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Year of the Monkey
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Memoir & Autobiography (2019)From the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M Train, a profound, beautifully realized memoir in which dreams and reality are vividly woven into a tapestry of one transformative year.
Following a run of New Year's concerts at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland with no design, yet heeding signs--including a talking sign that looms above her, prodding and sparring like the Cheshire Cat. In February, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing with it unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and inescapable sorrow. In a stranger's words, "Anything is after all, it's the Year of the Monkey." For Smith--inveterately curious, always exploring, tracking thoughts, writing--the year evolves as one of reckoning with the changes in life's with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America.
Smith melds the western landscape with her own dreamscape. Taking us from California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places, this haunting memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery. The unexpected happens; grief and disillusionment set in. But as Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope for a better world.
Riveting, elegant, often humorous, illustrated by Smith's signature Polaroids, Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times.
Following a run of New Year's concerts at San Francisco's legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland with no design, yet heeding signs--including a talking sign that looms above her, prodding and sparring like the Cheshire Cat. In February, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing with it unexpected turns, heightened mischief, and inescapable sorrow. In a stranger's words, "Anything is after all, it's the Year of the Monkey." For Smith--inveterately curious, always exploring, tracking thoughts, writing--the year evolves as one of reckoning with the changes in life's with loss, aging, and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America.
Smith melds the western landscape with her own dreamscape. Taking us from California to the Arizona desert; to a Kentucky farm as the amanuensis of a friend in crisis; to the hospital room of a valued mentor; and by turns to remembered and imagined places, this haunting memoir blends fact and fiction with poetic mastery. The unexpected happens; grief and disillusionment set in. But as Smith heads toward a new decade in her own life, she offers this balm to the her wisdom, wit, gimlet eye, and above all, a rugged hope for a better world.
Riveting, elegant, often humorous, illustrated by Smith's signature Polaroids, Year of the Monkey is a moving and original work, a touchstone for our turbulent times.
221 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 24, 2019
1459 people are currently reading
46229 people want to read
About the author
Patti Smith
148 books13.7k followersPATTI SMITH is a writer, performer, and visual artist. She gained recognition in the 1970s for her revolutionary merging of poetry and rock. She has released twelve albums, including Horses, which has been hailed as one of the top one hundred albums of all time by Rolling Stone.
Smith had her first exhibit of drawings at the Gotham Book Mart in 1973 and has been represented by the Robert Miller Gallery since 1978. Her books include Just Kids, winner of the National Book Award in 2010, Wītt, Babel, Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, and Auguries of Innocence.
In 2005, the French Ministry of Culture awarded Smith the title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, the highest honor given to an artist by the French Republic. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
Smith married the musician Fred Sonic Smith in Detroit in 1980. They had a son, Jackson, and a daughter, Jesse. Smith resides in New York City.
Smith had her first exhibit of drawings at the Gotham Book Mart in 1973 and has been represented by the Robert Miller Gallery since 1978. Her books include Just Kids, winner of the National Book Award in 2010, Wītt, Babel, Woolgathering, The Coral Sea, and Auguries of Innocence.
In 2005, the French Ministry of Culture awarded Smith the title of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, the highest honor given to an artist by the French Republic. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
Smith married the musician Fred Sonic Smith in Detroit in 1980. They had a son, Jackson, and a daughter, Jesse. Smith resides in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,428 reviews
September 26, 2019
Just Kids is a romantic, bohemian coming of age memoir par excellence; I'm only slightly ashamed to say I moved to New York because of it. The follow-up M Train is not inspiring in the same way but still an interesting reflection of her peripatetic life as a respected middle aged artist exploring different mediums and interests.
Year of the Monkey, on the other hand, is something much darker, and unintentionally so - a deep dive into the mindset of a rich, famous artist as they ward off the outside world with purple prose, self-serving games, and straightfoward denial. In her fantastical retelling of 2016, she playacts at the threadbare bohemian she used to be, her life a series of grimy diners and tough old friends, knit together with increasingly empty references to other books, and imaginary poor people who flit into her life like magical sprites full of wisdom.
