In Praise of Messy Lives

by Katie Roiphe

Is there some adventure out there that we are not having, some vividness, some wild pleasure, that we are not experiencing in our responsible, productive days? ... We are bequeathed on earth one very short life, and it might be good, one of these days, to make sure that we are living it.'

As steely eyed in examining her own life as she is in skewering our cultural pitfalls, Roiphe gives us autobiographical pieces that are by turns, deeply moving, self-critical, razor-sharp, entertaining and unapologetic in their defence of 'messy lives'.

In Praise of Messy Lives is powerfully unified, vital work from one of our most astute and essayists writing today.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Feminism, Memoir, Book Club, Parenting, Literary Criticism

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Katie Roiphe is the author of the non-fiction works The Morning After: Fear, Sex and Feminism (1994) and Last Night in Paradise: Sex and Morals at the Century's End (1997). Her novel Still She Haunts Me is an empathetic imagining of the relationship between Charles Dodgson (known as Lewis Carroll) and Alice Liddell, the real-life model for Dodgson's Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. She holds a Ph.D in English Literature from Princeton University, and is presently teaching at New York University.

Reviews

[Φώτης Καραμπεσίνης · Rating 4 out of 5]

Έχουν παρέλθει οι εποχές που ως νεόκοπος αναγνώστης (πανεπιστημιακά έτη) εντρυφούσα στις μεγάλες μορφές του φεμινισμού: Από την Emma Goldman στην de Beauvoir και μετά στην Kate Millett, την Betty Friedan και τη Shulamith Firestone, αναζητώντας -τι άλλο;- απαντήσεις σε ερωτήματα σχετικά με τις σχέσεις των φύλων, την πολιτική της σεξουαλικότητας, τις εξουσιαστικές δομές τής πατριαρχικής κοινωνίας και το πώς διαμορφώναν/ουν συνειδήσεις. Και, εν συνεχεία, τους τρόπους, τις δυνατότητες εξόδου από αυτόν τον μονόδρομο που αδρανοποιεί και τα δύο φύλα, υποτάσσοντάς τα σε ένα αέναο limbo καταπίεσης.

Επειδή όμως, όπως έχει πολύ σωστά ειπωθεί, οποιαδήποτε ιδέα παραμένει ίδια για επάνω από 10 χρόνια παύει να είναι πρωτοπόρα και γίνεται αναπόδραστα οπισθοδρομική, καλό είναι κάποιος να επανεξετάζει τις απόψεις, τις ιδέες και τη στάση ζωής του. Μιας λοιπόν και δεν έχω πλέον ιδιαίτερη (θεωρητική) επαφή με το αντικείμενο, χαίρομαι όταν κατά καιρούς συναντώ φρέσκες γυναικείες απόψεις. Όπως έχω γράψει κι αλλού, δεν έχει κάποια ιδιαίτερη αξία να ομιλούμε εμείς για τις γυναίκες – καλό είναι να μιλάνε εκείνες για όσα τις αφορούν, εμείς να ακούμε και στη συνέχεια να διαλεγόμαστε (είναι πολύ πιο δύσκολο από όσο φαίνεται αρχικά).

Πολλώ δε μάλλον όταν η σύγχρονη φεμινιστική οπτική συνδυάζεται με τη λογοτεχνική κριτική, καθώς αυτός υπήρξε αρχικά και ο λόγος για τον οποίο επέλεξα το βιβλίο αυτό (οι πολεμικές γενικώς με ξενίζουν και η πολιτική μού είναι αδιάφορη πλέον ως ανάγνωσμα).

Η Katie Roiphe είναι συγγραφέας, κριτικός, καθηγήτρια λογοτεχνίας και φεμινίστρια, καθιστώντας ενδιαφέρουσα την οπτική της. Μια οπτική Νεοϋορκέζας διανοούμενης, η οποία διαθέτει οξύ πνεύμα, σύγχρονη θεώρηση και δεν επαναπαύεται στις δάφνες του παρελθόντος αναμασώντας δογματικά ιδέες που έκαναν τον κύκλο τους, καρποφόρησαν σε άλλες συνθήκες και πλέον δεν αντιστοιχούν στις ανάγκες του παρόντος.

Βεβαίως, δεν περιμένει κάποιος (εγώ δηλαδή) η λογοτεχνική της κριτική να είναι του ύψους ενός Bloom ή Steiner, και θα την αδικούσε κάτι τέτοιο. Εντούτοις, διαθέτει οξύ πνεύμα, κριτική σκέψη, γνώση του αντικειμένου και δυνατή γραφή, ξεκινώντας από τον τίτλο που παραπέμπει σε όλες εκείνες τις… λεκιασμένες ζωές που αρνήθηκαν τον ρόλο που τους δόθηκε, προκειμένου να βιώσουν -ενίοτε ασυνείδητα- τη ζωή, αρνούμενες την ευκολία της επιβίωσης.


