The Odd Woman and the City

by Vivian Gornick, Unknown Author

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 more than twenty years with Leonard, a gay man who is sophisticated about his own unhappiness, whose friendship has "shed more 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.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, New York, Biography, Essays, Biography Memoir, Feminism

Paperback

First published May 19, 2015

About the author

Vivian Gornick is the author of, among other books, the acclaimed memoir Fierce Attachments and three essay collections: The End of the Novel of Love, Approaching Eye Level, and, most recently, The Men in My Life. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Candi · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Every night when I turn the lights out in my sixteenth-floor living room before I go to bed, I experience a shock of pleasure as I see the banks of lighted windows rising to the sky, crowding round me, and feel myself embraced by the anonymous ingathering of city dwellers. This swarm of human hives, also hanging anchored in space, is the New York design offering generic connection. The pleasure it gives soothes beyond all explanation.”

What a deeply gratifying little book this was! It satisfied a hunger I’ve had to visit New York City for quite some time now. That longing was set to be fulfilled not long ago until my plans were thwarted by… ahem… well, you know what I mean. Through this memoir of sorts, Vivian Gornick not only walked the streets of the city with me, but she shared an intimate reflection on solitude, friendship, and romantic love. This reads more as a series of vignettes, rather than a chronological sort of telling of a life story. Throughout, her friendship with Leonard is highlighted. It was a lovely tribute to the value of meaningful conversation and companionship. Most importantly, the definition of what constitutes a friendship in modern times really struck a chord with me. One that grazes the surface and admits to no imperfections or weaknesses is really just superficial at best. A much deeper human connection is what we truly need, though many will not take such a risk to share themselves with another, whether a romantic partner or a friend.

“Today we do not look to see, much less affirm, our best selves in one another. To the contrary, it is the openness with which we admit to our emotional incapacities – the fear, the anger, the humiliation – that excites contemporary bonds of friendship. Nothing draws us closer to one another than the degree to which we face our deepest shame openly in one another’s company.”

There are lots of little anecdotes that arouse the senses and emotions. Gornick describes chance encounters with strangers in the city, bits of strangers’ conversations overheard, and running into acquaintances on the street corners. The vibrancy and pulse of the city was communicated so credibly, I felt as if I’d just been there myself and needed to get right back to it! The reader is also treated to some reflections on reading and how she identifies with those solitary women in some of her favorite novels, particularly George Gissing’s The Odd Women, from which title Gornick adapted her own. Her search for romantic love and marriage and its initial wonder and later failings provided some thoughtful musings as well.

“It was as though an invisible membrane had fallen between me and my lover, one fine enough to be penetrated by desire but opaque enough to obscure human fellowship. The person on the other side of the membrane seemed as unreal to me as I felt myself to be to him.”

At first, it seemed that so little could be covered in this slim book. But I found there to be so much heart and meditation that it allows for a great deal of introspection on the part of the reader as well. Its value is much expanded as a result. Gornick is intelligent and honest, especially about herself. She gives the reader the opportunity to be truthful to him or herself regarding one’s own various personal relationships. Once we have the ability to do that, then maybe our interactions with others will become more genuine as well. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?!

“Without friendship, we were each alone in the wilderness.”

[Violeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm walking up Fifth Avenue at noon straight into the cold harsh sunlight of a morning in November. Mobs of people are coming at me. Once the dominating color of this crowd was white, now it is black and brown. Once it wore blue and white collars, now it is in mufti. Once it was law-abiding, now it is not. The idiom has changed, but the character remains stable.

Ms Gornick and I have almost nothing in common except for our love for New York City, she as a native and I as a visitor. We are of different generations, ethnicities, backgrounds and we have made opposite life choices. This is an anthology of thoughts, experiences, grievances and consolations that are hers and hers alone. Why then did I feel that I knew exactly what she was talking about page after page of this deeply personal book? Because she is so frank and willing to give away so much of herself that one can only stop and listen to this woman who's clear-sighted, street-smart, well-read and a keen observer of herself and those who surround her. Chances are that she will be understood by many.

This is not a traditional memoir or a mere account of colorful scenes of city life. It is also a study of solitude and companionship and of lives containing both. The rhythm of the narration is masterful, alternating between ruminations on the human condition, brief stories of people from all walks of life and snapshots of the drama that unfolds daily on the streets of any metropolis. In this case a very NY-ish one. It reminded me of the best of Woody Allen films from the 70s to the 90s when he too was proclaiming his love for the city and its restless inhabitants.
The minute I finished this little book I wanted to start all over again to better appreciate and digest the author's condensed wisdom and her outlook on city (and her own) life that is as unflinchingly sharp as is emotionally moving.

Here's a tiny sample:

"Early on a Friday evening in spring, cars coming from three directions are halted in the middle of Abingdon Square, in their midst a rat running frantically back and forth. A man turns the corner nearest to where I'm standing, mesmerized. He is in his forties, wearing khaki shorts and a bright blue camp shirt and carrying a Whole Foods shopping bag in each hand. His brown thatch is graying, his features painfully delicate; his eyes blink worriedly behind designer glasses.
"What is it?" he cries at me.
His eyes follow my pointing finger.
"Oh," he says wearily. "A neur-rotic rat".
"Or else a prelude to the plague, " I say.
"Now there's an only slightly more comforting thought."
For a moment the man looks thoughtful. Then he shakes his head no.
"Poor thing. He's looking for a way out and there isn't any. Believe me. I know."
He shoulders his fancy provisions anew and goes his way, now burdened by the useless wisdom he only rarely has to face up to."