The level of meaningless verbiage is best captured in her description of Johnny Depp's portrayal of the Mad Hatter - "When Johnny Depp embraced the role of the Hatter he too was drawn into this multiplicity of being and ceased to be just Johnny." How does she get to this low point? The paragraph begins "March winds. March wedding. The ides of March. Josephine March. Numinous March with its strong associations. And of course there has always been the March Hare. I remember as a child being quite taken with the quirky Hare, sure that he and the Mad Hatter were one in the same, even sharing the same initials."
Patti has based a long and fruitful career on freestyle Beat babble - check her out in Martin Scorsese's most recent Bob Dylan documentary, laying it down backstage as Dylan looks on in admiring bemusement. But there's something sour about it here, no core of need or curiosity, just wheels spinning. The low points come early, with a fully made up hitchhiking excursion featuring mixtape geniuses who don't recognize Patti Smith, cuddly caricatures of "normal" people and a premise that stopped being viable decades ago; worse, we meet an imaginary friend named Ernest - a Mexican fellow she meets in a bar who happens to share her obsession with Roberto Bolano.
Not that stilted dialogue arguing about 2666 is bad per se - I love Bolano too, and her Polaroids here and in M Train of rare Bolanoabilia are excellent. But it reminded me of fan fiction, with a limp aimlessness much different from Bolano's own constant urgency. She tries to build the book towards Trump as climactic event, but she is so far removed from the consequences of his election that the best she can muster is a little bit of Daily Show-level wordjazz about migrants and a tidbit about how she heard LCD Soundsystem playing at the diner that night.
Towards the end there are some strong musings on aging and death through the prism of her dying friend Sam Shepherd. But all in all you get the sense of someone who hasn't talked to a non-famous person in decades, who wishes more than anything that you still saw her as a salt of the earth type who rejects the trappings of fame and hitchhikes across the country. If it were true, it would be lovely, but rather than being autofiction that stretches reality for truth, it is autofiction that stretches reality for ego.
Year of the Monkey, on the other hand, is something much darker, and unintentionally so - a deep dive into the mindset of a rich, famous artist as they ward off the outside world with purple prose, self-serving games, and straightfoward denial. In her fantastical retelling of 2016, she playacts at the threadbare bohemian she used to be, her life a series of grimy diners and tough old friends, knit together with increasingly empty references to other books, and imaginary poor people who flit into her life like magical sprites full of wisdom.
The level of meaningless verbiage is best captured in her description of Johnny Depp's portrayal of the Mad Hatter - "When Johnny Depp embraced the role of the Hatter he too was drawn into this multiplicity of being and ceased to be just Johnny." How does she get to this low point? The paragraph begins "March winds. March wedding. The ides of March. Josephine March. Numinous March with its strong associations. And of course there has always been the March Hare. I remember as a child being quite taken with the quirky Hare, sure that he and the Mad Hatter were one in the same, even sharing the same initials."
Patti has based a long and fruitful career on freestyle Beat babble - check her out in Martin Scorsese's most recent Bob Dylan documentary, laying it down backstage as Dylan looks on in admiring bemusement. But there's something sour about it here, no core of need or curiosity, just wheels spinning. The low points come early, with a fully made up hitchhiking excursion featuring mixtape geniuses who don't recognize Patti Smith, cuddly caricatures of "normal" people and a premise that stopped being viable decades ago; worse, we meet an imaginary friend named Ernest - a Mexican fellow she meets in a bar who happens to share her obsession with Roberto Bolano.
Not that stilted dialogue arguing about 2666 is bad per se - I love Bolano too, and her Polaroids here and in M Train of rare Bolanoabilia are excellent. But it reminded me of fan fiction, with a limp aimlessness much different from Bolano's own constant urgency. She tries to build the book towards Trump as climactic event, but she is so far removed from the consequences of his election that the best she can muster is a little bit of Daily Show-level wordjazz about migrants and a tidbit about how she heard LCD Soundsystem playing at the diner that night.
