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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
i've tried and tried and labored for over three months to finish this book and i just can't...idgi
The most challenging book I've read in years, the most I've taken from a book in months. Als is unreserved, a genius writer, and so the essays he makes are masterpieces. Reading about authors I've loved in a biographical context that placed them within their nation, their race, and their parents reminded me of In Search of Our Mother's Gardens, but White Girls cuts deeper. Reading about Richard Pryor for the first time, I felt ashamed it was my first time.
Damn. . . I just. . . Well. . .
I heard it was great from some magazines and some friends who I typically listen to and find to have sound advice, but this. . .
It's too much. There is some lovely writing in there. There are gymnastics to be amazed at and the constant "look at me" wink of an author who can only write himself. A shame. A waste. The meritricious empathy and attempts to look at any other character fail, his cast end up as mirrors. In the end it's a dazzling, though bankrupt book.
I heard it was great from some magazines and some friends who I typically listen to and find to have sound advice, but this. . .
It's too much. There is some lovely writing in there. There are gymnastics to be amazed at and the constant "look at me" wink of an author who can only write himself. A shame. A waste. The meritricious empathy and attempts to look at any other character fail, his cast end up as mirrors. In the end it's a dazzling, though bankrupt book.
This book is completely insane and astonishing. Als is such a brave, unorthodox writer. He does things with syntax I just can't imagine ever doing myself.
some essays were good, others were tedious and pretentious in tone. overall worth a read though, particularly for the first essay.
“There are no neutral narratives.”
“I sucked his figurative toe because its sweat acted as a kind of poultice on my tongue.”
“His foot on mine awoke a thousand desires in my blood.”
“I sucked his figurative toe because its sweat acted as a kind of poultice on my tongue.”
“His foot on mine awoke a thousand desires in my blood.”
als' whole thing about twinning in tristes tropiques-- def need to revisit
parts of the essays felt oblique, but only in the sense that he was making you really work to understand his prose and his mind.
the procession of ideas felt as if it were going in circumambulations building layers and slowly winding to the core
parts of the essays felt oblique, but only in the sense that he was making you really work to understand his prose and his mind.
the procession of ideas felt as if it were going in circumambulations building layers and slowly winding to the core
It feels cheap to use adjectives such as "stunning," and "remarkable" to describe White Girls when Hilton Als does so much more with language in his work. The opening essay, "Tristes Tropiques," pushes language past its tipping point and creates some new, dazzling purpose with it. Simply put, this isn't how language is supposed to work, and yet it does. Readers are first thrown into an autobiographical investigation concerning Als' relationships - from friends, lovers, family, and the like - but this is no mere existential query about people's affect on one another. Als' words generate a hazy, often dream-like interpretation of the self in contemporary times, one that draws upon looming questions of race, gender, and sexuality in the late 20th century. Others have compared his style to stream-of-consciousness, but Als does much more than that; he has tight control over his meaning and purpose, deftly weaving between his memories of the past and his larger critical interpretation of those moments. It's hard to accurately articulate exactly what he does, because it defies any easy categorization. Is it autobiography? Is it cultural criticism? It's both in some remarkable format that must be experienced to be believed. From this first essay, Als moves into a series of essays revolving around cultural criticism, each one a close reading in literature, film, or another cultural medium. It's been quite some time since a book of criticism grabbed me the way Als' does; in a somewhat over-used cliche, I simply could not put the book down.