Όλα αυτά συνεισφέρουν στο ενδιαφέρον τελικό αποτέλεσμα, το οποίο διανθίζεται απολαυστικά με άρθρα περί του τι σημαίνει να είσαι γυναίκα (και μάλιστα διαζευγμένη με παιδί) σε μια κοινωνία που όσο προοδευτική κι αν είναι, εμφορείται ακόμα από τα στερεότυπα που -υποσυνείδητα έστω- έχουν εμφιλοχωρήσει στη συμπεριφορά, στην έκφραση και στην αντιμετώπιση των γυναικών.

Αυτό είναι εξάλλου και το διακύβευμα της σύγχρονης φεμινιστικής οπτικής: πώς να ξεπεράσει τις θεωρητικές αγκυλώσεις του παρελθόντος, αναθεωρώντας και ανατρέποντας σε κάθε βήμα τις σεξιστικές πρακτικές που δείχνουν να ανθίστανται σθεναρά στη δοκιμασία του χρόνου. Ο αγώνας αυτός είναι ακόμα πιο δύσκολος καθότι προσκρούει σε πρότυπα συμπεριφοράς που η πλειονότητα των ανθρώπων (και των γυναικών παραδόξως) δεν αναγνωρίζει ως τέτοια εξαρχής, προκειμένου να επιχειρήσει να αλλάξει στη συνέχεια.

Το έργο μιας διανοούμενης/ φεμινίστριας επομένως καθίσταται ακόμα πιο απαιτητικό, καθώς θα πρέπει αδιάλειπτα να υπενθυμίζει στο κοινό της πως ο πολιτισμός (δηλαδή η καθημερινότητά μας) δεν είναι ουδέτερα αθώος και άδολος – τουναντίον εγγράφει στον εκφερόμενο λόγο, στις μεταξύ των φύλων σχέσεις τα εξουσιαστικά πρότυπα συμπεριφοράς, προτείνοντάς τα (το χειρότερο) ως παραδεδεγμένη αλήθεια και στους κατιόντες, διαιωνίζοντας τον φαύλο κύκλο.

Όχι, κλείνοντας, δεν πιστεύω πως η εν λόγω συλλογή άρθρων αφορά αποκλειστικά το γυναικείο κοινό. Δεν πρόκειται περί πολεμικής, δεν δακτυλοδεικτεί, δεν προκαλεί, δεν νουθετεί, δεν σαρκάζει. Παρουσιάζει με έξυπνο και ψυχαγωγικό τρόπο τη γυναικεία οπτική ως αναπόσπαστο μέρος της ανθρώπινης κατάστασης στον Δυτικό κόσμο, κι αυτό για μένα είναι επαρκές και θεμιτό.

https://fotiskblog.home.blog/2019/02/...

[Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whenever a new essay by Katie Roiphe is published, I make haste to read it. I am invariably in for a good twenty minutes of fun. That is, I have fun in tracking how she will take a position that I essentially agree with, and overanalyze it, over-focus on it, over-decorate it with half-digestested statistics and generally make it unpalatable to me, until I find myself wanting to disagree with her out of pure contrariness.

Let's take, for instance, the first essay in the book "The great escape". Ms. Roiphe's point seems to be that she's doing just fine, thank you very much, as she's getting a divorce. Well, good for her. I certainly agree that if a woman is getting out of a bad marriage, there is no reason why she should be prostrated with grief. But Ms. Roiphe complains about her friends' concern for her emotional wellbeing at such lengths that one starts to feel that the lady protests too much. And her inference, that the people who seem to insist most on her being miserable are the ones who are trapped in unhappy marriages, simply sounds defensive.

In her essay on children born out of wedlock, she seems to think that the fact that she had a "love child" makes her some type of social outcast. I have a hard time believing that this is how single mothers are viewed in New York city - not exactly the Bible Belt -and I read the rest of the essay thinking "Yes, but what is her POINT ?".

Some of the essays are just plain uninteresting. Her travelogue about a trip to Vietnam, with the obligatory analysis of sex tourism, was a yawn. So was the mini-memoir about how she once slept with the pseudo-boyfriend of a friend of hers, thereby breaking up the friendship. I couldn't figure out why she was friends with the girl, why she slept with the boyfriend, and why this was worth writing about. Then there was a piece about how celebrity profiles in supermarket tabloids all use the same vocabulary and concepts. Really? No one had noticed that before?

The pieces that I enjoyed most, were the ones about literary analysis. And that is probably because I know little about that, and therefore had no opinion at all about what she wrote.

In summary, if you can deal with Ms. Roiphe's affectations, and her pretension that her personal experience is somehow representative of that of all women of "her generation" (a frequently used phrase in her essays), you can have some fun with this book. Otherwise, read Katha Pullitt.

[Glenn Sumi · Rating 4 out of 5]

If, as people say, Katie Roiphe’s a love-her-or-hate-her writer, then place me in the love camp. Or at least squarely in the like and admire camp.