Towards the end there are some strong musings on aging and death through the prism of her dying friend Sam Shepherd. But all in all you get the sense of someone who hasn't talked to a non-famous person in decades, who wishes more than anything that you still saw her as a salt of the earth type who rejects the trappings of fame and hitchhikes across the country. If it were true, it would be lovely, but rather than being autofiction that stretches reality for truth, it is autofiction that stretches reality for ego.
December 5, 2019
Surrealism in words. Free flowing thoughts, a fever dream, all can be used when experiencing this latest voyage through Smith's thoughts. An experience it is, interpretations, sometimes in dreams, sometimes in reality, non linear, but her words, descriptions are poetic. Starting with an old friend who is in the hospital dying, what he meant to her, taking her back to the past, comparisons with all she sees. Her last year before turning seventy in the year of the monkey. Her husband gone twenty years now, her friend Sam Shepherd, struggling with ALS, her past, her dreams, all blending into the present, the future. A little talk of music, books, but mostly of signs, how things can be interpreted.
Like Ali Smith, the nearest comparison i can make, though Ali is fiction, this Smith non, memoir, but both are unique in the writing field. Sometimes it was hard to decipher what was the dream, the actual experience? How does it apply to her reality now as it is, or was? Still can't quite figure Ernest's part, but despite that her words, the way she uses them often had me transfixed. Does her mind ever shutdown, her thoughts stop?
I listened to this, she reads her own book and it was wonderful to hear her recent musings, thoughts, in her own smokey voice.
Like Ali Smith, the nearest comparison i can make, though Ali is fiction, this Smith non, memoir, but both are unique in the writing field. Sometimes it was hard to decipher what was the dream, the actual experience? How does it apply to her reality now as it is, or was? Still can't quite figure Ernest's part, but despite that her words, the way she uses them often had me transfixed. Does her mind ever shutdown, her thoughts stop?
I listened to this, she reads her own book and it was wonderful to hear her recent musings, thoughts, in her own smokey voice.
October 6, 2019
”Marcus Aurelius asks us to note the passing of time with open eyes. Ten thousand years or ten thousand days, nothing can stop time, or change the fact that I would be turning seventy in the Year of the Monkey. Seventy. Merely a number but one indicating the passing of a significant percentage of the allotted sand in an egg timer, with oneself the darn egg. The grains pour and I find myself missing the dead more than usual. I notice that I cry more when watching television, triggered by romance, a retiring detective shot in the back while staring into the sea, a weary father lifting his infant from a crib. I notice that my own tears burn my eyes, that I am no longer a fast runner and that my sense of time seems to be accelerating.”
This often reads as though it were written under a fever-dream and other times the random musings of the poet ”…plucking inspiration from the erratic air”, all the while trying to focus on the things which are established, and her memories of the years gone by. At this point in her life, she has just celebrated her 69th birthday, is contemplating turning seventy in the coming year, concerned over two friends whose health was rapidly fading, the then-coming election, all while drinking lots of coffee, and mourning those who have passed on, and feeling helpless toward those merely hanging on.
”There was work to be done, concerts to perform, lives to live, however carefully.”
And the lives of two men that she loved would be gone before another year arrived.
”The wooden bed in the corner of the room seems so far away, and all is but an intermission, of small and tender consequences.”
And as the new year starts winding toward the next one, the chants of the coming election seem inescapable, but her thoughts drift more often to her loved ones, both here and gone, the fragility and temporary nature of this one life we are given.
Life, love, death, aging, politics, music, poetry, writers, reading, the economy, pollution, all these and more fill and fuel these pages. Some are filled with lovely thoughts, some with frustrations, and some with heartbreaking reminiscences. If you’ve read any of her former memoirs, you may remember of her penchant for including her photographs, ones that typically remind her of a time when someone she loved was there by her side, although there are many that are reminiscent of a place she visited. These things are not just ‘things,’ though, they are real moments in time, captured in some object whose significance may or may not be recognized by anyone else. Like a lullaby, they give her comfort. They are transportation back to that moment, allowing her to relive those feelings, those memories.
”I plodded up the stairs to my room reciting to myself, Once I was seven, soon I will be seventy. I was truly tired. Once I was seven, I repeated, sitting on the edge of the bed, still in my coat.
