A million little pieces and I feel bad about my neck
I know, I know it's been months since I wrote in this blog. Me bad. But never fear I've been reading all that time just not posting. It got to be too difficult to do 2 blogs on a regular basis.
So recently I was reading 2 books concurrently. What a contrast in differences! I started A Million Little Pieces (Paperback)
by James Frey and then began this one mid-first book. I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman (Hardcover)
by Nora Ephron
James Frey is pretty much living down in the gutter and Nora doesn't. One is consumed with shit and one is consumed with looking like shit. I preferred Nora.
Nora makes me laugh, Nora says what I think about some things. Ok, so I didn't go thru the same cooking/recipe/dinner party love affair thing but overall I felt a kinship that crosses all socio-economonic barriers. It's a girl thing, ya'll. I swear I want to do a blog post about what I think about purses, personal maintenance, parenting in 2 stages since I haven't gotten to the 3rd, etc. I don't fool myself I know mine won't be as funny (to you maybe) but it will be to me. And afterall it's me that is responsible for entertaining myself yeah?
It took me a week to read Million Little Pieces and a day to read I hate my Neck. Nora's book is much smaller (and much larger font) but if I loved every minute of Million I could have finished that in a day and an evening. But it was tedious. Oh don't get me wrong, I liked the book a lot. It should be required reading for HS kids. With a caveat, but more on that later.
My teen years were filled with people like James. I saw junkies and drug addicts using/being high from the time I was in 8th grade until I was well into my adult years. Most of my pals from HS days are either dead or in jail, mostly on charges related to drugs. My best friend in HS lived in a drug house, her boyfriend was a dealer. Her sister's new husband was murdered in his bathtub: reportedly a drug deal gone bad. Her sister has never been the same since, lots and lots of psych problems.
I was never a drug addict, I was (for some reason) able to extrapolate cause and effect as a person in their late teens. So while I have never had the gnawing force (nor the anger that Frey calls the Fury) I can totally remember the edges of drug/alcohol insanity.
Freys stay at a drug rehabilitation facility was only 6 wks. It seemed longer in the book. He was able to make huge leaps regarding his addictions without the help of any 12 step program. He thought it was all basically BS. He did have a copy of The Art of Zen which he quoted from but didn't go deep enough as a path to salvation using the book. He conquered his addiction thru sheer will. He did not accept genetic predisposition either. In a very quick overview of one session with his parents and a psychologist they figured his Fury might be from when he was a baby and had a terrible ear infection that lasted a year and a half. That his pain and suffering were ignored by his parents (not on purpose, they'd been to many doctors who'd never dx'd him correctly) were the basis of his frustration and anger against his parents and subsequently at the world. He drank/did drugs to dull the pain of the Fury.
Ok, cool but since I do believe in genetic predispostion, that the 12 step program does help some people (if they choose to go the God route) it would be irresponsible of me to tell my kids to read it as the bible for why you shouldn't be using because if they have any genetic predisposition and become addicted I wouldn't want them to decide they can only do it via sheer will vs doing whatever works. BUT the book is clearly a great illustration of what addiction can do to you.
As far as Frey embellishing. I don't care. It isn't a big deal to me. Why? Because A. I don't believe one person who has EVER written his/her life story has every memory right, has every conversation quoted verbatim or hasn't embellished one thing or another. Often those books are written years after many of the main players are dead so who's to say otherwise? And B. What he lied about made absolutely no difference to the story. It didn't make it more sad, more pathetic, more anything. So someone says: "That's not the point, the point is that he lied." I defy anyone to tell me that they have never lied to make a story better. Little embellishments or big embellishments are lies - how much difference does that little or big lie make is the question. Did it hurt someone? Or does it hurt you to know someone lied and you were duped? Sheesh, we're duped every day by those little things and we don't go all ballistic over it. Just watch any tv ad for any product or political issue.