Throughout this highly readable and of-the-moment collection of essays, she’s clear-thinking, articulate, amusing and sharp. It’s no surprise that one of her subjects is Susan Sontag; she’s quickly becoming her generation’s premier cultural critic.

Whether analyzing society’s obsession with the TV series Mad Men, recounting the ways in which women writers are indebted to Joan Didion, or exploring why being a single mom (she’s one herself) has become the 21st century’s scarlet letter, Roiphe is frank, fearless and always sensitive to lazy, knee-jerk liberal attitudes.

The book is divided into four parts: personal essays, literary criticism, essays about current culture and musings about the internet.

The handful of essays about the internet seem slight (a day-by-day account about not being online? Really?), and the piece about harried New Yorkers trying to get their kids into good schools isn’t very original. (Aside: a publication date on these essays would be helpful.) And the editor in me also squirms at seeing “interesting” used so frequently as an adjective.

But Roiphe’s perceptions are frequently brilliant. Above all, she’s a first-rate literary critic. Her essay on incest in recent novels is depressing and dead-on, and her piece contrasting sex scenes in novels by the old guard white male establishment (Roth, Updike, Mailer, Bellow) and the new generation (Chabon, Franzen, Kunkel, Eggers) is refreshing and insightful.

She also walks the walk. After pointing out that Didion skimps on personal revelations in her work, she herself comes across clearly and not always flatteringly in a beautifully honest piece about sleeping with a good friend’s boyfriend in college.

And a haunting essay about a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia with her (now ex) husband explores the uneasy connection between East and West, tourist and subject and seller and the person sold to.

In Praise Of Messy Lives deserves lots of praise – and readers.

[Antigone · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first encounter with Katie Roiphe was her 2007 release of Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939. I thought this was an exemplary study of the personal relationships of several literary legends, loosely tied together by the commentary of Virginia Woolf (who seemed to know them all). I've recommended this book and still do, despite the fact that it can be tough to obtain on occasion. I was then, and remain today, ignorant of her labors in the feminist arena and her various writings for newspapers and magazines. These appear to have fostered some antagonistic feeling. Roiphe-haters they're called, and there are enough of them around to remark upon.

Roiphe calls attention to this faction of her readership at the start of this collection of essays. She is mystified but accepts the probability that her writing makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I would refine that idea and confine it to the writing she does on the current culture. It would be difficult, for example, to read the essays she's written here on parenting were I a parent in her orbit. Some of her observations are unkind, and not reinforced with solidly objectifying provisos. (In other words, it would be easy to take this stuff personally.) I don't know that this is a reason to hate her, though. Or to turn away from such a distinctly unusual voice and perspective on life.

I think there's a place for annoyance in reading. I think it's important to feel that, and to react to it; to express an objection and, in the process, exercise those reasoning muscles that keep the mind in play. Righteous indignation is motivating - and you just don't often get that from people who find you bewitching and spectacular. It's instinctual to surround ourselves with those who accept us and share our outlook, yet when a challenge is sought the odds are great that it will come from those who don't. There's benefit to be had from authors with whom we take issue, and I've benefited a bit right here.

For instance, I'm not sure why Anais Nin wasn't referenced in the essay on the upsurge of incest in literature. I considered it ironic that Didion was charged with reticence to reveal her truth while Roiphe was, at the same time, resistant to revealing her true opinion of Didion. And I don't agree with her contention that, for all of Sontag's dedicated strength and forcefulness of character, she had to remind herself to take a bath because she found herself "so flustered by soap and water." (Better, I think, to examine the naked vulnerability necessary for a bath to succeed.)

And yet, selections like Unquiet Americans and Beautiful Boy, Warm Night are not to be missed. The essay on Jane Austen was lovely and tugged me toward my copy of Kafka's Letters to Felice for further examination of the fear of what marriage might cost Art. Many other subjects were piquantly engaged. Roiphe is a highly-skilled writer - who will probably tick you off. Frequently. Is she worth it?