“Our quiet rage gives us wings, the possibility to negotiate the gears winding backwards, uniting all time.”
Years ago my brother sent me a box of books, and inside that box was a copy of her ‘Just Kids,’ and then when her ‘M Train’ came out, he sent that, as well – but after reading ‘Just Kids’ I would have bought my own copy, hoping that the magic was still there. I love the way she writes, and her personal stories that she shares. I didn’t think she could match her ‘Just Kids,’ and for some maybe she doesn’t, but I loved this as much, maybe just a smidgen more. I think for some it will be more relatable.
”…the trouble with dreaming is that we eventually wake up.”
If you are not a reader who typically read the epilogue, do yourself a favour and make sure you read her final chapter, entitled A KIND OF EPILOGUE.
This often reads as though it were written under a fever-dream and other times the random musings of the poet ”…plucking inspiration from the erratic air”, all the while trying to focus on the things which are established, and her memories of the years gone by. At this point in her life, she has just celebrated her 69th birthday, is contemplating turning seventy in the coming year, concerned over two friends whose health was rapidly fading, the then-coming election, all while drinking lots of coffee, and mourning those who have passed on, and feeling helpless toward those merely hanging on.
”There was work to be done, concerts to perform, lives to live, however carefully.”
And the lives of two men that she loved would be gone before another year arrived.
”The wooden bed in the corner of the room seems so far away, and all is but an intermission, of small and tender consequences.”
And as the new year starts winding toward the next one, the chants of the coming election seem inescapable, but her thoughts drift more often to her loved ones, both here and gone, the fragility and temporary nature of this one life we are given.
Life, love, death, aging, politics, music, poetry, writers, reading, the economy, pollution, all these and more fill and fuel these pages. Some are filled with lovely thoughts, some with frustrations, and some with heartbreaking reminiscences. If you’ve read any of her former memoirs, you may remember of her penchant for including her photographs, ones that typically remind her of a time when someone she loved was there by her side, although there are many that are reminiscent of a place she visited. These things are not just ‘things,’ though, they are real moments in time, captured in some object whose significance may or may not be recognized by anyone else. Like a lullaby, they give her comfort. They are transportation back to that moment, allowing her to relive those feelings, those memories.
”I plodded up the stairs to my room reciting to myself, Once I was seven, soon I will be seventy. I was truly tired. Once I was seven, I repeated, sitting on the edge of the bed, still in my coat.
“Our quiet rage gives us wings, the possibility to negotiate the gears winding backwards, uniting all time.”
Years ago my brother sent me a box of books, and inside that box was a copy of her ‘Just Kids,’ and then when her ‘M Train’ came out, he sent that, as well – but after reading ‘Just Kids’ I would have bought my own copy, hoping that the magic was still there. I love the way she writes, and her personal stories that she shares. I didn’t think she could match her ‘Just Kids,’ and for some maybe she doesn’t, but I loved this as much, maybe just a smidgen more. I think for some it will be more relatable.
”…the trouble with dreaming is that we eventually wake up.”
If you are not a reader who typically read the epilogue, do yourself a favour and make sure you read her final chapter, entitled A KIND OF EPILOGUE.
February 22, 2021
I must begin, and probably just end it, and say that I have a weakness for all things Patti Smith. This book is a logical process in the memoirs she has written before, it's still her, with all her friends, present and not, (mostly men, I couldn't help noticing) and some dreams, or hallucinations. Also her always enlightening and beautiful comments on literature, art and music.But through it all her voice is strong and clear, just as you can imagine her always. Maybe the second added epilogue was not really necessary, if you think about the unity of the book, but then again, I liked her going on and on. And it does seem inevitable that if you've just written a memoir and then a pandemic begins, or a terrible president gets elected, you need, and should just make your book longer and write about it. I love you Patti!
May 24, 2021
Audiobook… read by Patti Smith
….4 hours and 31 minutes
Interesting timing —
Patti Smith wrote this book at age 69…..contemplating turning 70 -
I turned 69 today. I’m contemplating many things myself about aging - our friendships - the world.
