Emily Gould’s And The Heart Says Whatever
A review in Time Out New York says,
“Gould’s trials and tribulations seem neither impressive nor intriguing, mostly because the book feels bored with itself, as if it were forced into being.
Which is a shame, because there is no doubt, judging from her excellent blog, Things I Ate that I Love, that Gould is capable of writing with humour, smarts, even passion. Perhaps the ‘whatever’ outlook that colours these essays is left over from her Gawker days. That sort of malaise works better on the Internet, where stories can emerge as brief dispatches. As a sustained piece of writing, And the Heart Says Whatever is too unfelt and true to its title.”
Time Out also finds it necessary to provide a list, following the review, of books one should read instead of And The Heart Says Whatever. One of them is her boyfriend’s. What does this have to do with anything? Nothing. (Would this happen if Gould were a dude? No.) She’s also accused of being boring, unremarkable and insipid, mostly because people want the same sort of wishy self-analysis also seen in books such as Eat, Pray, Love.
Maybe it comes from being close to the target demographic of 23-year-old girls with Tumblrs, but I liked this book. It’s honest and disillusioned and insightful when it needs to be. Suck it, Time Out.
Though I still agree with parts of some of the negative reviews. Rather than blaming Gould, I blame her editor. I, for one, could have used a little bit more detail — no doubt most of the people who might read And The Heart Says Whatever are familiar (or shortly will be) with Gould’s 2008 article “Exposed” in NYT Magazine, which details what happened right after she quit Gawker, and Emily Magazine, her personal blog (now one of many). I was not, and had to use the oracle to discern these mysteries.
But that’s the point. I noticed about half way through that I was reading it wrong — like a memoir with chapters, instead of as a collection of essays, which it falls closer to. In a bunch of essays, you don’t break down every single detail of your life and flow seamlessly from one to the next and talk about your childhood and where you’re from and where you’re going and what you have to say about it in every single one. That’s not the point. Also, no one would ever read them, because each one would be a million words long and publishing one collection would wipe out the tropical rain forest.
But as a collection of essays? That don’t fit perfectly together and maybe don’t tell you everything but nonetheless speak in a way that is important? Awesome.
There is, of course, another issue here, which is that the harsh criticism that the book has received might indicate a backlash against the importance of women’s writing in general.
She is not self-deprecating. She is not apologetic. She would do it all again.
This, understandably, has the panties of all those negative reviewers above in a twist. Because this kind of writing (and I am not suggesting that all women write like this, though more probably should) isn’t serious and it’s so easily dismissed as “insipid.”
But guess what (and Shakesville says this better than I could):
“Making the personal public and political is serious business. Because women’s stories aren’t told, it’s incumbent upon female feminists to tell their own stories, to fill that void, to be unrepentant and loquacious raconteurs every chance we get, to talk about our bodies, our struggles, our triumphs, our needs, our lives in every aspect. It’s our obligation to create a cacophony with our personal narratives, until there is a constant din that translates into equality, into balance.
Telling our tales is not a weakness. It’s a strength.”
In an interview with Jezebel, Gould says,
“While I was writing this book I had to really strenuously prevent myself from ever thinking even for a minute of what people would think or say about it, because if I had thought about that for a second I would have been totally paralyzed and wouldn’t have been able to write it at all. […] I hate books that are like ‘Oh the bad and foolish things I did, dumb old me.’ I’m really put off by it and there’s sort of a genre of women’s writing that’s sort of like, ‘Oh goofy me, taking pratfalls’ and I really, really didn’t want to do that.”
I also agree with the review, which says,
“Contemporary adult readers, myself included, tend to expect a message of growth and healing from memoirs, perhaps especially if they’re written by women. […] What’s satisfying to someone already on the other side of extreme youth, someone whose ‘free-floating ambition’ has given way to reality or been satisfied (or both), may not be the same as what speaks to those still in the hungry years Gould chronicles. For them, for teenagers and early twentysomethings seeking what Gould calls “permission” to pursue their dreams, a narrative arc may matter less than the simple testimony of someone who’s been there, offered without guilt and without apology.”
So: the way you read a book is influenced by the context in which you read it?
Duh.
Also! You can download an excerpt here.