THE THIRD WAVE of reaction and assessment, which peaked in the ninth and tenth years, was characterized by a tone of sneering superiority. The critical consensus—a remarkably uniform consensus that ran from supermarket weeklies through the New York Review of Books—was that she was slipping into a sentimental anecdotage. Where once she had been an avant-garde darling, daring to put her life on display, she was now regarded as something more like an old vaudevillian, buttonholing passersby, wheezing through boring stories of a life on the boards, and claiming to have discovered something about life in the round.
Carl Grant, “Why Do You Keep Hitting Yourself on the Head?” in Twofers:
What, after all, has brought her to this state? Why does she do what she does, live as she does? Because, nearly ten years ago, she made the assumption, the entirely unwarranted assumption, that the real life of a suburban woman is interesting, or is elevated to the point where it becomes interesting, simply because it is played out on a stage, displayed unceasingly, in all its tedious quotidian detail. Apparently the word boring was not, at that time, in her vocabulary.
Lorne Grayson, “Enough, Already!” in The Downtown Review:
Her increasing self-awareness and self-absorption, this naive yearning for enlightenment and understanding make me think that perhaps she has simply been on display too long. She seems to be getting a little loony. She’s like the pale, moody child who tends to curl up in dusty corners with dusty books, stewing in her own sour juices, paying too much attention to herself, filling her days with far too much artless introspection. You want to react to her as a mother would; you want to say, “Go on outside and play with the other kids! Get some fresh air!”
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, and Where Do You Stop?
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.
Share this post