The Odd Woman and the City

Posted on 19 February 2017 by Vivian Gornick

A memoir of self discovery and the dilemma of connection in our time, The Odd Woman and the City explores the rhythms, chance encounters, and ever changing friendships of urban life that forge the sensibility of a fiercely independent woman who has lived out her conflicts, not her fantasies, in a city New York that has done the same Running steadily through the book is Vivian Gornick s exchange of than twenty years with Leonard, a gay man who is sophisticated about his own unhappiness, whose friendship has shed light on the mysterious nature of ordinary human relations than has any other intimacy she has known The exchange between Gornick and Leonard acts as a Greek chorus to the main action of the narrator s continual engagement on the street with grocers, derelicts, and doormen people on the bus, cross dressers on the corner, and acquaintances by the handful In Leonard she sees herself reflected plain out on the street she makes sense of what she sees.Written as a narrative collage that includes meditative pieces on the making of a modern feminist, the role of the flaneur in urban literature, and the evolution of friendship over the past two centuries, The Odd Woman and the City beautifully bookends Gornick s acclaimed Fierce Attachments, in which we first encountered her rich relationship with the ultimate metropolis. New Download [ The Odd Woman and the City ] By [ Vivian Gornick ] For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr The Odd Woman and the City A Memoir by Vivian Gornick is a beautiful book I was hoping to love it I loved Gornick s memoir, Fierce Attachments A Memoir so I knew I loved Gornick s writing style and her sensibility The book did not let me down The book combines many of my favorite themes New York City, the idea of the flaneur, a woman negotiating life alone in New York City, how people negotiate relationships of various kinds , and indirectly growing older Gornick is my role model.The b The Odd Woman and the City A Memoir by Vivian Gornick is a beautiful book I was hoping to love it I loved Gornick s memoir, Fierce Attachments A Memoir so I knew I loved Gornick s writing style ...The habit of loneliness persists Leonard tells me that if I don t convert the loneliness into useful solitude, I ll be my mother s daughter forever He is right, of course One is lonely for the absent idealized other, but in useful solitude I am there, keeping myself imaginative company, breathing life into the silence, filling the room with proof of my own sentient being Of all the thoughts which rushed upon my savage and un...My only real complaint is that I wish this was longer, as I get a sense that Gornick is winding down, nearing the end of her writing life and of course she sthan entitled, as she s in her eighties I gulped it down, just the way I gulp New York street life every time I take a walk in this still glorious, filthy, magical city, the city I was, as was Gornick, born in It s the voices I can t do without In most cities of the world the populace is planted in centuries of cobblestoned alley My only real complaint is that I wish this was longer, as I get a sense that Gornick is winding down, nearing the end of her writing life and of course she sthan entitled, as she s in her eighties I gulped it down, just the way I gulp New York street life every time I take a walk in this still glorious, filthy, magical city, the city I was, as was Gornick, born in It s the voices I can t do without I...A brief but brilliant book What intelligence and what perceptiveness this woman has Also, now I know what a flaneur is I had thought it was possibly a fabrics retailer that sold flannel, not someone wandering around the city making observations.This is an absorbing series of discontinuous narratives about the streets of Manhattan, with literary references so profound and in such abundance that that alone is an education by itself.Read this by all means hard coverly, Nookily, Kindly, libraril A b...Found myself skimming a couple of times, but overall a good look at New York City from a native familiar with the old days.Before the book starts, there s an unexpected for me warning All names and identifying characteristics have been changed Certain events have been reordered and some characters and scenes have been composites In short, the title is false It s a faux memoir Or, to put it bluntly, fake What s real and what s not real Who knows.Based on a NYTimes review of the book, I thought it would be interesting because Ms Gornick s life has a few similarities to mine Leaving the Bronx for Manhattan Before the book starts, there s an unexpected for me warning All names and identifying characteristics have been changed Certain events have been reordered and some characters and scenes have been composites In short, the title is false It s a faux memoir Or, to put it bluntly, fake What s real and what s not real Who knows.Based on a NYTimes review of the book, I thought it would be interesting because Ms Gornick s life has a few similarities to mine Leaving the Bronx for Manhattan to become a writer etc She became a journalist So did I I think we re about the same age.But the book by Ms Gornick, who once wrote about feminism for the Village Voice and has written several other memoirs and teaches at some prestigious universities, is so painfully humorless, so self important, so ridiculous that it s absurd.She lives on the 16th floor of a Greenwich Village house with a doorman Not so ba...I liked this meditation on living in New York City This isof a journal than a sustained narrative and my favorites of Gornick s remain hersubstantive memoir, Fierce Attachments, her feminist literary criticism of The End of the Novel of Love, and her essential guide to the art of the personal essay, The Situation and the Story I noticed a undercurrent of black and white racial awareness in this book isn t that new for her In addition to sexual politics, an abiding concern One I liked this meditation on living in New York City This isof a journal than a sustained narrative and my favorites of Gornick s remain hersubstantive memoir, Fierce Attachments, her feminist literary criticism of The End of the Novel of Love, and her essent...We were in thrall to neurotic longing, all of us Dorothea and Isabel, my mother and I, the fairy tale princess Longing was what attracted us, what compelled our deepest attention The essence, indeed, of a Chekovian life Think of all those Natashas sighing th...This short memoir, really one long essay, is about friendship, especially in New York City, walking in the city, and encounters with strangers in the city Vivian Gornick makes this compelling because her stories are so interesting, as is her brutally honest truth speaking voice and her humor She tells funny stories on herself.And she is aware that, well, she s odd The latter is literally a reference to her feminism she takes the term from George Gissing about feminists of an earlier era but i This short memoir, really one long essay, is about friendship, especially in New York City, walking in the city, and encounters with strangers in the city Vivian Gornick makes this compelling because her stories are so interesting, as is her brutally honest truth speaking voice and her humor She tells funny stories on herself.And she is aware that, well, she s odd The latter is literally a reference to her feminism she takes the term from George Gissing about feminists of an earlier era but it alludes as well to her feeling of being broken Like all writers and people she generalizes from her personal truths This is why we read he...I have been meaning to read Vivian Gornick properly for years and this book turned up in an airport bookshop exactly when I needed it I wanted something absorbing and meaningful and delightful, without being too ponderous or shallow When I made the purchase, the woman serving me read the back and said wow, I like the sound of this Now that was a bit of a Gornick move including that small anecdote She spins from the everyday and the enduring namely long friendships and their sometimes myst I have been meaning to read Vivian Gornick properly for years and this book turned up in an airport bookshop exactly when I needed it I wanted something absorbing and meaningful and delightful, without being too ponderous or shallow When I made the purchase, the woman serving me read the back and said wow, I like the sound of this Now that was a bit of a Gornick move including that small anecdote She spins from the everyday and the enduring namely long friendships and their sometimes mysterious ingredients often startling effects and truths The book is essentially a love letter to New York City and also one of her best friends Leonard, plus some insightful and sometimes damning asides about the fleeting nature of heterolove at least in her experience Her best lines are about Leonard and what they mean to each other after decades What we are, in fact, is a pair of solitary travellers slogging through the country of our lives, meeting up from time to time at the outer limit to give each ot...

English
19 February 2017

Vivian Gornick