[emma]

my life story

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 book is framed and punctuated by Gornick's friendship with Leonard, a highly sophisticated man who is perceptive and articulate about his sadness. There are meditations on the role of conversation in friendship and the ways in which we define ourselves, our relationship to our own personal narratives-where we came from, where we're going.

The book takes its title in part from The Odd Women by George Gissing, a late 19th century novel describing a group of woman in London who are unmarried and attempting to create their identities within the confines of their times and personalities,k without men, against the backdrop of the city. Gornick considers herself a modern descendant of these women, creating her identity alone, with the help of friendships-through conversations-and in relationship to the city, which is more than a place but a power and a living entity with an energy and personality particular to it.

Now as a woman who was alone for many years and who lived in NYC, I'll admit I have a very personal response to this book. But the writing is as intelligent and thought-provoking, her vignettes evocative, her meditations on her past and especially (for me) about how we find ourselves, create ourselves, in conversation, as it is in her earlier memoir.

It is too brief a book, although that is part of its perfection. Upon finishing it, I immediately went back to the beginning and reread it. And I look forward to reading it again. There are sections I have only just touched upon, that have much more meaning to yield.

It's a wonderful book.

[julieta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find everything gornick writes incredibly stimulating. Her writing makes me see many connections happening all at the same time. Friendship, city life, family life, sickness, death, she goes through all of it. Her take on other writers is always wonderful, since she is a great reader of literature and of being human.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I figured this would be great bedtime reading. A book of musings about life in NYC, feminism, literature, friendships; short vignettes including her penchant for people watching and overheard snippets of conversation. I have never lived in New York or even visited there, but I love walking the streets of many smaller cities that I've visited, and my own much smaller neighborhoods, so I could relate.
I was right, this was perfect for bedtime reading, or any time when you need a pick up and put down anytime book.
I understand her memoir, "Fierce Attachments" is very good, so I'll hunt down a copy of that.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a thin book to be savored. It's not a traditional memoir, but a series of vignettes which move back and forth in time between Gornick's childhood, her early adulthood, and the present, when, as a single woman who has learned much about life and herself. There were so many excerpts about life on the streets of NYC which made me laugh out loud or smile in recognition. One of these took place on 14th Street where she ran into a friend and carried on a conversation despite the Con Ed drilling, honking cars, screeching brakes, and sirens which "pierced the air." That is such a familiar experience.

Gornick also shares her hard won and brilliant insights about solitude in NYC among the masses of people there. But she doesn't despair. She understands it and why she is solitary yet she finds moments of "togetherness" and solace with strangers in the streets, with friends, and in her apartment looking out at all the other "hives" filled with thousands of people.

Besides being very quotable herself, she quotes others from whom she has learned about life. Frank O'Hara and Charles Reznikoff are just two of the writers/poets she quotes and to whom she refers. Wonderful vignettes or stories about Dickens, Hugo, Sarton, Sartre, Henry James, George Eliot, Freud, and other writers and philosophers appear in this short book.

I will have to buy this book (I read a library copy) so that I can reread it and underline (yes, I underline in my precious books) my favorite passages. Then I can finally share some of these excerpts with friends, an urge I had several times while reading this memoir.

Beware NYC exiles: this book will make you miss NYC.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Charles Dickens with London, Gornick walks the streets of New York City and knows them intimately. She walks for the same reasons I believe Dickens did: to ward off restlessness and depression; and to immerse herself in the characters she encounters, because hearing their voices, their “expressiveness” as she calls it (a word which recalls for me Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer) is like breathing.

It’s written as “a series of vignettes,” as Anne's review says, which can tell you more about the book than I can. Gornick moves as quickly, and as elegantly, in her writing, as she likely does the streets of New York.

Though I was enjoying this work the whole time, I wasn’t fully engaged until I spotted the name Constance Fenimore Woolson. Then I became excited, as if seeing an old friend, much in the same way Gornick enjoys seeing old friends and acquaintances as she makes her way around the city. After relating the story of Woolson and Henry James’ friendship, Gornick writes, The night after I’d read about Woolson and James, I became a literary groupie. She doesn’t explain that sentence but immediately relates a dream about herself and her best friend, a gay man, that’s obviously rooted in the friendship of the two 19th-century writers.

I’d figured the ‘odd woman’ of the title was a nod to Gissing’s novel The Odd Women and Gornick’s longest section explains why it's important to her. After reading and loving his New Grub Street many years ago, I’ve been meaning to read The Odd Women for years. I now have a new impetus to do so.

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

Not a book that I would recommend. I was disappointed - thoroughly.

So many, many characters it was dizzying. Absolutely no way to keep them all straight. And authors - she spoke of so many. And so many short clips - moving from topic to topic. She seemed to go from past to present and back to past within a sentence - it keeps your mind spinning. This is a short book as it is and the method it is written in makes it jumbled, in disarray, and mind boggling.