[and…. Thank you ahead of time to anyone who wishes me a happy birthday as I certainly wish all of your birthdays to be happy and healthy as well]….. but after posting this pint-size book report —
I am busy all day HAVING FUN….( God forbid, right?/!)
I’ll return messages, comments, read other reviews tomorrow!
So…. About the wonderful Patti Smith,
and this book….
She discussed topics and issues - that many 69/70 years old begin to do: loss of friends who have died,
loss relationships for various reasons, loss youth, aging, death, love,
her life’s work as an artist, musician, poet, writer….
as well as her concerns for the state of our world: politically, socially, economically, and hopefully.
With dreamlike prose - drifting from S.F. to Santa Cruz - west coast to east coast - diner to diner - (Patti’s 3rd memoir), she weaves real and surreal quandaries of life experiences…..
….Patti’s ‘very-real-deep-loss-of-friends….her grief of their passings……was especially felt.
I feel these losses deeply too.
Patti Smith is simply fantastic,
a woman to love, admire and …enjoy….
it’s just the facts of life!!!
Her writing is beautiful- this is a gorgeous memoir - a mixture of fact and fiction —(with a funny ‘true’ story at the beginnings about vomit in her boots at ‘The Fillmore’ in S.F.).
The Fillmore was a very scary place for me, the one time I went in the 60s, only a junior in high school. Scary, filthy, smelly (pot smoke everywhere) …..
…. I enjoyed myself listening to Patti read her book…
Timely, relevant…
perfect timing for me to have read it. Just a perfect book-association for any 69/70 year old.
Note….
younger people and men are allowed this reading pleasure too!
….4 hours and 31 minutes
Interesting timing —
Patti Smith wrote this book at age 69…..contemplating turning 70 -
I turned 69 today. I’m contemplating many things myself about aging - our friendships - the world.
[and…. Thank you ahead of time to anyone who wishes me a happy birthday as I certainly wish all of your birthdays to be happy and healthy as well]….. but after posting this pint-size book report —
I am busy all day HAVING FUN….( God forbid, right?/!)
I’ll return messages, comments, read other reviews tomorrow!
So…. About the wonderful Patti Smith,
and this book….
She discussed topics and issues - that many 69/70 years old begin to do: loss of friends who have died,
loss relationships for various reasons, loss youth, aging, death, love,
her life’s work as an artist, musician, poet, writer….
as well as her concerns for the state of our world: politically, socially, economically, and hopefully.
With dreamlike prose - drifting from S.F. to Santa Cruz - west coast to east coast - diner to diner - (Patti’s 3rd memoir), she weaves real and surreal quandaries of life experiences…..
….Patti’s ‘very-real-deep-loss-of-friends….her grief of their passings……was especially felt.
I feel these losses deeply too.
Patti Smith is simply fantastic,
a woman to love, admire and …enjoy….
it’s just the facts of life!!!
Her writing is beautiful- this is a gorgeous memoir - a mixture of fact and fiction —(with a funny ‘true’ story at the beginnings about vomit in her boots at ‘The Fillmore’ in S.F.).
The Fillmore was a very scary place for me, the one time I went in the 60s, only a junior in high school. Scary, filthy, smelly (pot smoke everywhere) …..
…. I enjoyed myself listening to Patti read her book…
Timely, relevant…
perfect timing for me to have read it. Just a perfect book-association for any 69/70 year old.
Note….
younger people and men are allowed this reading pleasure too!
October 12, 2019
I love Patti Smith. I got to see her talk on a book tour of her last book M Train. It was great, part lecture, part reading, and part concert of her singing some great music. Ha, that's lots of parts. She is a must read for me without even reading the book description. So naturally, I bugged my library for the audio version. If you are going to immerse yourself in a Patti Smith book, the only way to do it is via the audio. I do think she is one of the better narrators out there.
