January 7, 2013
i'm a sinner i'm a saint
1/7/13
If you lived in my greater extended literary world - and that mostly means "getting snarky forwards over email" - you'd have heard about the Elizabeth Wurtzel piece over at NYMag that has had tongues a-waggin'. You can read it in its entirety here, although like most things in modern life, you can have an opinion about it without even experiencing the original.
Wurtzel is most famous for Prozac Nation and a host of other confessionals that were famously called the "woe is me, me, me" memoir genre by an early adopter of the blood sport of Wurtzel-bashing. She was also a contributor to the Next book, which is when I met her. We wound up having a smattering of debauched group nights on the town when a few of our common circles briefly merged in the undulating throng of a pre-sorority East Village.
(As an aside, don't you think it usually sounds a little desperate when someone says "full disclosure: I know this person" in an article? I know the journalistic reasons, but it always comes off a little smarmy.)
me at the Purple House around that time, early '90s
Anyway, there has been practically nobody easier for other writers to hate, perhaps in the recent history of Lower Manhattan. She doesn't make it easy for herself, often mistaking incendiary proclamations for genuine insight, and including details of her life guaranteed to make you roll your eyes and say "oh please..."
This last essay has proven to be a high-water mark for Wurtzel-based invective as a glance at Twitter or Slate makes clear. No doubt the seven or so of you who read it will have your own opinions.
But let me just add three thoughts, which may or may not be related to the issue at hand:
1. E. Wurtzel remains a good writer. I've heard all the rumors, know all the stories, and I don't give a shit. She has a thing, and it's better than most of 'em out there.
2. Criticism this cruel and virulent absolutely must be viewed through the prism of sexism. If a guy were writing the same stuff, he'd be lauded for his tender honesty, and his harsher passages would be construed as a romantic yawp. I don't think anyone, not even chicks, have an understanding of how EASY it is to HATE women showing any power.
3. Lastly, we all suffer from the worst kind of hipster Puritanism. We have no trouble complaining about our first-world problems, but try to absolve ourselves by heaping insult on anyone else who is honest about their tastes and privilege. I find myself deliberately not mentioning things here because it's impossible to get across without looking like a fluffy dilettante dandy.
We all feel this subconscious, powerful guilt about living in a country with so much largesse, when there's unbelievable suffering in the rest of the world. So we're fine with bitching about slow wifi speeds on an airplane, but when Elizabeth Wurtzel mentions Harvard, croissants or a Hermès bag, we cry foul.
This leads us all to create façades of who we are, rather than the real picture, because if any of you got the real details, you'd likely be horrified. Social media has only made it worse; now you can curate this idea of yourself in real time, through little snippets, updates and pictures. Hell, I've been a caricature of myself on this blog for more than ten years!
You may not find Wurtzel trenchant, or tasteful, or even interesting, but there are other venues you can go for that. If you want an uncut closed-circuit feed into someone's psyche, however, you can't be surprised at the mess.
Posted by Ian Williams at January 7, 2013 11:58 PM
I had never read Wurtzel - or at least had never done so realizing I was doing it. Given her history (and the fact that we apparently are the same age), it seems unlikely that I have missed here entirely.
This piece struck me as dramatically tragic. Her obvious suffering is an intrinsic element of her persepctive, which, in turn, infects her writing with an honesty coupled with a complete lack of perspective. The lawyer/binder section (to which I can totally relate) seems to only hint at the bigger point that most people's toiling jobs results in very little social utility and even less advancement of mankind. Is that not what we should be striving for each day? Are we simply here to accumulate gold coins for the next generation - hoping that they figure out something magical?
Too much to ponder now. I have another binder to prepare.
SWF
Well, I read the entire article, and I was not bothered by it. That is just how she is. I remember when I first read Prozac Nation. . . . I was reading along about her bouts of depression, and then she casually mentioned something to the effect of "and then I completed my first year at Harvard." I thought. . . how interesting that someone so tortured by depression could be high-functioning enough to attend Harvard. She lives and writes in extremes. . . and that is what I like about her.