I don't profess to judge anyone's memoir - their life is how they see it to be. But, I prefer it to be written in some order, some semblance, something that is understandable. This book had nothing understandable, nothing orderly.

The only thing I can take away from this book is she was trying to determine who she really is - maybe?? Where she belongs in this world and trying to grapple with her own loneliness, I think??

Really a book written in disarray.

[WB1 · Rating 1 out of 5]

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 bad --if true). Her best friend is a gay man named Leonard who has got to be one of the most pretentious characters in recent literature. (His dialogue sounds like a Woody Allen parody of a Greenwich Village intellectual).

Ms. Gornick talks about her two quick failed marriages, several love affairs with guys who sound like creeps, and her constant walks through the West Side of Manhattan.

Every little tidbit about her life --she yells at a guy who speaks loudly on a cell phone, she has constant conversations with strangers in pharmacies and groceries. Conversation that I did not believe at all.

She spends pages talking about her mother (she writes a lot about her mother) and how cruel Mom could be to the point where she once ripped little Vivian's party dress so she cuold not go to a birthday party. (It sounds a little like "Mommie, Dearest."). Gornick writes that she mentions this to her mother nunerous times over her life. Her mother denied it. And then one day Gornick (in her fifties or sixties) steps off a bus and realizes maybe her mother was right. After 5o years??

Who cares? Maybe it's all fiction. Maybe it's half-fiction. Maybe it all adds up to a lot of self-serving and pompous writing by an author who should know better.

[Lucinda Garza Zamarripa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tal vez en otras circunstancias esta sería una lectura de 4.5, de 4 estrellas.

Pero es que este es EL momento para leerlo, MI momento para leerlo. Es EL libro, MI libro, para mis últimos días en Nueva York. Siento que Gornick, con su mayor experiencia y su mirada tan refinada, pone en palabras muchas de las cosas que siento caminando por la ciudad, cruzando calles en Midtown, paseando en el Upper East Side, conversando con amigos en el West Village

Muchas veces se demoniza lo urbano, pero lo que mucha gente no ve es que una ciudad (sobre todo aquellas que rayan en lo monstruoso) es mucho más que concreto, mugre y ratas... es también algo profundamente humano. Y Gornick, destacando los encuentros y desencuentros citadinos, lo tiene más claro que nadie.

[Carmel Hanes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've not been to New York. I've not read any Gornick previously. I went into this without knowing much about it. So it's probably just me in terms of not enjoying it more. It was a scattered collection of vignettes, recollections and observations. Some I could value and relate to more than others. There were some very thought-provoking musings.

"...I consciously felt men to be members of a species separate from myself. Separate and foreign. It was as though an invisible membrane had fallen between me and my lover, one fine enough to be penetrated by desire but opaque enough to obscure human fellowship."..."...For me, it had become the pea beneath the twenty mattresses: an irritation of the soul that I could not accommodate."--while she specifies men, this is a statement that could apply much more broadly to the difficulty of connection to any other; male to female, race to race, human to human.

"What we are, in fact, is a pair of solitary travelers slogging through the country of our lives, meeting up from time to time at the outer limit to give each other border reports."

"Slowly but inexorably, the enterprise of mind and spirit to which our friendship had been devoted began to lose strength before the growing encroachment of the sympathies out of which our lives were actually fashioned. Like an uncontrollable growth that overtakes a clearing the forest, the differences moved in on us. In no time at all, the friendship that had for so long generated excitement and exerted power was now experienced as a need that had run its course."

I appreciated these kinds of moments in this book, which created a desire for a long conversation with a vintage bottle of wine. Obviously an intelligent and articulate woman it would be interesting to spend time with; just not in the format of this book...at least for me.

[Maya Lang · Rating 3 out of 5]

I described this to a friend as "Sex in the City" for academics. My friend frowned. "So, not much sex, then?" she said. I laughed.

This book is a collection of insights (about relationships, yes, but also loneliness, friendship, memory, childhood, how and why we go about our various "attachments") during Gornick's daily peregrinations throughout Manhattan. It is a very New York book: lots of walking, bus rides, benches, diners, casual observations of strangers. At its best, it gets at the life of the mind. Gornick (with ease!) flies through insights on Freud, Henry James, Walter Benjamin, Edith Wharton. I would have loved this book back when I was a grad student in New York, walking for miles, filled with thoughts about what I was reading in my seminars. Gornick gives you the feeling that she is walking with you, talking companionably the whole time.

At its worst, this book is disjointed. It lacks the focus and power of her five-star memoir, Fierce Attachments, and at times is reminiscent of those "Dear Diary" anecdotes in the Metro section of the Times. Gornick clearly wants to position herself as a flâneur. This is unfortunate. She's at her best when she isn't trying to position herself in a larger tradition, when she's simply sharing her insights in her singular way, her relationships (with Leonard, with her mother) guiding her storytelling. When she tries to depict the city, to speak for it, she reveals her blind spots, specifically on the subject of race. In one awful scene, she calls the cops on a Black man for speaking too loudly on his cell phone. She wants us to side with her. I didn't.

[pizca · Rating 4 out of 5]

La Mujer Singular y la Ciudad. Vivian Gornick
(traducción de Raquel vicedo).

