I had high expectations about this book, I loved ‘Me and You and Everyone we know’ thought that movie was such a lovely, uplifting surprise. I’ve had some bad experiences with art films one salient example was a puppet/claymation version of Faust that was the visual equivalent of shoving bamboo sticks under my fingernails. I read one of the short stories in this book, The swim team, in Harper’s and loved that story. People were mentioning her and Lorrie Moore, one of my favorite (top five) writers, in the same sentence, saying Miranda July had a similar style of combining humor and pathos. Oh, I was so primed to crack open this book in the lurid eightiesesque hot pink cover and revel in all that it was. Have to say I was a bit disappointed. There are a couple stories that I thought were very strong – The Swim Team and Something that Needs Nothing. There are others with glimpses of brilliant observation but they’re not fully realized. In some ways this book seems immature. Maybe (probably) I’ve become much harder to please now that I have two kids, am constantly exhausted and don’t have much, or let’s just come out with it and say any, social life. And the sex stuff, ugh, I know it’s meant to be dark or embarrassing or alienating to convey the feeling of the character or plot or blah blah blah. I for the most part hate sex stuff in books because it almost always comes across as cringe worthy or feels gratuitous and there are very very few writers who can write about sex well. At times I felt like this was a horny, poor man’s Lorrie Moore book. BUT, big but, I think if Miranda July made a film about any or all of these stories they’d probably come across brilliantly. I just think I need to see this on film for it to come across effectively, but because of the potential and two great stories I'll give it 3 plums.
Monday, June 25, 2007
No one belongs here more than you
I had high expectations about this book, I loved ‘Me and You and Everyone we know’ thought that movie was such a lovely, uplifting surprise. I’ve had some bad experiences with art films one salient example was a puppet/claymation version of Faust that was the visual equivalent of shoving bamboo sticks under my fingernails. I read one of the short stories in this book, The swim team, in Harper’s and loved that story. People were mentioning her and Lorrie Moore, one of my favorite (top five) writers, in the same sentence, saying Miranda July had a similar style of combining humor and pathos. Oh, I was so primed to crack open this book in the lurid eightiesesque hot pink cover and revel in all that it was. Have to say I was a bit disappointed. There are a couple stories that I thought were very strong – The Swim Team and Something that Needs Nothing. There are others with glimpses of brilliant observation but they’re not fully realized. In some ways this book seems immature. Maybe (probably) I’ve become much harder to please now that I have two kids, am constantly exhausted and don’t have much, or let’s just come out with it and say any, social life. And the sex stuff, ugh, I know it’s meant to be dark or embarrassing or alienating to convey the feeling of the character or plot or blah blah blah. I for the most part hate sex stuff in books because it almost always comes across as cringe worthy or feels gratuitous and there are very very few writers who can write about sex well. At times I felt like this was a horny, poor man’s Lorrie Moore book. BUT, big but, I think if Miranda July made a film about any or all of these stories they’d probably come across brilliantly. I just think I need to see this on film for it to come across effectively, but because of the potential and two great stories I'll give it 3 plums.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Sometimes things look better when you look at them differently. Here:maybe this book is not a masterpiece, but certainly it is worth a read or two even if you’re not really reading but only looking at your hands…i really don’t think Miranda July would mind.
Post a Comment