Tag: Memoir

LOVE IN THE BIG CITY by Sang Young Park

An interesting series of essays about attempting to be gay and bohemian in Seoul, covering roommates and menial jobs and heartbreak.  His first roommate, despite being female, is closest to being his soulmate.  Read this recipe for house-sharing bliss:

I was an expert at washing dishes spotlessly, and Jaehee’s courageous soul allowed her to swipe the shower drain clean of clogged hair. 

And

Like most people’s parents, (Jaehee’s parents) constantly nagged their children about propriety and how one should behave, but in their private lives joyfully indulged in affairs, excess religion, the stock market, or pyramid schemes.  I had a real parasitic streak in that as much as I hated my parents, I felt completely entitled to ever coin they gave me . . . Jaehee, however, cut off contact with her parents after their blowout and refused any form of financial support thereafter. She really did have the heart of a lioness.

He has (of course) a tough relationship with his mother, who is very involved, and very religious.  She dies slowly of a heart issue.  Enjoy this:

. . .  she asked the doctors not to anesthetize her because she wanted to participate in the pain of Jesus Christ, a declaration that (finally!) prompted her doctors to add some psychiatric treatment to her prescription . . .

That ‘(finally!)’ really made me laugh. 

It is not easy being gay and bohemian anywhere, but apparently especially not in South Korea.  This books paints a pretty homophobic, classist, and sexist society.  At one point, for example, everyone accepts that the author will get a job purely because all the other applicants are female.   It’s an interesting take on the traditional story of the artist vs the man.  Apparently the man in Seoul is really not kidding around.

TRAVEL LIGHT, MOVE FAST by Alexandra Fuller

I guess we’ve all got a lot to say about our parents, but this lady REALLY has a lot to say.  This is the third book of hers I’ve read, and it’s the third to mostly be about her parents.  Rather than them being a character in her story, I am starting to get the impression that she is a character in theirs.  They loom most exceedingly large over her life.

Her parents lived variously across southern Africa, but in her childhood largely in Zimbabwe.  There is much that is comic about them.  Her father reels at the revelation that a laptop might be expected to die after the first decade, regarding planned obsolescence as a scam (which indeed it probably is). 

And there they are on South African politics, an opinion I have heard before in Zim:

The Afrikaaners took it to far, the blacks are bolshie and you can’t blame them.  I find it very creepy, all of it.  Just look at that Oscar Pistorious.

And her mother after the war that gave birth to Zimbabwe:

I mean she was all of us, all of us Rhodesians; hurt, sore, surprised losers.  She’d vowed to fight to the death; and even if everyone else had now forgotten that vow, she’d meant it.  . . . She wept bitterly in private; drank bravely in public.  “Your mother has difficulty cutting her losses,” Dad had explained. 

It’s a book framed around the unexpected death of her father while on holiday in Budapest, but it’s very much a celebration of his life. I don’t know what all this author is working through, but I’m enjoying being a part of it

THE BEST OF ME by David Sedaris

Some writers create books. David Sedaris does this, but first he had to create a genre, in which his books could fit. I find this amazing. It puts him in the illustrious company of historical romance writer Georgette Heyer. (THOUGHT: Am I the first person ever to compare Sedaris and Heyer? I hope so. Let’s not google it though, becuase the inevitable outcome of that, is finding out you have nothing new to offer. FOLLOW-ON THOUGHT: Maybe this is why baby boomers are so insufferable, because they did not spend their youth finding out that every ‘great’ idea they had had already been had by somebody else)

THE BEST OF ME is a collection of what Sedaris thinks are his best pieces of writing. As I have read (I think) all of Sedaris, it was a re-read for me, but it was interesting to see this cut of what he thinks is good. Here he is in the introduction:

I’ll always be inclined towards my most recent work, if only because I’ve had less time to turn on it. When I first started writing essays they were about big, dramatic events, the sort you relate when you meet someone new and are trying to explain to them what made you the person you are. As I get older, I find myself writing about smaller and smaller things. As an exercise it’s much more difficult, and thus – for me anyway – much more rewarding.

