slow days, fast company
A brilliant book by a brilliant author. Slow days, fast company is a memoir written by Eve Babitz. Eve is all about art and sex and female experience. Men, yes. It’s a collection of her encounters with men, and as she apologises for at the start – it is a love story (only because she meets her husband in the pages). It’s really more of a love song for LA, weather and monuments. Although that just sounds like those reviews of Sex and The City which used the say that the 5th girl was New York. I guess this book does have a little Carrie Bradshaw to it – if she wasn’t insufferable, and had sharper observation skills. I’ve gone off topic. What I was trying to say, was that I personally enjoy knowing that there’s a happy romantic ending. Blair Waldorf said she likes to rewatch the same Audrey movies because she already knows how it goes. That there’s a happy ending. I totally understand. But really, it’s more that when I don’t desperately need to know how it finishes, I read more freely. I (Eve) follow her (also Eve) along to her dates, her appointments, with wonder, taking care to read each sentiment.
I do have to say, the first story really threw me off. And if Eve Babitz wasn’t a fabulous writer, I would have dropped the book straight into the bath I was reading it in and happily watched it disintegrate. It’s set on a vineyard in Bakersfield. American farmers with accents and dirt. And nothing really happens. Not very contemporary. Not very similar to the rest of the book. So don’t be discouraged.
The book is intimate. Addressed with italic inserts every so often to her love (Sam). He is an ornament. She writes to him, not only about him. It’s a tender charming love, not all-consuming.
She just has such incredible observations, and such well chosen words. I guess the observation itself wouldn’t even sound that revolutionary coming out of my mouth. But she uses such delightful anecdotes to bring them out of their hiding places. And you end up seeing these pretty simple things as shocking revelations.
It makes me angry how intimately she seems to see me. But then all good authors do. She’s not seeing me, she’s seeing everyone. Well done, Eve.
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