Year of the Monkey is a unique read. A somewhat dreamlike state, her telling her story of a year of wandering...in the Year of the Monkey. At one point, she hitches a ride with two people. I was shocked they had no idea who she was. Or was this all a dream. Anyway, Smith is extremely talented. I enjoy her stories and her talk of books, artists, and music. Though, I'm not hip to music and many times I had no idea who she talking about. But books and artists, all over that. You can tell of her enjoyment of Alice in Wonderland, making me want to revisit this book again. I liked to hear her talk about her relationships with people, especially Sam Shepard. I did have to laugh in the chapter 'Why Belinda Carter Matters'. Smith encounters such unique people and I just want to keep hearing more. It's a very short book, a little over 3 hrs. Shocking I was able to finish it in less than 24 hours. What can I say, life is busy. The book has photographs included that Smith took over time. Something missing from the audio, but I'll be sure to grab the print at some point.
Obviously the audio was great narrated by her. It's funny, I have another of her books in print (somehow ended up with two copies) and I'm so torn, I want to read it but want to hear it. While I enjoyed this one, I really don't think anything can top Just Kids for me. Amazing book, great narration. One of my top 5 reads ever. I will be looking forward to the next Patti Smith book. Begging for it without reading the description, waiting for Smith to 'tell me' a story.
Year of the Monkey is a unique read. A somewhat dreamlike state, her telling her story of a year of wandering...in the Year of the Monkey. At one point, she hitches a ride with two people. I was shocked they had no idea who she was. Or was this all a dream. Anyway, Smith is extremely talented. I enjoy her stories and her talk of books, artists, and music. Though, I'm not hip to music and many times I had no idea who she talking about. But books and artists, all over that. You can tell of her enjoyment of Alice in Wonderland, making me want to revisit this book again. I liked to hear her talk about her relationships with people, especially Sam Shepard. I did have to laugh in the chapter 'Why Belinda Carter Matters'. Smith encounters such unique people and I just want to keep hearing more. It's a very short book, a little over 3 hrs. Shocking I was able to finish it in less than 24 hours. What can I say, life is busy. The book has photographs included that Smith took over time. Something missing from the audio, but I'll be sure to grab the print at some point.
Obviously the audio was great narrated by her. It's funny, I have another of her books in print (somehow ended up with two copies) and I'm so torn, I want to read it but want to hear it. While I enjoyed this one, I really don't think anything can top Just Kids for me. Amazing book, great narration. One of my top 5 reads ever. I will be looking forward to the next Patti Smith book. Begging for it without reading the description, waiting for Smith to 'tell me' a story.
November 14, 2021
My love and admiration for the writing of Patti Smith were born when I read the wonderful Just Kids for the first time back in 2015. I wasn’t, and still am not a fan of her music, even though I’ve always loved her song Because the Night (which was actually written by Bruce Springsteen). What I’m trying to say is that this isn’t, by any means, a biased review. I’m a complete fan, yes, but of her honest and poetic memoirs and the way she beautifully mixes her love and dedication for different kinds of art in them. Contrary to what I think some people might assume, Ms. Smith’s books aren’t about her musical career but about her life in general. In fact, and now that I’m thinking of it, her musical career is the part of her life in which she seemed to focus on the least in the four books I’ve read by her so far.
Here’s a list of some of Ms. Smith’s favourite topics, as far as I’m concerned:
Family.
Friendship.
Memories and photographs.
Black coffee and tinned sardines.
Cats and rain on skylights.
Empty cafés.
Writers.
Novels, essays and poetry.
Traveling.
New York.
America.
The whole world.
And the meaning of art.
As I mentioned above and in previous reviews, Ms. Smith’s writing is poetic with a strong dreamlike quality I love. This time though, perhaps because this one’s quite short, I felt like the dreamlike quality of the writing pushed the storytelling into vagueness territory. Not that I didn’t appreciate it because I did. I just wish Ms. Smith had stayed a bit more grounded and gone out for coffee as regularly as she usually does. I always enjoy going out for coffee with Ms. Smith, you see.
Oh well, next time and I’ll have a double espresso, please!
Here’s a list of some of Ms. Smith’s favourite topics, as far as I’m concerned:
Family.
Friendship.
Memories and photographs.
Black coffee and tinned sardines.
Cats and rain on skylights.
Empty cafés.
Writers.
Novels, essays and poetry.
Traveling.
New York.
America.
The whole world.