"No hay nada que nos acerque más a los otros que el grado en que afrontamos abiertamente nuestra vergüenza más profunda cuando estamos con ellos. Coleridge y Wordsworth temían exponerse de esa forma; nosotros lo adoramos. Lo que queremos es sentirnos conocidos, con nuestras virtudes y nuestros defectos; cuantos más defectos, mejor. La gran ilusión de nuestra cultura es que somos lo que confesamos ser".

Leer a Gornick siempre me resulta interesante, una lectura atractiva. Esta "Mujer Singular" (The Odd Women , en referencia al término acuñado por George Gissing para describir a las feministas y que dará lugar parte del título del libro) nos pasea por la ciudad de Nueva York mientras nos deja sus diferentes pensamientos sobre la amistad, la búsqueda de la pareja, la relación de los habitantes con la propia ciudad y el descubrimiento de sí misma en todos esos pensamientos.

En este libro no tenemos esos paseos de Gornick con su madre que tanto disfrutamos en Apegos Feroces, pero me ha gustado mucho las múltiples referencias que hace a diferentes autores/as y sus obras, en relación a los conceptos de amistad, amor, y estudio de las ciudades y del comportamiento en general.

No se si este libro es continuidad o no a Apegos Feroces pero leerla, da igual por el que queráis empezar.

[Pilar · Rating 5 out of 5]

En el fondo, todo el libro gira en torno al significado de la pérdida del amor romántico. La mujer extremadamente inteligente que es Vivian Gornick reconoce que durante muchos años atesoró un corazón endurecido y que el amor fue motivo de sufrimiento y conflicto. Tengo que decir que para haberse declarado una feminista radical, todos sus razonamientos sobre la amistad y el amor —esa afanosa insistencia en encontrar al "compañero de vida"— me resultan muy paradójicos, me desconciertan. Eso sí, me quedo absorta ante lo bien que conoce el género humano. Tal vez estas memorias de flâneur sirvan para exorcizarse, en las que compensa su yo tan cerebral con ejercicios creativos vinculados por una nostalgia neoyorquina que le permite sobrevivir. Acaba siendo de esas personas que vagan por las calles "en busca de un yo reflejado en los ojos de un desconocido" y que sienten la ciudad, esa isla de ruido, como permanente estado de ánimo. 


Changing New York, Berenice Abbott, 1935

[María Greene F · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me encantó. Lo encontré mucho mejor que el libro previo de ella, que al parecer es más conocido e importante. Casi le pongo cuatro estrellas y no cinco por la cantidad de referencias culturales tan específicas de su lugar y de su época que no alcancé a entender y que me hicieron al final saltarme varias de sus páginas, pero... subrayé TANTAS CITAS y tuve que pararme TANTAS VECES a quedarme pensando en alguna, que... encontré que no se merecía esa suerte de devaluación.

Es solo una descripción de momentos, en todo caso. Como ramalazos de una vida y sus proyecciones, el día diario, las pequeños detalles, pero SÚPER BUENO. La vida casual y luego chorreadas de genialidad.

A mí me encanta el ámbito de lo personal y cotidiano, así que quizá por eso también me gustó tanto. En especial cuando es la visión de de una mujer que se acerca ya a la tercera edad y que entonces tiene más variedad de miradas para interpretar cosas.


Citas que subrayé:

1.
En la farmacia me encuentro con Vera, una trotskista nonagenaria de las de antes que vive en mi barrio en un cuarto sin ascensor y que siempre habla con voz aguda, como si estuviera dando un discurso. Está esperando que le hagan una receta y, como no la he visto en mucho tiempo, me ofrezco a esperar con ella. Nos sentamos en dos de las tres sillas que hay alineadas en la del centro; Vera, en la de mi izquierda; y en la de mi derecha hay un hombre con aspecto simpático que está leyendo un libro.

- ¿Está viviendo en el mismo sitio? - le pregunto.

- ¿Y a dónde voy a ir? - dice, tan alto que un hombre que está atrás en la cola se vuelve hacia nosotras -. Pero ¿sabes qué, querida? Que gracias a las escaleras me mantengo en forma.

- ¿Y su marido? ¿Cómo lleva él las escaleras?

- ¿Mi marido? - dice-. Murió.

- Lo siento mucho - digo casi en un susurro. Mueve la mano en el aire como restándole importancia.

- No fue un buen matrimonio - anuncia. Tres personas de la cola se vuelven -. Pero ¿sabes? Al final eso tampoco es tan importante. Digo que sí con la cabeza. Lo entiendo. El apartamento está vacío.

- Es justo que diga - continúa - que, aunque nunca fue un buen marido, sí fue un gran amante.

Noto que el hombre que está sentado a mi lado da un pequeño respingo.

- Bueno, sin duda eso sí es importante - digo.

- ¡Y tanto! Lo conocí en Detroit durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Por entonces nos estábamos organizando. En aquella época todos se acostaban con todos, y yo también. Pero aunque parezca increíble... - y en ese punto baja la voz drásticamente, como si fuera a contarme un secreto de gran importancia -, la mayoría de los hombres con los que me acosté no eran buenos en la cama. En realidad eran malos, muy malos.

En ese momento, siento que el hombre a mi derecha está tratando de reprimir una carcajada.

