Book: In Praise of Messy Lives
Author: Katie Roiphe
Pages: 261
Copy: library copy
Read: mid-December
Spoilers: back to essays!
I requested this book from the library because I read a review that discussed how controversial Katie Roiphe is. I was excited--a woman essayist who starts fights! This is the woman for me! Naturally, her book was a complete disappointment.
Her writing style isn't that interesting. She may attack Joan Didion in a long essay, but her own style isn't so different. She uses some personal details, but never fleshes them out (she complains that Joan Didion's memoir is described as "'deeply and intensely personal,' and yet what is striking is how impersonal the book actually is." Roiphe's essays may be "deeply and intensely personal," but they're still strikingly impersonal). She has little in the way of style--I didn't linger over any of her sentences, the way I did with Joan Didion and even Anne Fadiman. Her writing style is academic and utilitarian. There is little color and no music in her sentences. This is the style of modern academic essays, but I expect more from personal essays--especially essays sold to the wider public.
Perhaps the most aggravating part of this collection of essays is the banality of Roiphe's insights. It is no compliment to myself when I say I could have made the same observations as Roiphe. She doesn't enlighten--she points out the obvious. There are few interesting criticisms and almost no intriguing social commentary. George Orwell could take a very basic and very boring part of culture and make astonishing claims about what those things said about society as a whole. Roiphe can't do that.
What intrigued me the most is the fact that Roiphe seems secretly conservative. She writes all about her unconventional family--she is raising two children on her own--and writes at great length about all the criticism she gets. But I never got the feeling that she actually accepts her situation. To me, it seems that she actually agrees with all the criticism. But there's also the sense that she loves to be a martyr. "Look at poor me, raising two fatherless children! Give me your pity and your criticism, because I deserve it!" In more capable hands, Roiphe's life story could have been striking. (I couldn't help but think that if Cheryl Strayed had written Roiphe's book, it would have been absolutely the most stunning book of the year. In Roiphe's hands, everything falls utterly flat.)
Only one essay from this collection has stayed with me. In "Making the Incest Scene," Roiphe writes about the way that incest has become the go-to "dark secret" of modern literature and how no one does it believably. While I think her criticism is spot on, I'm not sure incest is as pervasive as she imagines. Still, while I've thought about that essay once or twice since I read this collection, her analysis and observations in that essay are as superficial as all the other essays. The essay has no point but to point out incest. It goes no deeper.
I really can't figure out what is so controversial about Roiphe. Once or twice I caught myself frowning as I read her essays, but I never felt the need to rail against her. Her essay on Joan Didion bothered me a little, but I thought she made fair points. How does this woman start fights? Perhaps it is the way she writes about her family--I could see some "family values" readers becoming irate about that. Still, how she's earned a name as a "bad girl" eludes me. Orwell says more outrageous things, and he's been dead for almost 63 years. Roiphe is going to have to try a lot harder if she wants to make a lasting impression on American letters.
I don't hate this book, exactly, I'm just disappointed. Yet again another essayist has failed. Perhaps the essay form is just too out-of-date; it seems like no one knows how to do it right anymore. How can a collection this light and shallow cause any sort of controversy at all? Is it because a woman is expressing her opinions? I can only hope that isn't the only reason. Surely women are allowed to express their opinions without being labelled a "controversial writer." George Will writes his opinion all the time, and he's been called "the most powerful journalist in America."
This might be a good introduction to essays--I mean, Roiphe is readable, and shallowness of interpretation might help a person get use to reading cultural essays. Still, I'm not sure exactly who the target audience here is. Women? I hope not. Women deserve well-written essays too. I suppose I can only recommend this to people who want to stay abreast of pop literary culture. I really don't care what is written, it has to be written well. Roiphe needs to learn more about craftsmanship before she can become truly enduring.
--Benvolia
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