On a process level, Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation is a successful essay collection. Kipnis is a fluid writer with an eye for the mot juste; she varies her sentence structures with grace; nothing she writes ever feels forced. If that sounds like faint praise, it’s because (alas) I have a lot of problems with the sentiments Kipnis expresses in her elegant prose. Here are the main three: 1) So. Much. Freud. Lady, you are aware that further work has been done in psychology since the mid-twentieth century? Kipnis’s references to Freud, Oedipal complexes, and psychosexual development are so numerous they would make an excellent drinking game condition, an…
23 CommentsTag: grumble grumble grumble
Ugh, y’all, I was going to read Laura Kasischke’s A Mind of Winter for RIP IX, but it made me too angry. I did read it, and I can’t deny that, but I hereby did not read it for RIP IX. I just read it. RIP IX may or may not have been happening at the same time. Two caveats before I begin my complaining: My opinion about The Mind of Winter arises from a personal preference that I have about the outcome of ghost stories. I have complained about this on the blog before, so it may come as…
27 CommentsHere is a book about a girl called Veronika who has been kept in ignorance all her life, and when her circumstances change, she is only pretty vaguely enlightened. So are we. I prefer to be more enlightened. Veronika lives on an island with three other girls: Caroline, Isabel, and Eleanor. They are all the same exact girl, except that their hair is different colors. Their parents died in a plane crash. They live with their guardians, Robbert and Irene, who educate them and test them and try to understand them. One day, a girl called May washes up on…
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