Picked this up in a used bookstore and it really is shockingly bad. In the chapter on Sarajevo/Rebecca West she complains about the colonial mindset tPicked this up in a used bookstore and it really is shockingly bad. In the chapter on Sarajevo/Rebecca West she complains about the colonial mindset that led West in the 30s and recent commentators post-war to obnoxiously pontificate about the violent nature of the Balkan soul and "ancient hatreds"; then in the chapter on Ireland she herself turns around and confidently does her own diagnoses of What is Wrong With Those Feckless Irish - learned helplessness! it all goes back to the Famine, you see. She talks to a historian and cites psychological experiments involving dogs and electric shocks - and then feels confident enough to flippantly throw out that the problem of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church - it's JUST like that. I have a bunch of other obnoxious examples of the sort of shallow half-baked narcissistic philosophizing masquerading as deep truths (love the part where after SHE contacts the wife of the married man she's fucking and sets up a correspondence she refers to the emails from the wife as "territorial pissings")(or the part where she has no money! as she stays in a charming Swiss farmhouse for free, with free run of their pantry! But the tarot readings she does on Skype are all that is holding body and soul together, as she can turn that cash "into steak and mushroom pie with a bit of effort" - the noble struggle of the free woman artist!) I was going to go on about but this one wore me out. Life is too short, much like it's too short to read this book.
Oh wait no I have to mention the part where she claims that she, a white Kansan, when in Kansas frequently gets the "No, but but where are you REALLY from" treatment - because her face is just. SO. ANGULAR. This is why she feels at home in Europe, land of angular faces (???) that even when she speaks English without an accent, the Swiss think she's Swiss!...more
Loading...