So, yeah, pick up Nora's book for a good laugh or two. Pick up James' book if you want to spend some time in the gutter and see how one man picks himself up.
So recently I was reading 2 books concurrently. What a contrast in differences! I started A Million Little Pieces (Paperback)
by James Frey and then began this one mid-first book. I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman (Hardcover)
by Nora Ephron
James Frey is pretty much living down in the gutter and Nora doesn't. One is consumed with shit and one is consumed with looking like shit. I preferred Nora.
Nora makes me laugh, Nora says what I think about some things. Ok, so I didn't go thru the same cooking/recipe/dinner party love affair thing but overall I felt a kinship that crosses all socio-economonic barriers. It's a girl thing, ya'll. I swear I want to do a blog post about what I think about purses, personal maintenance, parenting in 2 stages since I haven't gotten to the 3rd, etc. I don't fool myself I know mine won't be as funny (to you maybe) but it will be to me. And afterall it's me that is responsible for entertaining myself yeah?
It took me a week to read Million Little Pieces and a day to read I hate my Neck. Nora's book is much smaller (and much larger font) but if I loved every minute of Million I could have finished that in a day and an evening. But it was tedious. Oh don't get me wrong, I liked the book a lot. It should be required reading for HS kids. With a caveat, but more on that later.
My teen years were filled with people like James. I saw junkies and drug addicts using/being high from the time I was in 8th grade until I was well into my adult years. Most of my pals from HS days are either dead or in jail, mostly on charges related to drugs. My best friend in HS lived in a drug house, her boyfriend was a dealer. Her sister's new husband was murdered in his bathtub: reportedly a drug deal gone bad. Her sister has never been the same since, lots and lots of psych problems.
I was never a drug addict, I was (for some reason) able to extrapolate cause and effect as a person in their late teens. So while I have never had the gnawing force (nor the anger that Frey calls the Fury) I can totally remember the edges of drug/alcohol insanity.
Freys stay at a drug rehabilitation facility was only 6 wks. It seemed longer in the book. He was able to make huge leaps regarding his addictions without the help of any 12 step program. He thought it was all basically BS. He did have a copy of The Art of Zen which he quoted from but didn't go deep enough as a path to salvation using the book. He conquered his addiction thru sheer will. He did not accept genetic predisposition either. In a very quick overview of one session with his parents and a psychologist they figured his Fury might be from when he was a baby and had a terrible ear infection that lasted a year and a half. That his pain and suffering were ignored by his parents (not on purpose, they'd been to many doctors who'd never dx'd him correctly) were the basis of his frustration and anger against his parents and subsequently at the world. He drank/did drugs to dull the pain of the Fury.
Ok, cool but since I do believe in genetic predispostion, that the 12 step program does help some people (if they choose to go the God route) it would be irresponsible of me to tell my kids to read it as the bible for why you shouldn't be using because if they have any genetic predisposition and become addicted I wouldn't want them to decide they can only do it via sheer will vs doing whatever works. BUT the book is clearly a great illustration of what addiction can do to you.
As far as Frey embellishing. I don't care. It isn't a big deal to me. Why? Because A. I don't believe one person who has EVER written his/her life story has every memory right, has every conversation quoted verbatim or hasn't embellished one thing or another. Often those books are written years after many of the main players are dead so who's to say otherwise? And B. What he lied about made absolutely no difference to the story. It didn't make it more sad, more pathetic, more anything. So someone says: "That's not the point, the point is that he lied." I defy anyone to tell me that they have never lied to make a story better. Little embellishments or big embellishments are lies - how much difference does that little or big lie make is the question. Did it hurt someone? Or does it hurt you to know someone lied and you were duped? Sheesh, we're duped every day by those little things and we don't go all ballistic over it. Just watch any tv ad for any product or political issue.
So, yeah, pick up Nora's book for a good laugh or two. Pick up James' book if you want to spend some time in the gutter and see how one man picks himself up.
posted by vivage @ 11/08/2006 11:37:00 PM
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