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A review by sam_bizar_wilcox
Pop Song: Adventures in Art & Intimacy by Larissa Pham
5.0
I feel like Larissa Pham and I would be friends if we knew each other, but I also feel like she would be too cool to want to be seen with me.
This collection of essays is deeply disturbing in how easily it feels as if one's personal thoughts are reflected and printed on the page, written by another writer. Which isn't to say that Pham's experiences are generalized. Rather, these are very intimate movements written as confession from the writer to the reader - from the very specific perspective of Pham herself. Yet, often I found myself shaken by how similarly we have thought of or responded to the world and experience. Disturbance comes from an encounter with the self, reflected back in ways so precise and honest as if to feel not like an essay at all, but instead like one's nighttime thoughts - fleeting, meditative, touching on the profound, seemingly inarticulable.
I think about Larissa Pham almost daily now. This is the best kind of book as a force of introduction and self-reflection. A getting to know someone else, and a getting to know oneself, too.
Other things I should say about these essays but can't quite fit in critical prose:
Smart. Larissa Pham connects to lots of art and literature and it makes me feel smart for reading the book (emphasis on "feel"). Definitely proves that she has a big brain.
Sexy. There's so much attention to the body and desire. Also cruelty and trauma. But also sadism and kink.
Liminal.
Like whispers from a close confidant.
Uncomfortable reading, but paradoxically comforting in its ability to create discomfort? Or comforting in the articulation of unique experience. Unique-yet-shared experience.
Basically, Pop Song is amazing, and you should read it.
(I initially gave it 4 stars because I can't process my emotions but really really good nonetheless. I'll probably be thinking about this book indefinitely.)
This collection of essays is deeply disturbing in how easily it feels as if one's personal thoughts are reflected and printed on the page, written by another writer. Which isn't to say that Pham's experiences are generalized. Rather, these are very intimate movements written as confession from the writer to the reader - from the very specific perspective of Pham herself. Yet, often I found myself shaken by how similarly we have thought of or responded to the world and experience. Disturbance comes from an encounter with the self, reflected back in ways so precise and honest as if to feel not like an essay at all, but instead like one's nighttime thoughts - fleeting, meditative, touching on the profound, seemingly inarticulable.
I think about Larissa Pham almost daily now. This is the best kind of book as a force of introduction and self-reflection. A getting to know someone else, and a getting to know oneself, too.
Other things I should say about these essays but can't quite fit in critical prose:
Smart. Larissa Pham connects to lots of art and literature and it makes me feel smart for reading the book (emphasis on "feel"). Definitely proves that she has a big brain.
Sexy. There's so much attention to the body and desire. Also cruelty and trauma. But also sadism and kink.
Liminal.
Like whispers from a close confidant.
Uncomfortable reading, but paradoxically comforting in its ability to create discomfort? Or comforting in the articulation of unique experience. Unique-yet-shared experience.
Basically, Pop Song is amazing, and you should read it.
(I initially gave it 4 stars because I can't process my emotions but really really good nonetheless. I'll probably be thinking about this book indefinitely.)