I found this sort of interesting, becuase I am often struck by how much meat he manages to find in his one life, and I wonder where it comes from. Surely, so much of life is like grocery shopping and brushing your teeth, I would have thought by now he was down to the bits of the bird where there is mostly gristle. But still he keeps them coming.

He notes that the “pieces in this book – both fiction and nonfiction – are the sort I hoped to produce back when I first started writing, at the age of twenty. I didn’t know how to get from where I was then to where I am now, but who does?” I found this sort of inspirational. Imagine being able to say, this is what I wanted at twenty, and I have got it! Typically, in myexperience you don’t get it. Or if you do, the odds are you no longer want it.

SOMETIMES I TRIP ON HOW HAPPY WE COULD BE by Nichole Perkins

Despite the fantastic title, I did not enjoy this. I had high hopes too, because Nichole Perkins podcast THIRST AID KIT is brilliant. It examines what makes dreamboat men dreamboats. The one on Joshua Jackson (always Pacey from DAWSON’S CREEK) is revelatory. It’s rare and liberating to hear women discussing sexiness. Depressingly, their conclusion is often that x person is sexy because ‘they are a good guy’ or ‘would be a good dad.’ I would like to deny it but I kind of see it, and Pacey is a case in point. LADIES WE NEED TO BE COOLER.

This is a series of essays about Perkins’ life, mixed up with her observations on pop culture. Perhaps they just suffer by comparison to the wonderful essays I just finished by Samantha Irby, but I was kind of amazed by how boring Perkins manages to make her own life. Most people’s lives are interesting, if only because I am nosy. This really was dull. The only interesting point I can recall off the top of my head was that she had this guy where their only relationshp was him giving her head, which routinely would go on for over three hours. Perhaps I am an innocent, but . . wow, that’s a lot.

Anyway, all this detail aside (he used to pull up at her crotch, seated in a chair, as at a table), the reason it all comes off as rather bland is I suspect because she is not actually sharing anything truly vulnerable, or anything she has really struggled with. Not that anyone has to share any such thing, of course, but if you are going to write a memoir it’s kind of what you are signing up for.

BABURNAMA by Babur trans. Annette Beveridge

Here are the memoirs a 15th century Mongol warlord.  I can’t believe this actually exists. 

You might think this would be kind of bloody, and you would be right.  It is incredibly violent.  Every other page he is either sacking or being sacked.  Straightforward sample:

Those our men had brought in as prisoners were ordered to be beheaded and a pillar of heads was set up in our camp

A few pages later, after a battle, their Afghan enemies put grass between their teeth, which apparently means ‘I am your cow’ and is a sign of surrender.  In response:

Some heads of Sultans and of others were sent to Kabul with the news . . some also to Badakhshan, Qunduz and Blakh with letters of victory

It is not all beheadings.  He gives us many interesting descriptions of the peoples, animals, and landscapes he sees during this orgy of violence.  He tells us that the elephant is “an immense animal and very sagnacious” but warns us that one can eat “the corn of two strings of camels.”  He also describes his friends. How sweet is this guy:

He used to wear his tunic so very tight that to fasten the stringe he had to draw his belly in and, if he let himself out after tying them, they often tore away. 

Or this guy:

He was extremely decorous; people say he used to hide his feet even in the privacy of his family

Or this one:

He danced wonderfully well, doing one dance quite unique and seeming to be his own invention

Imagine, five centuries later, this is all that persists of you in the world.  And its more than most people get.   

Later Barbur falls in love, with a local market boy:

I could never look straight at him: how then could I make conversation and recital?  In my joy and agitation I could not thank him for coming; how was it possible for me to reproach him with going away?

You almost start to like him, partly because heis also charmingly pre-modern.  The sun, we are told, is ‘spear-high’ and he once swims with his horse ‘as far as an arrow flies.’    Then you are reminded who we are dealing with.  He meets some locals:

Snow fell ankle deep while we were on that ground; it would seem to e rare for snow to fall thereabouts, for people were much surprised. 