That's a question you'll have to answer for yourself.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am sheltered in the fact that I don't have much of an internet presence aside from a blog and this account. I would avoid email if I could. And thanks to years lost in slacking off and binge drinking, I'm not entirely caught up yet on either my classic feminist theory or many of its current day counterparts. So I consider myself lucky enough, whether from ignorance or apathy, to be unaware of all except the existence of a certain sentiment of hatred surrounding Katie Roiphe. I decided to self impose a google blackout on her name until I finished this collection, which further helped to keep my objectivity intact. So this is a pure review of this collection of essays, and not of Katie Roiphe herself, whose vague scandals and controversies I'll remain ignorant of until I finish wiring this review. (She does address some of the reactions of others, in essays about angry commenters and twitter feuds and some riotous people on gawker, in the particularly strong internet section of this collection, but doesn't really discuss much of what riled them up so much in the first place.)
On the whole, I enjoyed the essays. Those that aren't such big supporters of Roiphe herself will not be able to deny, after reading this book (which I doubt they will) that she is extremely intelligent and articulate, well-read, and well-versed in theories which she may or may not agree with. These things aren't what makes her a gifted writer, but they are what strengthens her arguments and allows her to provide copious contextual and quotational evidence that makes it difficult not to at least explore the points she makes.
The essay on Joan Didion will upset a lot of people. As a Didion disciple myself, I cringed a few times. But a more thorough read should allow readers to see that Roiphe is not condemning Didion to irrelevancy and accusing her of exhaustively repetitive and deceptively calculated prose style, she is more focused on those up-and-coming imitators of what we come to recognize as "Didionesque." And Roiphe is right - they are everywhere.
Another of my favorites was an essay on the sudden and seemingly unending discussions of sexual assault and, more prominently, incest, in our modern literary cannon. It's as if Roiphe has realized that we've hit upon the last undiscovered, and therefore sacred, taboo, and are now, as writers, exploiting it in a desperate attempt to make a "heartfelt" (read: shock factor) connection to our readers, like actors who overact in a weak and lazy attempt to make an audience cry. Roiphe leaves unsaid but certainly implies, "What will we do when we run out of things to be shocked by?"
If "angry commenters" are able to remain objective and level-headed enough to read this collection instead of the author, I think they'll enjoy what she's written and explored here. If not, they'll probably read everything as a way to confirm what they already "know" and feel about Roiphe.
Now, I'm off to google and periodical search and youtube what I've missed. Hopefully I'll be able to keep my own objectivity intact afterwards.

[Sophy H · Rating 1 out of 5]

Lack of praise for this old mess!

So yeah, this was a set of essays which were just all over the place. I heard way more than I wanted to on single mothers, mothering, being a mother, mother mother mother, just no!! Predictable, bland writing about how terribly hard it is bringing up a child, nyawww, bless!

Then the chapter on books, lets pick predictable writers to study and critique, Didion and Sontag (like no-one has ever looked at their work in great detail hey!) Boring. Move along.

A chapter on binge watching Mad Men??? 🙄🙄

A truly banal set of essays that have dated badly and just didn't need to be written in the first place. No thank you.

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's say you are a suburban house wife with a lot of questions. Questions like "Is this really all there is?" or "Is safety actually first?" or "Why can't my 12 year old daughter make her own sandwich?" or "Why are mommies so mean to each other?" Or "Why do grown women refer to themselves as mommies?" Katie Roiphe might speak to you.
Let's say you are the mom who is so fucking thankful to be friends with the dad who actually brings mixed drinks in his thermos to back to school night and pours for all his friends, because, seriously, fourth grade art really is more interesting when you've had a drink or two. Or the mom, who, your daughter is happy to tell everyone, "has a real potty mouth" or as you'd say it, "swears like a sailor." Katie Roiphe might speak up for you.
Let's say you are just a little, vaguely worried that our obsessions with the glittering things: suburban homes with neat lawns, health and youth, and perfect children might be masking something, obscuring some messier part of our selves -- passion, desire, anger, all the honest, messy things you feel inside you-- then Katie Roiphe will give voice to that niggling itch of yours.
Dear Reader, if any of these are you, before you crack the cover of "In Praise of Messy Lives", be sure you want to scratch that itch...

[Shelby (readbytwilight) · Rating 2 out of 5]

In Praise of Messy Lives is a collection of essays that explore the 'narrow-minded conventions' that govern the way we live in society today. I picked the book up because I liked the title and I liked the concept of what the essays would be about. Unfortunately, this book isn't really for me as it isn't delivering in the way I expected. I feel like the book was just an opportunity for the author to rant her problems and observations, rather than looking at both sides of an idea and coming to a conclusion. Ultimately that's what an essay is about, right? But it was more 'here's what I don't like, and here's what I think about it'. I also don't understand why half of the topics were in this collection of essays, as they weren't relevant; or at least not what I would consider an exploration of a typical convention that 'governs us today'.

[Magdelanye · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is entirely fitting that somehow or another (blame my messy life) my notes on this book do not show up where they should, that is in the one place I am fairly scrupulous at keeping in order, my notebook recording each book I finish, with the notes and outline for review. Okay, there are actually 3 notebooks, one for fiction, one for non'fiction, and one for poetry. Katie R didn't make it into any them. I do remember my feelings as I read more than anything in particular.

The thing is, I came to this book in one of the usual ways, browsing a library shelf for another title, this one leaping out and coming home with me. I had never heard of KR before but a little research did nothing to endear her to me. Apparently she is infamous in media circles and though she calls herself a feminist, she respects no party lines. One of my dearest GR friends was quite vehement in her review of an earlier book. Digging deeper, I had her pegged as a sensationalist, daughter of privilege and professional brat with long legs and a potty mouth. I almost didn't bother reading it; I wasn't expecting to be able to relate.