- Así que, cuando encontrabas uno bueno - Vera se encoge de hombros - no lo dejabas escapar.

- Sé muy bien a qué se refiere - digo.

- ¿Sí, querida?

- Claro que sí.

- ¿Quieres decir que siguen siendo malos?

- Cualquiera que nos oiga... - digo -. Dos viejas hablando de amantes terribles.

Esta vez el hombre que hay a mi lado suelta una carcajada. Me vuelvo y me quedo mirándolo un buen rato.

- Nos estamos acostando con los mismos hombres, ¿no? - le digo.

- Sí, asiente él -. Y con el mismo grado de satisfacción.

Durante un instante los tres nos miramos y, entonces, a la vez, empezamos a reírnos en carcajada limpia.



2.
"Trabaja", me decía a mí misma. "Trabaja. Si trabajo", pensaba al mismo tiempo que estrechaba mi nuevo corazón endurecido, "seré alguien en el mundo". ¿Qué importancia tendría entonces renunciar al amor?

Pero descubrí que me importaba más de lo que nunca habría imaginado. Conforme fueron pasando los años, comprobé que el amor romántico estaba inyectado como un tinte en el sistema nervioso de mis emociones, entrelazado a conciencia en el tejido del deseo, la fantasía y el sentimiento.

Atormentaba a la psique, era un dolor de huesos; se incrustaba con tal profundidad en la naturaleza del espíritu que hacía daño a la vista contemplar sus enormes consecuencias. Sería un motivo de sufrimiento y conflicto durante el resto de mi vida. Atesoro mi corazón endurecido - durante todos estos años siempre lo he atesorado -, pero la pérdida del amor romántico todavía puede desgarrarlo.



3.
En mi calle han colocado una barrera para cercar una zona del pavimento sobre la que han echado hormigón fresco. Al lado de la barrera hay una única plancha de madera con una barandilla muy endeble para los peatones. Una mañana helada en pleno invierno estoy a punto de agarrarme a la barandilla para cruzar la plancha cuando, en el otro extremo, aparece un hombre dispuesto a salvar el mismo obstáculo. Este hombre es alto, tremendamente delgado y terriblemente viejo.

De modo instintivo, me inclino hacia adelante lo suficiente para ofrecerle la mano. Ninguno de los dos dice una palabra hasta que el hombre logra cruzar sano y salvo la plancha y se encuentra a mi lado. - Gracias - dice -. Muchas gracias. Un escalofrío de emoción me recorre todo el cuerpo. - De nada - digo en un tono que espero sea tan franco como el suyo.

Entonces, cada uno sigue su camino, pero siento ese "gracias" corriendo por mis venas durante todo el día. La diferencia la había marcado la voz. ¡Esa voz! Fuerte, viva, serena: no consciente de pertenecer a un anciano. En ella no había ni rastro de ese deje lastimero que con frecuencia se detecta en la voz de los ancianos cuando se les prodiga alguna modesta atención, "Qué amable es usted, qué amable, amabilísima", cuando lo único que una está haciendo es parar un taxi o ayudar a vaciar un carrito de la compra... como si se estuvieran disculpando por el espacio que ocupan en el mundo.

Este hombre se había dado cuenta de que yo no había hecho nada especial, y no necesitaba mostrarse especialmente agradecido. Nos estaba recordando a ambos que cualquier persona que necesite ayuda tiene derecho a esperarla, y que quien es testigo de ello tiene la obligación de brindarla. Yo le había ofrecido mi mano y él la había tomado. Habíamos compartido treinta segundos - él no me había suplicado y yo no lo había tratado con condescendencia -, en los que a él se le había caído la máscara de la vejez y a mí, la del vigor. En medio de la disfunción nacional, de la brutalidad global y de la actitud defensiva del individuo, los dos sencillamente nos habíamos mostrado ante el otro tal cual éramos.



4.
Hay dos tipos de amistades: aquellas en las que las personas se animan mutuamente y aquellas en las que las personas deben estar animadas para estar juntas. En la primera categoría, uno hace hueco para verse; en la segunda, uno busca un hueco en la agenda.



5.
Enciende una cerilla y la acerca al cigarrillo.

- No estoy hecha para esta vida - digo.

- ¿Y quién lo está? - dice, expulsando el humo en mi dirección.



6.
"Todos los hombres en soledad son sinceros", decía Ralph Waldo Emerson. "En cuanto entra en escena un segundo, comienza la hipocresía". Un amigo, por lo tanto, es una especie de paradoja de la naturaleza.



7.
Mi amistad con Leonard empezó conmigo invocando las leyes de las que conllevan expectativas. "Somos uno", decidí poco después de conocernos. "Tú eres yo, y yo soy tú: es nuestra obligación salvarnos el uno al otro".

Me llevó años darme cuenta de que ese sentimiento no era exacto. Lo que somos, de hecho, es un par de viajeros solitarios que avanzan con esfuerzo por el territorio de sus vidas y que de vez en cuando se encuentran en el límite más alejado para intercambiar información sobre las fronteras.



8.
Nunca sabría lo que Keats ya sabía antes de cumplir los veinticinco, que "ningún grupo de personas es mejor que otro".



