Thanks for your honest review Parul. I borrowed the collection recently, because I thought Cat Person was interesting, but after reading Bad Boy I didn't feel like continuing. It was quite sickening but, as you said, for what? Hope to hear you again soon on the Book Review podcast.
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Thank you for not being fooled. Of course, the writer is an MFA student. So often, the writing coming out of those programs is either lacking in actual story line or mannered beyond the possibility of writer-reader connection. The aesthetic politics and the marketplace economics of too many MFA programs have nothing to do with good writing.
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I hated "Cat Person" when I read it in the New Yorker, not anticipating all the ballyhoo that would surround it. I just thought it was more turgid prose (seems to be a New Yorker specialty these days) about two people I didn't care about. A young woman I knew from a writing group raved about it, and I figured it must be a generational gap. She and I argued about it for a while, but I still think it is a poorly written story.
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@nadinebonner you’re right, the writing is terrible. I fear for art and culture in this new millennium.
7
Thank you for this thoughtful review - and an earlier excellent review by another NY Times writer of “Milkman.” I am pleased the reviewers at The New York Times have some of the writing values lost by many editors/publishers who race after what is viral, instead of what is good. Today they select authors based on how many social media followers they have (I mean really? A fool can get many social media followers - I have one in mind - but that does not translate to book sales). We’re are nose deep into the 1984-ism of culture, where we bleat as we press “like” on our screens. I am reading again Jeremy D. Larson’s excellent piece on “relatability” in the NYT a few days ago and how it encourages a failure in artistic assessments as we all follow the flock, eyes down fingers pressing emojis.
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@Charlene Exactly. When it comes down to literary merit being measured by how many tweets a piece got, then we are really lost.
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I believe, that after the 'uproar' that Cat Woman' elicted, the author got an advance well into the six figures (or even into seven, if I'm not mistaken)? That tells you all you need to know about the state of fiction in America today: cheap thrills administered to the reading public like a series of electric prods... but in order to be able to transmit any kind of sensation to minds dulled by a steady diet of violence and sex, the fiction needs to become ever more prurient, 'shocking,' hence the mindless cruelty/voyeurism that has become de rigour, mechanical and bereft of any lasting literary value.
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@some one - maybe you should know the actual title of the short story your comment is about and, as an added treat, learn to spell.
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@some one "Cat Person" was not cheap thrills, violence, and sex. It was... amazing. Personal. Interpersonal. Strange. Revelatory. And funny.
If the whole collection doesn't stand up to the potential suggested by "Cat Person," well, that's a bummer. Given its viral popularity and strange gripping power, it's no surprise that the original short story inspired a large advance from a publisher.
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@annabb you are not by any chance the author of the book are you? Or the inexperienced editor who snapped it up and paid a ridiculous amount of money to an unknown author based on one short story?
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And we can't forget Miranda July! With a litany of works in both film + writing that have been pushing these thresholds.
@O. Kalasky
"This is a dull, needy book." Oh, how I love this cut to the quick evaluation! More reviewers/commentators need to be as direct.
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@O. Kalasky For a look at contemporary sex and relationships from a young(ish) female perspective in a much more interesting, nuanced way, one need only look at Miranda July's "The Metal Bowl." Both it and "Cat Person" were even published in the New Yorker within months of each other.
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@O. Kalasky "No one belongs here more than you." is a short-story collection people should definitely check out.
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