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A review by melissabalick
It Chooses You by Miranda July
4.0
This is really a delight of a book. It's better than her book of short stories, and as good as her movie Me, You, and Everyone We Know.
It's almost hard to believe that everyone Miranda July met and interviewed after they'd placed "for sale" ads in the Pennysaver were such interesting people, but, really, I think that this book demonstrates a couple important lessons:
1. Everyone is interesting if you give him or her the chance to talk.
2. People who agree to an interview probably want to talk.
3. If you transcribe a conversation exactly, it's going to feel, well, really compellingly real.
I love to talk to strangers, and this idea of getting a sliver of time and biographical conversation from the lives of others is incredibly appealing to me. There is so much paranoia in this day and age. People think everything is dangerous, except the things that actually are dangerous, like eating meat and dairy and driving cars. Lots of folks would say that Ms. July shouldn't have entered strangers' homes at all, even accompanied by a photographer. But, with everyone she met, she only really felt creeped out by one, and their meeting is one of the most philosophically interesting sections of the book (she says that she has the desire to make him feel she understands him, but not to actually understand him). There was one other guy who had a mannequin made to look like a soap opera actress he liked, but other than that, the Pennysaver sellers were all just regular people who aren't computer-literate enough to use Craigslist. Even those creepier people were no threat to her. There is, perhaps, another important lesson to be gleamed here:
4. Even creepy people probably have no intention of hurting you.
But perhaps the greatest lesson of all in the book is this:
5. Some people are creepy. Most people are middling, with at least a modicum of something interesting to offer, but nothing too extraordinary. But very few people are as bright of a spot on this Earth as Miranda July. Her personality and art just bursts from her, even when she's got writer's block. She's weird and cool and decent, and she's got a sharp interest in things most others ignore, and it helps the rest of us to notice them too, and we can sort of view them through her eyes. It makes the world a better place.
God bless you, Miranda July.
It's almost hard to believe that everyone Miranda July met and interviewed after they'd placed "for sale" ads in the Pennysaver were such interesting people, but, really, I think that this book demonstrates a couple important lessons:
1. Everyone is interesting if you give him or her the chance to talk.
2. People who agree to an interview probably want to talk.
3. If you transcribe a conversation exactly, it's going to feel, well, really compellingly real.
I love to talk to strangers, and this idea of getting a sliver of time and biographical conversation from the lives of others is incredibly appealing to me. There is so much paranoia in this day and age. People think everything is dangerous, except the things that actually are dangerous, like eating meat and dairy and driving cars. Lots of folks would say that Ms. July shouldn't have entered strangers' homes at all, even accompanied by a photographer. But, with everyone she met, she only really felt creeped out by one, and their meeting is one of the most philosophically interesting sections of the book (she says that she has the desire to make him feel she understands him, but not to actually understand him). There was one other guy who had a mannequin made to look like a soap opera actress he liked, but other than that, the Pennysaver sellers were all just regular people who aren't computer-literate enough to use Craigslist. Even those creepier people were no threat to her. There is, perhaps, another important lesson to be gleamed here:
4. Even creepy people probably have no intention of hurting you.
But perhaps the greatest lesson of all in the book is this:
5. Some people are creepy. Most people are middling, with at least a modicum of something interesting to offer, but nothing too extraordinary. But very few people are as bright of a spot on this Earth as Miranda July. Her personality and art just bursts from her, even when she's got writer's block. She's weird and cool and decent, and she's got a sharp interest in things most others ignore, and it helps the rest of us to notice them too, and we can sort of view them through her eyes. It makes the world a better place.
God bless you, Miranda July.