9. Me sentí muy identificada porque ESTO TAMBIÉN ME PASA A MÍ *transpira.

Un año en que di clases en Arizona, Leonard vino a visitarme e hicimos un viaje al Gran Cañón, parando en varios puntos mientras atravesábamos uno de los paisajes más impresionantes del planeta. Cuando llevábamos un día y medio viajando, llegamos a un alto y, hasta donde abarcaba la vista, contemplamos a nuestros pies el enorme desierto del oeste, donde no se divisaba ningún rastro de vida humana.

La simple extensión de mundo sin límites ni fin me dejó sin aliento.

- ¡Qué maravilla! - salió de mis labios antes siquiera de poder pensar. Leonard estaba en silencio. - ¿No? - pregunté. Él me dedicó una de aquellas sonrisas suyas, pequeñas y apretadas.

- ¿Cómo te sientes? - preguntó con genuina curiosidad; realmente quería saberlo.

- Eufórica - repliqué -. Llena de vida. Silencio. - ¿Tú no? - pregunté.

- No - replicó, estremeciéndose -. Cuando contemplo a la naturaleza en estado puro me siento intimidado - dijo -. En realidad, siento miedo. Sin embargo, cuando observo el mundo civilizado me siento conmovido por el esfuerzo que el ser humano ha hecho para repeler lo que le es ajeno. La naturaleza me inspira terror o gratitud. Pero nunca me hace sentir lleno de vida.



9.
Freud llevó a cabo sus mayores descubrimientos investigando y explorando el inconsciente, y su principal hallazgo fue que desde el nacimiento hasta la tumba estamos todos divididos. Queremos crecer, y no queremos crecer. Estamos ávidos de placer sexual, y tenemos miedo del placer sexual. Odiamos nuestras emociones más agresivas - la ira, la crueldad, la necesidad de humillar -, pero estas emociones proceden de agravios que no tenemos intención de olvidar. Nuestro sufrimiento es al mismo tiempo una fuente de dolor y de consuelo.

Lo que a Freud le resultaba más difícil de curar en sus pacientes era la resistencia a ser curados.



10.
Lo cierto es que ni Woolson ni James estaban preparados para la amistad. Aunque ambos apreciaban su relación, la infelicidad neurótica de la que eran víctimas era mucho más irresistible. Ninguno de los dos podía hacer por el otro lo que siquiera podía hacer por sí mismo.



11.
Alrededor de ese ego herido se había formado una psique menguante: me entregaba al trabajo, pero de mala gana; daba un paso para acercarme a la gente que me caía bien, pero nunca dos; me maquillaba, pero vestía fatal. Hacer una o todas esas cosas bien habría significado comprometerse sin límites con la vida, amándola más de lo que amaba mis miedos, y eso no podía hacerlo.

Lo que sí podía hacer, al parecer, era pasarme los años soñando despierta. Desear que las "cosas" fueran diferentes para que yo fuera diferente.



¡Super bueno el libro! :)

[Márcio · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems that most people would pay a fortune if the fountain of eternal youth was found. Yet, there is something that comes with age that is as priceless as youth, and it is called maturity. I am not talking about old age, but a sage that we acquire along life as the years pass by after we enter adulthood.

In her interesting memoir, Vivian Gornick describes her walkings around the city of New York recalling moments of her life, her lovers, her mother, friends long gone, and friends long seen, paying attention to scenes taking place along her walkings. And she remembers odd, but also life-lasting friendships.


The memoir seems like a patchwork, a beautiful one, this one that she sews. They form this understanding of what is a life when one is able to look back, without hurting too much, recollecting what were the materials that brought her up, what were the paths she took, and if they led her to good or not so good destinations. There is no turning back, but there is a possibility to make peace with her own self.

But it is also a life in which one shouldn't be constantly looking forward, expecting the things and people and situations one yearns for, wants to achieve; for this also blocks the future, as it is unpredictable.

This is where maturiry plays the right note on her, allowing self understanding, but without regret or too much of it.

When she is not able to let her mind wander aimlessly anymore, she seems to start paying attention to what happens along her walkings, taking mental notices, feeling a certain kind of warmth for her New Yorkers.

Late for an appointment in midtown, I run down the subway stairs just as the train is pulling into the Fourteenth Street station. The doors open and a young man standing in front of me (T-shirt, jeans, crew cut) with an elaborately folded-up baby carriage on his back, leading a very small child by the hand, heads for Late for an appointment in midtown, I run down the subway stairs just as the train is pulling into the seats directly ahead of us. I plop down on the one opposite him, take out my book and reading glasses, and, settling myself, am vaguely aware of the man removing the carriage from his back and turning toward the seated child. Then I look up. The little boy is about seven or eight, and he is the most grotesquely deformed child I have ever seen. He has the face of a gargoyle—mouth twisted to the side, one eye higher than the other—inside a huge, misshapen head that reminds me of the Elephant Man. Bound around the child’s neck is a narrow piece of white cloth, in the center of which sits a short, fat tube that seems to be inserted into his throat. In another instant I realize that he is also deaf. This last because the man immediately begins signing. At first, the boy merely watches the man’s moving fingers, but soon he begins responding with motions of his own. Then, as the man’s fingers move more and more rapidly, the boy’s quicken, and within minutes both sets of fingers are matched in speed and complexity.

