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A review by petersonline
Pop Song: Adventures in Art & Intimacy by Larissa Pham
4.0
In Pop Song: Adventures in Art & Intimacy, Larissa Pham attempts to revitalize the personal essay by way of piecing together essays from her life to tell a story of her romantic experiences, and the way those intersect with various artists and musicians that she appreciates. Pop Song is billed as a memoir-in-essays, written in the first person but often addressing a mysterious "you" who we then find out is Pham's ex-boyfriend, and as the essays continue we begin to follow the glorious rise and unfortunate demise of their relationship.
Pham writes in a likable, relatable tone. None of the essays, though many fall under the same overarching theme, seem to cover the same ground. Even though they are disparate, they are lovingly placed in a way that moves Pham's stories along. It's easy to tell that some of these essays were written before Pham even decided to write a book, but they aren't plopped in without thought. Each of the essays and their placement makes sense. The book, in this way and many others, feels intentional.
The book kicks off with "On Running", which features Pham writing about going on late-night runs in college in an effort to feel something. The next essay, entitled "Blue", is about Pham going to New Mexico to live under the blue sky and find inspiration for her writing, and her art. I enjoyed this essay, however it featured something that Pham did a lot throughout this collection, something that unfortunately bothered me. Pham's writing is certainly poetic, but at times it felt like she was trying to reach a certain word count, adding additional sentences that didn't need to be there. An example of this comes from the first page of "Blue", when she speaks about the true color of the sky, "There is even a commercially produced shade, I discovered, called cerulean. Its name derives from the Latin word for the heavens." This line, and many others, often messed up the flow of the reading. At times, it felt like Pham would just tag on a needless fact that didn't need to be there, in an effort to make the fragments that she wrote in seem longer.
For someone that wrote an article lamenting viral book reviews, commenting on how mean they can be, Pop Song is, expectedly, a very sweet and harmless book. Pham writes in a kind tone, like that of a famous Tumblr blogger who regularly interacts with her followers. It's apt because, as Pham writes, she was big on Tumblr for a period of time (2009-2014, according to the acknowledgments). This is most present in the essay "Crush" which is about, you guessed it, having a crush. One of the longer essays in the bunch, this one features some of the most poignant passages in the entire book. In this essay, Pham, who absolutely must be a Cancer (need to confirm this), writes about crushing on someone from afar. Near the end of the essay, she writes, "The crush exists at a point of distance. The less I know of you, the better, because then I can safely project my affections on you. I can begin to write a story, a catalogue of intimacies, a script that we will inevitably fail." I found much of Pham's fragments on crushes in this section to be quite beautiful, and many of them deeply resonated with me.
Things get tricky when Pham attempts to throw in art criticism or art history into the essays. At times, it works, such as in a brief section near the end on Louise Bourgeois. During this section, Pham is actually at a Louise Bourgeois exhibit, describing her surroundings as well as facts about Bourgeois's early life and career. Aside from that, I sometimes found that the art criticism didn't mix quite well with her personal essays, made them feel more convoluted and less meaningful. Pham attempts to do what Olivia Laing didn't do in The Lonely City (a book that Pop Song will inevitably be compared to) which is balance the art criticism and memoir elements out meaningfully. In Laing's book, pages of art history overpowered the text and Laing's messages on being alone. In Pop Song, however, the elements are too close together, with one sometimes drowning out the other. I think the only solution to this would be shorter essays. Pham went so many places in a single essay that splitting them up might have been easier to follow and read.
One of my biggest bugbears as a reader is when authors will drop a strange attempt at humor, humor that feels misplaced, into an otherwise beautiful paragraph. Patricia Lockwood did this in No One Is Talking About This, Rachel Khong did this in Goodbye, Vitamin, and Larissa Pham is guilty of this a few times in Pop Song. During a trip to Mexico City, Pham writes in fragments about her and her friends wandering around. It's an immersive description of her trip, because Pham often writes gorgeous sentences, until she drops this one in there: "[We ate]...Street tacos from a cart that gave us watery shits that lasted for two days[.]" and then later on, in a section titled "Bougainvilleas", she writes, "I made paintings from photos on my camera roll, of meals and my friends and flowers and, once, a painting of the splatter of your come on me." I wish I could paste, into this review, the drawing I did of an "annoyed" expression next to the latter quote in the book. For writers like Pham, Lockwood, and Khong, writers who are able to create a basic descriptive sentence and know how to employ the use of imagery into their writing, it's important to not throw in jarring words or phrases that throw the reader out of what was otherwise a perfectly nice essay. The eye roll-inducing parts of this book were few and far between, but they were there, and always distracting when they would arise.
One thing that is indisputable about Pop Song is that it's a remarkably genuine book. Pham feels a lot, and I could definitely tell that after finishing the book. While not as messy and joyfully unfiltered as a diary (The Folded Clock by Heidi Julavits set the bar high for that), Pop Song was a compelling depiction of a relationship, and the art that Larissa Pham accessed to make sense of her feelings. I'll conclude with a quote from one of my favorite essays in the book, entitled "On Being Alone", in which she talks about chasing after big feelings, "I had tried it even in different ways, trying to chase a feeling through late night runs and pop songs and looking for it in museums. But what had finally led to any shift in me was the pure fact that I had tried anything." That last line is a beautiful takeaway from this book: sometimes, there's power in simply putting yourself out there and being vulnerable about your interests. By the end of this book, Pham learns that about herself, and it's cathartic to watch her come to that conclusion.