How charming! Villagers in their first snowfall.  Then he kills them all too.  

This makes me feel modern life not all bad after all.

WE ARE NEVER MEETING IN REAL LIFE by Samantha Irby

Here is the third book I have read by a vetrenarian’s receptionist in Chicago. I liked the other two but I LOVE THIS ONE. Like, get ready, because when I really like a book I like to quote from it AT LENGTH.

It’s a series of comic essays about what is a fairly difficult life. Where most people dedicate their book to a spouse, her’s is dedicated to her anti-anxiety medicine, Klonopin.

We learn about what goes on in a vet’s office. Sample

Question: Why is there a worm coming out of my dog’s penis?

Answer: That is his penis.

She is “fiercely private IRL. Which is to say that . . I never want anyone to see my actual pores or clothes.” Eventually therefore she meets the woman who will be her wife online . . on Twitter (do people meet people on Twitter?):

We moved the conversation to DM, and I really need you guys to know that it physically pains me to both have participated in something called a DM and to recount what happened in one to you now.

MWAHAHAHA. Why is this hilarious? I don’t know. She has never been with a woman before, and it is not as easy as she had thought:

I expertly slid my female hand under her bra and unhooked it with the flick of a wrist in one smooth, effortless motion. JK, FOLKS. I wrestled with that clasp like an alligator, finally resorting to the use of a chain saw and my teeth.

Eventually she agrees to move to rural Michigan with her. I love this vision of country life:

I could wake up to the sound of crowing roosters or methheads at sunrise, consume a platter of buttered carbohydrates, hitch up my overalls, and grab my watering can from the shed. That would be a dream. I’m sick of news, and buying stuff, and trying so desperately to have fun all the time.

 I think what I most admire though is the honesty of the book, even among the jokes. Here she is on being fat:

I wish that I was an emotionally healthy human without years of accumulated trauma, one who just decided to be a fat caricature of a person perched gleefully atop a mountain of doughnuts, shoving candy bar after candy bar between my teeth while cackling demonically over how much money my eventual care will cost taxpayers or whatever it is comments-section trolls always accuse fat people of doing. And I don’t need sympathy or special attention because, ultimately, who even cares? You hate me, and I hate me too. We are on the same team. I guess what I’m saying is that maybe we could all just mind our own fucking business for once, and that when you can actually see a person’s scars, maybe be a pal and don’t pick at them.

Who knew so much went on inside receptionists. Of course, so much goes on inside everyone. But we rarely get to see it

MEATY by Samantha Irby

I avoided Irby for a long time, having some impression that I was going to get a lot of self-important lecturing about everyone’s wokeness levels.  I have no idea why I thought this, and I was totally wrong.  I enjoyed her most recent book WOW, NO THANK YOU so much I immediately ordered her first one, MEATY.  It’s not quite as fun as the other, because I think she was herself much less happy.  This is the book of her rough twenties, the other of her much happier forties. 

I have been struggling to articulate for myself quite what is so appealing about these books. I think it’s partly that’s its very freeing to have someone be so honest about themselves.  I am not sure I need to know about her diarrhoea or about how she eats her dinner over the sink while masturbating or about how she sucks her thumb during sex, but it makes you feel like it’s possible to tell the actual truth about your own life without exploding. 

I think it’s also the almost perfect contemporariness of the tone.  I’ve never read anything quite like it.  For example, here is part of a cocktail recipe:

Mix everything together in a punch bowl, then drink.  And I feel you, I DON’T HAVE A PUNCH BOWL EITHER.  But I do have a set of those nesting mixing bowls, so what I like to do is wash it really well, to make sure all the cookie dough crumbs and dried cereal milk is out of it, and let it double as a vessel for the booze.

Like, what is that CAPS LOCK?  I love it. 