Considering my critical attitude, this did not prevent me from having to revise it somewhat. KR may, with her warped vision, be seeing something that needs addressing. Sacred cows beware!

Obviously I'm going to have to find this book again and record a few of things she said to change my mind from "this person doesn't know what she's talking about and merely exploiting her connection with her famous mother " to " this woman is willing to face some of the uncomfortable questions that most of us would rather not". A messy process indeed.

[Terzah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Put me in the camp of Katie Roiphe fans. In particular, I love what she has to say about the state of modern child-rearing (and she makes me very glad I don't live in New York City, where parenting sounds like even more of an earnest, exhausting and unnecessary competition than it is elsewhere).

I also agree with the idea of there being merit in what she calls a messy life. While my idea of a healthy "mess" is never going to be all-night parties, adultery and/or alcoholism (Roiphe comes across as somewhat wistful for that sort of thing), I gladly embrace the "mess" of enjoying sweets and cheese and even (gasp) the occasional trip through a fast-food drive-through. Roiphe is spot-on when she says the current preoccupation with health is, well, often BORING. She would probably disagree with me that part of the problem is also that this cultural obsession with physical health has detracted from a needed focus on spiritual virtue--but just stating that the zealous health nuts need to lighten up was good to hear from someone with Roiphe's platform.

That said, I see where her detractors are coming from in other ways. Anyone who is a fan of the sort of prose that John Updike and his generation of writers use to describe sex isn't someone I'd probably do well having coffee with (in fact, she makes me ready to finally tackle David Foster Wallace, whom she sets up in opposition to the Updike tribes). And her essay reflecting on how she stole a college friend's boyfriend reinforced that impression. But when writing about modern pop and literary culture she's smart and provocative in what I think are all the right ways. I definitely plan to read more of her work.

[Bonnie Brody · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading In Praise of Messy Lives: Essays by Katie Roiphe. I found it to be enjoyable and intellectually stimulating. Since she writes one of her essays on people who comment on articles (could this be similar to those of us who review books of essays?), I want to be as civilized and articulate as possible. I chose to read and finish the book, therefore my comments should reflect that.

Ms. Roiphe writes about a wide range of topics. They include single motherhood and the public's perception of single mothers and their children; divorce and its impact on 'family'; betrayal; how great male writers write about sex; the fact that there has not been a comprehensive history of women's writing in America; the role of women behind great men; the impersonal nature of Joan Didion's memoirs; the fragility of Susan Sontag beneath her strong exterior; John Updike's being perceived as a misogynistic writer; Mad Men on TV; the popularity of Fifty Shades of Gray; Maureen Dowd; the repetitiveness and similarity of articles about movie stars; women not liking Hillary Clinton; parents who try to have perfect children are doomed for failure. This is only a small portion of the issues and topics that Ms. Roiphe writes about. As you can see, they are varied and interesting.

My two favorite essays were the ones on Graham Greene and writing about incest. In the essay about Graham Greene, she discusses her own personal interest in the writer and how she reflected on him during her travels to the far east. She explores the concept of transactions, especially how female companionship is so often for sale. In her essay about incest, she is very hard on Jane Smiley and her book A Thousand Acres which is one of my favorite novels. Ms. Roiphe examines the theme of incest in literature and how writers first wrote about how horrible men were. This led to writing about men as monsters.

Overall, I had fun reading this book and looked forward to the next topic once I finished an essay. The book is not politically correct which I appreciate and the writing is fresh and not all that academic. It is a book that is accessible to anyone with a mind.
Comment

[Morgan Schulman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kind of amazed how many reviewers were completely aware of the controversy surrounding this author.

For those unaware- let me summarize. She is the daughter of a famous Second Wave feminist, and has spent her career bashing feminism for being "sexually conservative". She made her name in the 90s by writing a book in response to the Take Back the Night movement by basically laying out that college feminists were exaggerating rape statistics because they are anti-sex. She is known less for her writing then for being a dick, and most of us are just hate-reading.

And God knows, this book does not disappoint. Katie has trouble being friends with women; she slept with one of her few friend's bfs, and the girl had the square audacity to get pissed (it is spelled out that this girl is un-modishly fat); liberals hate her because they are prudish about her being a single mother, and the primary plight of single mothers is not getting invited to couples only dinner parties on the UES; Philip Roth and Norman Mailer are just joshing with that whole woman-fucking-cucumber business can't you take a joke?; incest is so passé; Austen readers are just the upper-middlebrow version of women following "The Rules"; andonandonandon.

I'll give this book two stars because there was nothing awful about date-rape or HIV. But the incest chapter came close. I had more fun hate-reading Caitlyn Flanagan and Maureen Dowd, who each take punches in this book, which is saying something.