And the meaning of art.
As I mentioned above and in previous reviews, Ms. Smith’s writing is poetic with a strong dreamlike quality I love. This time though, perhaps because this one’s quite short, I felt like the dreamlike quality of the writing pushed the storytelling into vagueness territory. Not that I didn’t appreciate it because I did. I just wish Ms. Smith had stayed a bit more grounded and gone out for coffee as regularly as she usually does. I always enjoy going out for coffee with Ms. Smith, you see.
Oh well, next time and I’ll have a double espresso, please!
Read
January 31, 2024I've read a couple of Patti Smith books and this, like those, hits the same notes. You know, the "I'm reading Patti's journal and she not only doesn't mind, she likes it" notes.
Meaning: Not great literature by any means, but so folksy. So comfort food-y. So she-likes-what-we-like (books, music, food, photographs, traveling, bottomless coffee mugs). Money is no object because, well, Patti has money. We like that, too. Or would if more of it were in OUR pockets.
Born in the Year of the Monkey (or one of them), I came round right away as Patti launches in with the longest section in the book (and maybe the best, as it flagged a bit), "Way Out West." Patti's on her own but always has friends to meet. Sadly, one old friend is terminally ill but hanging in there, leaving the door open for memory.
Patti meets the sign for her motel (The Dream Inn... get it? "Dreamin'"?) and that opens doors to imagination. She meets an imaginary friend (most of us lose contact in childhood) early and often. His name is Ernest and the man can talk books. Mostly they talk Bolaño's "The Part About the Crimes," a section in his door-stopper, 2666. As usual, the Patti Smith reader wants to read what Patti's reading, but luckily for me, I had already wended my way through those four numbers (they add up, trust me).
As I said, the center cannot hold, and the book loses some steam. It's as if the opening 57 pages were her initial thought, than she figured, "Hell, I have a built-in fanbase slash readership, why not push this to the number of pages my editor requires in order to make it a book?" So she monkeys around with it, and voila, an OK book is born!
But still, it's Patti. Her journal. And so similar to what yours would be if you kept one. So sit down. Have a coffee or two thousand with Patti. You'll probably come out of it like me, saying this book's not half bad, and anxiously awaiting the next Patti you haven't read (and for me, that's quite a few).
Meaning: Not great literature by any means, but so folksy. So comfort food-y. So she-likes-what-we-like (books, music, food, photographs, traveling, bottomless coffee mugs). Money is no object because, well, Patti has money. We like that, too. Or would if more of it were in OUR pockets.
Born in the Year of the Monkey (or one of them), I came round right away as Patti launches in with the longest section in the book (and maybe the best, as it flagged a bit), "Way Out West." Patti's on her own but always has friends to meet. Sadly, one old friend is terminally ill but hanging in there, leaving the door open for memory.
Patti meets the sign for her motel (The Dream Inn... get it? "Dreamin'"?) and that opens doors to imagination. She meets an imaginary friend (most of us lose contact in childhood) early and often. His name is Ernest and the man can talk books. Mostly they talk Bolaño's "The Part About the Crimes," a section in his door-stopper, 2666. As usual, the Patti Smith reader wants to read what Patti's reading, but luckily for me, I had already wended my way through those four numbers (they add up, trust me).
As I said, the center cannot hold, and the book loses some steam. It's as if the opening 57 pages were her initial thought, than she figured, "Hell, I have a built-in fanbase slash readership, why not push this to the number of pages my editor requires in order to make it a book?" So she monkeys around with it, and voila, an OK book is born!
But still, it's Patti. Her journal. And so similar to what yours would be if you kept one. So sit down. Have a coffee or two thousand with Patti. You'll probably come out of it like me, saying this book's not half bad, and anxiously awaiting the next Patti you haven't read (and for me, that's quite a few).
January 14, 2020
“A mortal folly comes over the world”—Antonin Artaud
“Anything is possible, he said. After all, it’s the Year of the Monkey.”
Year of the Monkey is the third memoir from punk rocker and National Book Award winner (Just Kids) Patti Smith, and it is making a lot of best-of-the-year lists. It’s short, a smallish book, filled with Smith’s signature Polaroids as she documents a year when she turned seventy, 2016, the Year of the Monkey, which is as you may recall is the same year Trump was elected.