I have wondered what she has been up to. . . .I frankly admire someone who would go to law school in her 30s/40s. She could have just rested on her writing laurels. I don't like her blonde hair, though. Brunette was better.
Always such a thick head of hair, Ian! Gotta get back to being a hooker . . .
That article hit me at the right time. I am still doing the same things at 41 that I was doing in my early 20s. I am in the same city, and I thought I'd be in the burbs by now. I'm at the same job. I don't feel that I've moved on to my "permanent" life yet. Luckily, I do have children, but that element of life could have very easily passed me by if not for some chance connections. Many of my friends at 41 always thought they'd be raising their family by now, and they're still in the city looking for dates. They have no idea what happened. We all said "Oh, by the time I'm 40, bla bla bla." But it just didn't happen.
People end up in their own families and lives, and in the end, there are only a few people you can count on in a pinch, no matter how long you live and how many connections we make. I feel for her. She's successful and smart and has so many romances and still she's not progressing "on paper" the way many of us do or expect to. For all the things she's accomplished (and I read her books at the time they came out and was jealous of her like any other writer my age), she still has barely anyone to call for help in a situation like this.
I am scared of my parents dying. I've avoided thinking about it, but we are all getting older. I am lucky that both my parents are still alive and I don't even know how I'll feel when one is gone - except, exposed and older. I am scared of when my kids go off to their own lives and all I have is my books and my writing and maybe a friend or two who don't live nearby. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. We all have connections on Facebook and via text, but who will really be there?
In an MMmbop they're gone. In an mmmbop they're not there. (Sorry...I guess I was sincere for too long and I had to lighten the mood.)
i was prepared to not like the article, seeing so many other negative comments the past couple of days. i wasn't prepared to identify with it so much as i did. it's not that i'm 45 living like i'm 25 - but that even with the conventions i do have in my life - husband, child, commitments - it all feels so mercurial. i've never been able to hang out in the extremes though, as she has exquisitely described. so while i feel buttressed in my life i also sometimes, in my sadder moments, don't know that that amounts to much - either.
now, like CM, I have to do something to lighten the mood!
You call that suffering? I spent that whole period scrubbing toilets in Toledo...
Piglet, you have an EXCEPTIONAL memory.
Thanks for pointing this out - I had missed it and I enjoyed it if only for curiosity's sake.
I have found her writing to be compelling and do in this article as well. Turning "women can have it all" into an examination of having nothing, loved it. I can't imagine not having a savings account! Maybe it's a breath of fresh air - look how others live. I didn't see a point to it but it's her, an exercise in self-examination.
Does Harvard really have NO living female authors as alumnae? THAT is disturbing.
Yeah, I'd think they must. Just not as...notable? ... as Wurtzel. I'm sure they've got at least a few chick lit authors. Hey, and there was that girl Kavyaa who was in that plagiarism scandal...bad example.
Anyway, I wanted to come here and point out that there's a story about twentysomethings in the New Yorker this week, since this blog discusses a lot of generational stuff. But of course, the story is the same story that could have been written 10 years ago, or 20.
Don't mind her really. Her writing is entertaining in small doses. This article was too long and got really boring though. She strikes me as having more psychiatric diagnoses than just depression - bipolar? definitely a narcissitic streak there.
You are right though a man writing that would be seen as brave and honest. But, at the risk of being sexist myself there aren't too many men who would wallow in such self pity either.
Sifting through her rambling, disjointed narrative I kind of get the midlife existential crisis she is trying to capture. But this article... It really needs an editor. Her stream-of-consciousness, multiple-levels-of-digression style is beyond just style in this one. It comes across as the diary of someone with serious mental illness. (which may be her intent, or her reality, I'm not sure)
Where she loses me is when she starts attacking other people - especially other women - for their choices. She claims feminism as her core belief but I don't see any connection to or compassion for the struggles of other women here. More of "anyone who is not just like me is a: [whore] [corporate stooge] [soulless zombie] [all of the above]"
Hurrah! At last I got a webpage from where I be able to truly take helpful facts regarding my study and knowledge.|
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