[Candace · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not cohesive at all. Some essays were really interesting- like The Feminine Mystique of Facebook, and some just so full of ignorance and self-congratulatory insight like The Perfect Parent:

"Most of us do not raise our children amidst a sea of lovely and instructive wooden toys...and healthy organic snacks." Well that's too bad for your child, who is probably playing with plastic toys that are made with hazardous materials including lead, PVC, and mercury, and too bad for the environment being that plastics are not recyclable nor biodegradable. And too bad about those non-organic snacks which are loaded with GMO ingredients- you know, the ones linked to inflammatory disease, the cause of a number of food allergies, and later down the line fertility problems.

"Can we, for a moment, flash back to the benign neglect of the late 1970s and '80s? To children helping themselves to three slices of cake, or ingesting secondhand smoke, or carrying cocktails to adults who were ever so slightly slurring their words."

*Crickets*​ Yeah, those were the days.

Not terrible, but far from great.

[Angelica · Rating 1 out of 5]

Repetitive, uninteresting, grouchy essays about how Roiphe has, through some kind of charming aloofness, risen above the masses. These masses of course are over-reliant on technology and extremely nervous parents, the theme she beats like a dead horse in this collection.

The shape of this collection, too, is a mess, there is no sense as to why these particular essays go together (a few of them are personal, some of them are literary -- the best ones, most of them are moralizing about The State of Affairs These Days, and the rest are inexplicable), many of the essays are quite outdated, and mostly the theme of "exploring messy lives" isn't enough to hang it all together. So why does this book even exist?

[Nicola Balkind · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into this expecting personal essays and got a few of those, but largely literary and cultural criticism along with a smattering of profiles.

It's a self-selecting world that she presents, one of WASPs and single moms, so surface level and so confident in assuming knowledge on the part of the reader that it doesn't seem worth the effort. I was utterly disinterested.

Her criticism, though, is sharp, meticulously detailed and well-delivered. Worth a read for these alone.

[mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazon ‘asked’ me if Katie’s book “met my expectations”; and also “invited” me to review it. I wasn’t going to because I like Katie Roiphe and mostly like her perspective, and the topics – Old men writers; Female writers; Uptown, downtown, & backstreet columnists; Young, whiney/wimpy/angry, male writers; Sex (the act of); Parenting; Social media; and The Internet – she chooses to write about. I also find her funny —her wit, such as she displays in the essay “The Angry Commenter,” where she suspects that what the “troll” is most angry about is that the writer can write, has an outlet, is read, makes some money, and maybe mostly, that the writer can think. I also like her voice in the last three essays when she uses the first person “I.” Which brings me to what I don’t like. I don’t like when she uses the plural voice “we,” and the pompous one “one,” as in “One wonders … .” Who’s we? Fans of Katie Roiphe? Okay, I’m all in. She is a sexy, cock-eyed, smart, provocative writer.

But doesn’t she really mean I (as in her) wonder? And she is way too caught up in her own world of academia i/r/t her word choices. AND finally, she doesn’t sign off the essays with the date when she wrote them, so there is no context. Things change very, very, rapidly today. It would be helpful to know when, exactly, she thought what she thought. Just in case she changes her mind.

One more thing: Roiphe seems to have a yearning for her mother’s time – the literature as well as the behaviors. She seems to think that life was more carefree then, and that people today are far too uptight. I have step-daughters her age and a millennium son, and I, myself, am a Boomer with a messy life; and so I feel qualified to comment – It wasn’t all that great and there was a price to pay for all that ‘fun.’ As evidence I suggest she read Jane Leavy’s The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood. It’s a sad story – what all that fun can do to a man. In addition, there is the social and psychological ‘trickle down’ of unintended consequences, which may go a long way towards explaining many of her complaints. But all in all, I liked this book a lot. I like Ms. Katie Roiphe and the way she thinks about things, and will definitely read whatever she writes in the future. She has something to say that is original, thought provoking, often funny, and I find myself often in agreement with her point of view, which is uncommon.

[LindaJ^ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very accessible book of essays. Some, particularly the literary criticism, were quite good, while, others, especially those in life and times, were not so good.

This book was published in 2012 and most of the essays seem to have been written earlier. In some instances Roiphe added a footnote addressing things that had changed since the essay was written. In 2016, there are even more disconnects, making the failure to indicate when written a real problem to evaluating the value of the essay (something unlikely to ever be said about Joan Didion's essays). But, that said Roiphe knows how to write and how to shake people up. I'm not sure she's someone I'd want to be friends with but I bet she would be fun to debate issues with.

There are a couple of essays that are worth commenting on given life in the US at the beginning of 2017. The first is "Elect Sister Frigidaire," which concerns Hillary Clinton at the time of her run for the Democrat nomination in 2008. It starts with the following sentence: "At some point in the course of her colorful and doomed presidential campaign, I notice I haven't met or encountered a single woman who likes Hillary Clinton." This sentence is footnoted with an update opining that since "reced[ing] into a semi-visible hardworking political role, she [Clinton] is less of a lightening rod than she once was." It is a perceptive essay and I wonder how Roiphe would update it now.