Embarrassed at first to be watching these two so steadily, I keep turning away, but they are so clearly oblivious to everyone around them that I can’t resist looking up repeatedly from my book. And then something remarkable happens: the man’s face is suffused with such delight and affection as the boy’s responses grow ever more animated—the twisted little mouth grinning, the unaligned eyes brightening—that the child himself begins to look transformed. As the stations go by, and the conversation between the man and the boy grows ever more absorbing to them, fingers flying, both nodding and laughing, I find myself thinking, These two are humanizing each other at a very high level.

By the time we get to Fifty-Ninth Street, the boy looks beautiful to me, and the man beatific.

There are many moments worth of quoting, but one shall do better reading this book and get to know Vivian Gornick. She is an amazing writer and this is the stuff literature is made of in its best.

[Steve Turtell · Rating 4 out of 5]

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's more than 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 alleys, ruined churches, architectural relics, none of which are ever dug up, only piled one on top of another. If you've grown up in New York, your life is an archaeology not of structures but of voices, also piled one on top of another, also not really replacing one another."

[Juan Naranjo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Con sólo dos libros traducidos a español, Vivian Gornick se ha convertido ya en una de mis autoras de referencia. Me fascina su forma de retratar las interacciones humanas, la relación del individuo con el entorno urbano o los vínculos familiares.
En esta segunda novela, la autora nos regala una serie de instantáneas de las que ha sido testigo en sus recorridos por Manhattan. En este libro están presentes algunas de las cuestiones esenciales del individuo: la convivencia con la soledad, el recuerdo del amor, la balsa que constituye la amistad.
Ojalá se tradujeran muchas más cosas de esta mujer; su bibliografía es muy amplia y está llena de cosas interesantes.

[Bart Moeyaert · Rating 3 out of 5]

De kogel in de flipperkast glimt en raakt een hindernisje op een goeie plek, kaatst terug en tikt een belletje aan, om dan nog eens en nog eens terug te kaatsen.

Van ting ting ting, op zo’n manier vallen boeken je soms in de schoot. Je hoort de titel vandaag voor het eerst, en morgenochtend lees je erover in de krant, ’s middags zie je het omslag nog eens langskomen op Facebook en ’s avonds vermeldt een vriend het aan de telefoon.

‘Een vrouw apart. En de stad’ van Vivian Gornick dook aan het begin van verleden week vanuit het niets op en aan het eind van diezelfde week lag het klaar op mijn nachtkastje. Ik zou door New York wandelen, was me beloofd. Ik zou een paar inzichten opdoen in dit memoir van een vrouw op leeftijd, en ik zou af en toe niet meer bijkomen van het lachen om de vileine opmerkingen van Vivians beste vriend Leonard.

Dat viel alles bij elkaar goed mee. Waarmee ik eigenlijk bedoel: tegen. Misschien is dat het gevolg van te veel ting ting ting. Te hoge verwachtingen.

Terwijl ik las herbeleefde ik september 2012, toen ik in mijn eentje in New York verbleef, en ik genoot van het gezelschap van Vivian, die me met haar rake observaties van het stadsleven charmeerde en me ook een paar titels deed noteren van boeken waarover ze haar gedachten liet gaan.

Af en toe bleef ik langer stilstaan bij iets wat ze schreef. In deze #stayhome-tijd hebben we het vaak over eenzaamheid, vandaar dat ik een terloopse opmerking van haar noteerde: “Je bent eenzaam vanwege de afwezige geidealiseerde ander.” Ik kauw nog altijd op die passage van een bladzijde, maar verder bleef ik jammer genoeg op mijn honger zitten.

Ik kijk uit naar het boek van haar dat in juni verschijnt, ‘Het einde van de liefdesroman’. Ga ik lezen, zoveel is zeker. Maar het verlangen is een beetje dubbel. Alsof je lekker aan het eten bent in een toprestaurant en eigenlijk alleen maar denkt aan het volgende gerecht dat je hebt besteld.

‘Een vrouw apart. En de stad’ is uit het Engels vertaald door Caroline Meijer.

[Wojciech Szot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gdy myślę o miejscach, które chciałbym odwiedzić, Nowy Jork zajmuje jedno z ostatnich miejsc. Drewniane kościółki na Mazowszu wydają mi się bardziej atrakcyjne, zwłaszcza gdy dojechać do nich rowerem.

Fascynacja "Ameryką" nigdy nie była moją fascynacją, może dlatego, że literatura zastępuje mi zwiedzanie, a chyba nie ma innego amerykańskiego miasta, które tak by obrosło literackimi mitami. Mitami, trzeba to zauważyć, tworzonymi przeważnie przez białych mężczyzn i kobiety z uprzywilejowanej klasy.

Gornick dość płynnie wykręca się w "Kobiecie osobnej i mieście" (tłum. Łukasz Witczak) z opowieści o klasie, pokazując jedynie punkt startowy gdzieś na Bronksie i finał na Manhattanie. Nie ma niczego pomiędzy. Ale to chyba jedyna krytyczna uwaga, jaką mam do tego wspaniałego eseju o mieście, przyjaźni, miłości i starzeniu się.

