and infamous people for the past 50 years. It IS glamorous. She's also an incredible writer, so she writes about her glamorous life and the glamorous people in it and their unglamorous problems w/ great insight. Are good writers only permitted to write poverty porn or not at all? Is it de facto offensive to read about the lives of the non-wretched? Also, haven't we already had this controversy over "realism" in literature a century ago w/ Dreiser?<br /><br />I haven't read this book, but I've read a lot of her other writing, and her style is personal and self-absorbed in a way that works surprisingly well for setting moods in political essays-- I don't think didion wrote much about her daughter before she got sick (she's mentioned but not extensively analyzed), but she wrote a lot about her own migraines and tenuous sanity in the '60s, which apparently annoyed her critics.<br /><br />If you want to read something quick and funny, search for her review of Manhattan in the NYRB archives. It offers an intelligent twist on "privilege" from the 1970s.Miss Self-Importanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04477849823290773026noreply@blogger.com