Next are the "The Angry Commenter" and "Twitter War." With respect to these, the only comment I have is that it is oh so much worse than when she wrote the essays and still, at least to me, makes no sense.

Finally, I would like to ask Roiphe why she included the last essay, called "Whiplash Girlchild in the Dark" that is about a young woman who makes S&M films and apparently also provided S&M services. Was there a point she was trying to make?

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure this is the kind of book you can "like" or "not like." It's the kind of book that engages your brain while you're parsing the sentences and lingers in your mind even after you've finished a chapter. There is no question that Roiphe is a gifted writer, and there is plenty of incisive commentary on books, celebrities, parenting trends, culture, and life in general. But Roiphe's faintly snobby, self-congratulatory tone permeates the book, and the literary device she employs with the overuse of the word "one" - "One wonders how . . "; "One notices that . . ." is annoying, too.

[Aurora · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best essays in this collection are sharp, thought-provoking and delightfully free of political correctness. I'd be very interested in reading more of Roiphe's literary and cultural criticism in the future.

[Carol Storm · Rating 1 out of 5]

You haven't lived until you've seen an aging privileged feminist wax nostalgic about the sleazy sex in the late John Updike's leering best-sellers. Yeah, he was a real gifted writer -- and Harvey Weinstein made the trains run on time, just like Mussolini!

[reading is my hustle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit uneven.
I found myself wishing there was more depth.

Oh, man- I am getting older.

[Erin Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a good rule to never ever read goodreads reviews unless it has been written by your friends. I don't know what the beef with Katie Roiphe is (I didn't get as much from the Gawker essay or the Mrs C lark as I imagine I should've) and I got this one from the library because I borrowed a whole lot from a very specific subsection of 'essay -- 21st century'. This was fantastic, some of it hasn't stood up so well over time (I had to skip the Hillary Clinton section because I was cringing so hard) but other parts really, really have. I liked it a lot and I'm going to read more of her.

[Daniela Sochorova · Rating 3 out of 5]

"This book feels like the essays wandered off without letting the title know where they were headed. It would’ve been a lot better if at least half of them had a clearer connection to the main theme. That said, the ones that did stay on track were decent."

[Aseem Kaul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Katie Roiphe's 'In Praise of Messy Lives' is really two books: one, an 80-page collection of book reviews and literary criticisms is acute and engaging, combining just the right proportion of provocation and insight. I especially loved Roiphe's well-deserved encomium to Joan Didion, and am grateful for her essay on 'The Bratty Bystander', if only because it so perfectly echoes my own skepticism with the genre.

The other book is a bloated, somewhat blurry commentary on our society and culture, that spends far too long making far too simple a point. The point - nicely captured in the title of the collection itself - is that in confining ourselves to the conventional straitjacket of a healthy and responsible existence, we may be losing touch with something ineffable but necessary to the human experience, the creative anarchy of intense experience. That the problem with trying to control every aspect of our own, and by extension our children's, existence is not simply that it is impossible to do so successfully, but that so perfect a life, even if achieved, would prove too insulated, too sterile, to be described as learning. What we need, given where we are as a society, then, is for the pendulum to swing a little the other way: less control, more chaos; less Apollo, more Dionysus.

As arguments go, this is one I happen to largely agree with, and if Roiphe had one concise, (say) thirty page essay making this point, I would have read and re-read it, and recommended it to everyone I know. It is not, however, a point that requires, or seems able to sustain, a hundred and sixty odd pages of multiple essays that combine personal anecdote with sketchy social comment but are frequently low on insight. In her piece on Maureen Dowd, Roiphe criticizes Dowd for her superficiality, her privileging of style over substance, and while this is indubitably true, the same could be said of Roiphe herself. Do we really need a collection of critical essays to tell us that Dowd's perspectives are superficial, that people on Facebook are shrill and vain, that Internet comments are frequently unaccountably vicious and lacking perspective? Given the intelligence that Roiphe brings to her literary criticism, it's a shame that she's not more incisive when it comes to these topics, and I can't help feeling that this would have been a better book if it had been more free-ranging and less problematic. As it is, I emerge grateful for the book essays, motivated to read more Updike, and convinced that I will have forgotten everything else Roiphe had to say about our society and culture by the end of the weekend.

[Katy Derbyshire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not being American, I was only vaguely aware of Katie Roiphe but was drawn in by her Guardian piece about single parenting. This collection ranges widely, with some articles less interesting for non-American readers and some universal.

What struck me was that she writes about a lot of things that fascinate a lot of other journalists, but her measured tone makes her articles and opinions stand out. Take her piece about how the child is king. I must have read about a hundred similar articles (in English and German), but hers is better because it consists of more than rhetoric and ridicule. And her Shades of Grey and Mad Men articles also raise points I hadn't actually read a thousand times.