Pham writes in a likable, relatable tone. None of the essays, though many fall under the same overarching theme, seem to cover the same ground. Even though they are disparate, they are lovingly placed in a way that moves Pham's stories along. It's easy to tell that some of these essays were written before Pham even decided to write a book, but they aren't plopped in without thought. Each of the essays and their placement makes sense. The book, in this way and many others, feels intentional.
The book kicks off with "On Running", which features Pham writing about going on late-night runs in college in an effort to feel something. The next essay, entitled "Blue", is about Pham going to New Mexico to live under the blue sky and find inspiration for her writing, and her art. I enjoyed this essay, however it featured something that Pham did a lot throughout this collection, something that unfortunately bothered me. Pham's writing is certainly poetic, but at times it felt like she was trying to reach a certain word count, adding additional sentences that didn't need to be there. An example of this comes from the first page of "Blue", when she speaks about the true color of the sky, "There is even a commercially produced shade, I discovered, called cerulean. Its name derives from the Latin word for the heavens." This line, and many others, often messed up the flow of the reading. At times, it felt like Pham would just tag on a needless fact that didn't need to be there, in an effort to make the fragments that she wrote in seem longer.
For someone that wrote an article lamenting viral book reviews, commenting on how mean they can be, Pop Song is, expectedly, a very sweet and harmless book. Pham writes in a kind tone, like that of a famous Tumblr blogger who regularly interacts with her followers. It's apt because, as Pham writes, she was big on Tumblr for a period of time (2009-2014, according to the acknowledgments). This is most present in the essay "Crush" which is about, you guessed it, having a crush. One of the longer essays in the bunch, this one features some of the most poignant passages in the entire book. In this essay, Pham, who absolutely must be a Cancer (need to confirm this), writes about crushing on someone from afar. Near the end of the essay, she writes, "The crush exists at a point of distance. The less I know of you, the better, because then I can safely project my affections on you. I can begin to write a story, a catalogue of intimacies, a script that we will inevitably fail." I found much of Pham's fragments on crushes in this section to be quite beautiful, and many of them deeply resonated with me.
Things get tricky when Pham attempts to throw in art criticism or art history into the essays. At times, it works, such as in a brief section near the end on Louise Bourgeois. During this section, Pham is actually at a Louise Bourgeois exhibit, describing her surroundings as well as facts about Bourgeois's early life and career. Aside from that, I sometimes found that the art criticism didn't mix quite well with her personal essays, made them feel more convoluted and less meaningful. Pham attempts to do what Olivia Laing didn't do in The Lonely City (a book that Pop Song will inevitably be compared to) which is balance the art criticism and memoir elements out meaningfully. In Laing's book, pages of art history overpowered the text and Laing's messages on being alone. In Pop Song, however, the elements are too close together, with one sometimes drowning out the other. I think the only solution to this would be shorter essays. Pham went so many places in a single essay that splitting them up might have been easier to follow and read.
One of my biggest bugbears as a reader is when authors will drop a strange attempt at humor, humor that feels misplaced, into an otherwise beautiful paragraph. Patricia Lockwood did this in No One Is Talking About This, Rachel Khong did this in Goodbye, Vitamin, and Larissa Pham is guilty of this a few times in Pop Song. During a trip to Mexico City, Pham writes in fragments about her and her friends wandering around. It's an immersive description of her trip, because Pham often writes gorgeous sentences, until she drops this one in there: "[We ate]...Street tacos from a cart that gave us watery shits that lasted for two days[.]" and then later on, in a section titled "Bougainvilleas", she writes, "I made paintings from photos on my camera roll, of meals and my friends and flowers and, once, a painting of the splatter of your come on me." I wish I could paste, into this review, the drawing I did of an "annoyed" expression next to the latter quote in the book. For writers like Pham, Lockwood, and Khong, writers who are able to create a basic descriptive sentence and know how to employ the use of imagery into their writing, it's important to not throw in jarring words or phrases that throw the reader out of what was otherwise a perfectly nice essay. The eye roll-inducing parts of this book were few and far between, but they were there, and always distracting when they would arise.
One thing that is indisputable about Pop Song is that it's a remarkably genuine book. Pham feels a lot, and I could definitely tell that after finishing the book. While not as messy and joyfully unfiltered as a diary (The Folded Clock by Heidi Julavits set the bar high for that), Pop Song was a compelling depiction of a relationship, and the art that Larissa Pham accessed to make sense of her feelings. I'll conclude with a quote from one of my favorite essays in the book, entitled "On Being Alone", in which she talks about chasing after big feelings, "I had tried it even in different ways, trying to chase a feeling through late night runs and pop songs and looking for it in museums. But what had finally led to any shift in me was the pure fact that I had tried anything." That last line is a beautiful takeaway from this book: sometimes, there's power in simply putting yourself out there and being vulnerable about your interests. By the end of this book, Pham learns that about herself, and it's cathartic to watch her come to that conclusion.