Side point, she refers to her largish under-chin area (she’s on the bigger side) as her meatbeard.  I am scarred and know this word will stay with me forever

STAY SEXY AND DON’T GET MURDERED by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

Here is a book by Karen and Georgia. I’ve never met either of them, but I feel like I know them. This is because I listen to their podcast MY FAVORITE MURDER every week.  It’s a true crime comedy podcast (don’t ask).  This is their spin-off book about their private lives.  Karen and Georgia moaned a lot in the podcast about how hard it was to write a book, and that does kind of show a bit.  They’ve added lists of stuff, a sure sign you are struggling to fill those pages. I was only surprised there were not recipes.  (In fact Georgia did try to add her dad’s bbq chicken , but then he revealed it was just whatever generic bbq sauce happened to be on sale)

Reading this book did make me realize how much MY FAVORITE MURDER’s magic sits not in either host, but in the relationship between the two.  There is some kind of special sparkle that makes those two add up to three or even four. I find it interesting when that happens, like it did for Simon & Garfunkel.  Of course leaving aside their special chemistry, it’s also true that we live in a lonely age, and are hungry for friendship, even if it is the friendship of other people. I suspect that’s a big part of why the podcast got to be so big.

The authors mention how when they met they had both coincidentally been reading DARING GREATLY by Brene Brown.  This is a book about the power of vulnerability.  They both say reading that book made them more open to new people (and thus each other), and to new projects (and thus MY FAVORITE MURDER, the project that took them from struggling to millionaires).    I also see how it translates into their show, which is often surprisingly open about all sorts of topics (mental health, pets, fat).  I had thought this was just ‘how they were,’ and its interesting to find how much it is actually a choice. 

SH*T MY DAY SAYS by Justin Halpern

In this book I supported someone in monetizing his Twitter feed. I didn’t object. I’m always in favour of people other than Twitter making money off Twitter.

The author of this book got unexpectedly dumped, and so did what you get to do if you are not an immigrant: move back in with his parents. He was inspired to start a small Twitter account for his friends where he posted various things his dad said, and it went viral. Publishing deals followed. Meanwhile, in London, the Amazon algorithm noticed I had been buying lightly comic books, and here we are.

The book was funny, and I often laughed reading it. Most appealing, however, was the obvious love between father and son. The dad’s advice is blunt but caring.

“Sometimes life leaves a hundred-dollar bill on your dresser, and you don’t realize until later it’s because it fucked you.”

And:

“The baby will talk when he talks, relax. It ain’t like he knows the cure for cancer and just ain’t spitting it out.”

It’s a perfect mix of chuckles and heart. Well done Amazon algorithm, well done.

WOW, NO THANK YOU by Samantha Irby

For some reason I had the idea I wouldn’t like this lady’s work, and had put off reading anything by her for months. Big mistake. Turns out I LOVE HER.

WOW, NO THANK YOU is a series of comic essays about her daily life, covering such topics as ageing, irritable bowel, social awkwardness, and her love for her phone. One essay begins:

I once starred in a horror movie called I Was Caught Waiting, Alone, in a Public Place, without my Fucking Cellular Phone

She is enthused by it’s “cracked screen and lightly buttered handfeel.” Lightly buttered exactly describes my phone too.

She is hyper conscious of others’ feelings about her. Here’s an example, where she is being wheeled down the hospital corrider by a nurse on the way to a serious surgery:

And because my brain is a nightmare, I kept thinking, “Is this bed too heavy for her to push? Is this the heaviest bed she’s ever pushed? Is she going to need help to take that sharp right corner? Maybe I should just get up and push her in the bed instead,” and thank goodness I signed that DNR because what is the point of living like this? Anyway, we made it to surgery

What I found most interesting about this book though is the author’s casual attitude to achievement. She had a rough start in life, and struggles with depression, and generally she aspires just to get through the day. I found this kind of an inspirational approach. I wonder if when one has an easier start in life, one sets a higher bar on achievement to be ‘happy,’ and maybe that’s a trap.