Holding the collection together (albeit loosely) is Roiphe's embrace of "messy lives" - kids and parents who don't have to be perfect, a horror at the idea that relationships are "work", admitting to failures and flaws. Yet I found her definition of messy stood in contrast to a very New York kind of neat; to be precise, a very middle class New York way of life. So I wasn't sure how far her observations could be carried over to other lives, and that disappointed me.

In my own life, I try to avoid being defensive about single parenting - but then I live in a very different place to New York. Still, I felt inspired to think more closely about attitudes where I am, and am still thinking. An excellent sign.

I enjoyed Roiphe's writing about literature and journalism, which I found clear and interesting. My greatest niggle would be that the British edition doesn't give dates of publication for the articles, which left me rather confused about what exactly she was referring to in some cases.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays is, of course, uneven, but I enjoyed more than half of the essays, thus the rating. The essays are divided into 4 parts: autobiographical, books, messy lives and Internet-related articles. The last section is mostly terrible (Roiphe admits she rarely uses FB and hates Twitter), while the middle two sections are the best. With her PhD in lit, and her obviously long-time love of Mary McCarthy, Roiphe's best when casting a cold eye on her fellow writers and peers.

I am admittedly a little biased: I met Roiphe at the Mary McCarthy Conference that Bard College hosted in 1993. We chatted, shared a few drinks: she was somehow related to or family friends with my advisor who introduced us, and, I later believed, saw some connection between us. She's a few years younger than I am, and at least acting more confident and extroverted than I am (and I can be extroverted), but I admired her even then. Her essay on McCarthy from that conference is excellent.

McCarthy's name comes up a few times in this collection--and each time I smiled.

I do with the essays were dated: clearly some are over a decade old, and though Roiphe included a footnote explaining any necessary context, that wasn't enough for me. I don't believe she barely uses Facebook anymore: I'm "friends" with her and she posts fairly regularly. And I do wish she'd reconsider Twitter. I think McCarthy would have made the most of the medium, as Joyce Carol Oates does--and I have no doubt that Roiphe could, too.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Immediately upon reading a review of this book in the New York Times Book Review, I set about getting my hands on it. (Okay, okay. I tagged it onto a Christmas order from Amazon. Sorry, Bear Pond Books). I have a yen for sharp social commentary, an almost visceral need to read essays entitled "The Feminine Mystique of Facebook", and a yearn for a smart, critical eye to dissect the culture I am both part, and apart, from. Roiphe's writings aren't for everyone, certainly not those with thin skin, for as surely as she skewers the dullness and provincialism of her peers, she is simultaneously skewing us. What is it about the Internet that brings out the angry commenter? What is it about Facebook that appeals to and repels our higher selves and sensibilities? Just what is it about Mad Men that we find irresistible? Why might growing up in an adult world where you were loved but peripheral to an adult world filled with adult activities (re: dinner parties, conversations, hangovers) might be better than our current parenting attitudes, where the child is the center of a highly controlled, organically fed, privately schooled, and dance-lesson fueled upbringing? Why might having a little adult fun (see above adult activities) be a fuller way to live life than our current obsession with living healthy? Smart, sharp, critical, and a highly entertaining writer to read, I need to get my hands on more Roiphe.

[Brenda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apparently Katie Roiphe is a very controversial writer, and although I didn't agree with everything she wrote in this collections of essays, I agreed with her most of the time. The first essay was spectacular--worth the price of the book--for anyone going through a life change (in Ms. Roiphe's case separation and divorce) that is assumed to be only bad, but that also may have a hidden upside.


I grew up in a home of literature professors and writers, and I myself am a scientist. I can say with great certainty, that Ms. Roiphe is a critical thinker, and if she ever writes before thinking, she doesn't subject her readers to it. I didn't devour the book as many of the essays were worth the time to think about. Very few writers can actually make me have to think about something other than just plain facts and their veracity. I was pleased and refreshed to read this collection.

[Always Pink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fearless and fierce, clear-sighted and unforgiving. I enjoyed following Roiphe's thoughts and ideas leaning towards the unconventional and liked what she said. I'm no single mum myself but something in her exhortations of "love childs" strangely made me wish I was. She is given to quote from all sorts of intriguing sources, which made my to-be-read-list even longer. I fear Roiphe is right in her observation that we are all leading too well-kempt and ironed-out lives, all in order to fit the norm, instead of leading lives that fulfill our inner selves and going fearlessly where no one else has ventured before.

[Red · Rating 1 out of 5]

Begins with an essay about how the author is not like other moms. Yay you’re so cool being a single mom. Look at how great you’re doing all by yourself. No self awareness about how her whiteness, socioeconomic status, and Ivy League education makes it possible. Lame. Goes onto an essay defending the Great Male Writers and how at least they were the right kind of (hetero) male, damn those feminists. Then an essay about how great women writers (author’s capitalization) don’t want to be identified by their gender and how silly to have a book documenting known and unknown women writers. Sigh. Boring, myopic, privileged, and still boring.