Duchowym patronem tej powieści jest Seymour Krim i jego kongenialny (choć prawie nieznany w Polsce) esej "For My Brothers and Sisters in the Failure Business" (...). Krim pisze o amerykańskim społeczeństwie do amerykańskiego czytelnika:

"Naszym sekretem jest to, że wciąż odczuwamy epicką tęsknotę za tym, by być kimś więcej niż tym, kim jesteśmy, by pomnażać się, integrować wszystkie tożsamości (...), których doświadczyliśmy, a przede wszystkim by nadal eksperymentować z naszym życie".

Krim pyta swoich czytelników - „kiedy przestaniesz fantazjować o niewyczerpywalnym ja, a spróbujesz zrobić coś z tym, co masz?” Gornick zachwyca język Krima, ale nie da się ukryć, że jej pisanie jest próbą wyodrębnienia siebie ze zbiorowego podmiotu jego eseju. Gornick nie chce fantazjować, chce widzieć relacje między ludźmi, miasto i literaturę pozbawioną fantazji, za to rozgrywające na jej oczach wewnętrzne konflikty, podobne do tych, które sama prowadzi.

Więcej o książce Gornick - https://www.empik.com/pasje/ksiazka-t...

[el · Rating 3 out of 5]

boring!!!! better in concept than in execution. i was shocked to find this was published in 2015 (though i'm assuming it was in some part written earlier), because so much of the sociopolitical fabric of this "memoir" felt outdated—namely the way gornick writes about black people.

she's loath to specify the race of anyone but black and brown people, who only exist in the pages of the odd woman and the city to become cautionary or passive-aggressive anecdotes about junkies, disruptors, homeless people, people who shake or destabilize her sense of whiteness—in other words, she makes an example of them, but they don't come up in the longer, more esoteric sections following her close artistic, intellectual, and romantic relationships. people of color become secondary accessories to her notion of a new york city that demands endurance and adaptability from the woeful white "feminist" artists of yore. when black people express cynicism about race or class, gornick seems to imply they're the crux of their own misery and she is simply the innocent white bystander who longs for peace.

there's a later section in this book where she reflects on her earliest and most idealized version of new york city, one where everyone was white poets and "radicals" and middle-class artistés having sex all over the place, and i think that reflects an inner politic gornick has not and will not ever fully unpack.

there are a few spare moments of beauty, but this is largely a non-chronological scramble of "walking around and injecting throwaway diary entries everywhere." 2.5/5.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

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, librarily.

[Maricruz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Después de Apegos feroces, no podía sino ir corriendo a leer La mujer singular y la ciudad. Me encanta cómo captura Vivian Gornick la energía que te transmiten las grandes ciudades, y esa voracidad con que buscamos sus goces precisamente quienes más insatisfechos solemos estar con la vida en general. Un «jodido pero contento» explicado a la perfección, que al igual que sucedía con Apegos feroces hace que asienta frenéticamente ante lo atinada que se muestra Gornick en sus reflexiones, en especial sobre la situación de las mujeres. Estos fragmentos donde la autora relata las experiencias y revelaciones que va teniendo en Nueva York, intercalados con observaciones muy interesantes sobre la vida de otros artistas, son tan deliciosos como si una misma fuera paseando con una amiga del alma con quien nunca se agota la conversación.

[pola · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5
czułam się jakbym czytała przepięknie napisany dziennik niesamowicie inteligentnej kobiety

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

It baffles me why Vivian Gornick isn't as well known as a writer as say, Joan Didion. I sit in wonder as she creates her world for the reader; yes, this is a memoir, but not in the traditional one may think of a memoir. I think I like her so much because she gives snippets of her life, weaving present day with the past. She walks the streets of New York with her friend, Leonard, ruminating on life, past and present.

And who writes sentences like these?! "He was in his sixties then, smaller and much thinner than he'd once been, but his blue eyes were lit with a beautiful kind of gravity and his narrow face imprinted with the wisdom of inflicted patience."

Gornick has a great eye for the city she's lived in her whole life, bringing colorful characters to life in just one small scene. A great read, and I liked this better than her lauded "Fierce Attachments."

[Platonica · Rating 4 out of 5]

<<- Estás idealizando las calles>>.
Cuando querés que un libro no termine nunca. Bueno, sin dudas éste es uno de esos.

[Tomasz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Literacko świetne, ale pod względem treści prawie w ogóle mnie nie zainteresowało. Gornick w tej książce umieściła wszystko, co jest mi absolutnie obojętne, ale pisze o tym w taki sposób, że ciężko się oderwać.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don’t you love the feeling when you hear about a book, have a feeling it will resonate, and then it does just that? Gosh, I love to read!

Thank you, Vivian Gornick, for transporting me to New York City and sharing very profound insights. Other than my home town of Toronto, I have spent the most amount of time in the magical NYC. Oh, how I miss it. Oh, how lovely it is to be transported back.

I particularly loved her musings on friendship and was incredibly enamoured with her description of being moved by a museum statue. It resonated deep in my soul.

Fair warning, the format of this book will not work for all. It is a scattered collection of short vignettes with no particular order of chronology or topic. Some parts were a bit of a filler but I cannot bring myself to dock for it. I need to buy myself a copy and reread this.

[Scarlet Cameo · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a HUGE disappointment. Boring and all over the place, the only good thing was that I leanr about some writers that sounds awesome.