Belated Dishing

Vying for the blue ribbon in so-late-it’s-no-longer-relevant criticism, I would like to point out that Maureen Dowd’s new-ish book pretty much sucks. Posted by my desk is a column of hers from last year titled “Dish it out, Ladies” (13 March 2005) which I dutifully cut out for her use of the word “kerfuffle” and the sentence, “Going from Tess Harding to Carrie Bradsaw, Dorothy Thompson to Candace Bushnell, is not progress.” I thought it a swell column and was excited to learn that she was writing a book on the topic of surviving as an intelligent, opinionated woman in the modern world (ahem…). Ignoring the not so stellar review in her own paper, I shelled out for the hardbound and lugged it on a cross-country flight last November (side note: on the trip home the dude next to me looked up from his New Yorker and noted, “Ah, I see you’re reading Dowd’s new book. Frah-frah-frah.” My knee-jerk reaction was to think, pretentious fuckers. Several minutes later it occurred to me that I was the one holding the book and that I was the one on a flight back from an event I, myself, have referred to as “the only game that matters.” It’s cold over here in the land of hypocrisy, let me tell you. Fun, but a little chilly).

I slogged through Are Men Necessary?, whole-heartedly agreeing with the Times reviewer’s comment that a good column doesn’t always translate into a good book. I would go so far as to say that about ten good columns, clumsily spliced together with even more short, repetitive paragraphs listing random stuff (why? why the lists?) along with heavy quoting from an absolutely brilliant book (Woman: an Intimate Geography, by Natalie Angier), which some assistant production editor then MIS-CITED on the editor’s page, definitely does not make a good book.

Then last night I found myself partway through three books that all happen to be focused on the rural middle part of the country.* Not ready to face another chapter of desolate, beautiful vistas, cattle ranching, and/or fly-fishing, I picked up AMN? for a quick recap. Now, I have on occasion been called a “screaming feminist” by my friends. I prefer articulate, well-poised humanist (and, perhaps, arborist), but whatever. I take women’s issues seriously and I don’t joke around (much) when the realities of gender inequality come up. But, hell, after 338 pages of gibberish, other people’s facts, and general whinge-ing, even I was thinking, Yeesh, this woman needs to get LAID.

The book blows. My advice? Read Ms. Angier’s book if you want to learn something about how women function from a biological perspective. Read Sarah Vowell’s books if you want to read funny essays written by an intelligent, opinionated woman. And if you want to know what people are doing (and not doing) in the world of trying to fit in to our WASPy, male, hetro-normative society, read last week’s Times Magazine article about “covering” (Yoshino, 15 January 2006). And if you’re frah-frah enough to subscribe to TimesSelect, or to (gasp!) have the actual paper delivered to your actual doorstep, keep reading Maureen Dowd’s columns. She’s a smart lady.


*Collapse, by Jared Diamond; Close Range, by Annie Proulx, and The Memory of Old Jack, by Wendell Berry.