There’s a lot of sadness in this book, but it is not about Trump, at least not initially. He’s always in the shadows in the early essays that represent events that take place in the run-up to the election, as a kind of foreboding, and the last chapter is a kind of lament/outcry post-election, but the gist of this book is about the loss of two of her best friends, the writers Sandy Pearlman and Sam Shepherd. As with much of life, it’s about dealing more and more regularly with grief as a condition of life as one ages, but this is what she finally feels about life after dealing with all these losses, in case you think this might be too sad to read:
“Yet still I keep thinking that something wonderful is about to happen. Maybe tomorrow.”
The spirit of this book is positive, hopeful, very much embracing life. It opens with Smith checking into the Dream Inn, and quite a bit of what happens (in California, at least) erases the difference between memory, observation and dream. One character she hangs out with, Ernest? I don’t even know he exists, except in her solitary, creative mind. The text reads to me sometimes as speculative non-fiction, sometimes surreal but never random, always relevant.
“When I reentered the room I could see that I was still sleeping, so I waited, with the window was open, till I awoke.”
“It seemed like I had walked for miles, yet everything stayed the same.”
A lyrical punk rocker, at 70? Yet she always was, and some of the writing here to open the book is from the poet she has always been:
“Happy new year to the waxing moon, the telepathic sea.”
“Ashen birds circling the city dusted with night.”
“. . . sorrow’s vertigo. . .”
Images recur: birds, candy wrappers, cups of coffee, missing children, Medea, monkey gods. The repetition and synchronicity of dream logic.
Smith reflects on and sometimes has discussions throughout with various people about literature; in Venice Beach she has a discussion with some folks about Roberto Bolano’s masterwork, 2666, completed as he was dying. Fictional dreams within dreams within dreams. Her amulets for protection as she faces grief and the decline of so much in this time are like mine, like many of yours: The arts, reading, paying attention as she does in the notebook she carries everywhere.
As I read this book I drank tea from my Year of the Monkey cup, which I got from Chinatown here in Chicago. I got it in 2016, (see above, the Year of the Monkey) and will always now associate the cup (oddly, yin/yang?) with Smith and Trump, and my own losses of that year and this as I myself age. I began to read it on my birthday, January 6, or twelfth night, or The Epiphany. I didn't love all of the shortest essays as much as I did the ones on Sandy and Sam, but still, this book lives on in me now like a dream. I too hope daily that something wonderful is about to happen, and truthfully, every day something wonderful does.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: “Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to live.”
“Anything is possible, he said. After all, it’s the Year of the Monkey.”
Year of the Monkey is the third memoir from punk rocker and National Book Award winner (Just Kids) Patti Smith, and it is making a lot of best-of-the-year lists. It’s short, a smallish book, filled with Smith’s signature Polaroids as she documents a year when she turned seventy, 2016, the Year of the Monkey, which is as you may recall is the same year Trump was elected.
There’s a lot of sadness in this book, but it is not about Trump, at least not initially. He’s always in the shadows in the early essays that represent events that take place in the run-up to the election, as a kind of foreboding, and the last chapter is a kind of lament/outcry post-election, but the gist of this book is about the loss of two of her best friends, the writers Sandy Pearlman and Sam Shepherd. As with much of life, it’s about dealing more and more regularly with grief as a condition of life as one ages, but this is what she finally feels about life after dealing with all these losses, in case you think this might be too sad to read:
“Yet still I keep thinking that something wonderful is about to happen. Maybe tomorrow.”
The spirit of this book is positive, hopeful, very much embracing life. It opens with Smith checking into the Dream Inn, and quite a bit of what happens (in California, at least) erases the difference between memory, observation and dream. One character she hangs out with, Ernest? I don’t even know he exists, except in her solitary, creative mind. The text reads to me sometimes as speculative non-fiction, sometimes surreal but never random, always relevant.
“When I reentered the room I could see that I was still sleeping, so I waited, with the window was open, till I awoke.”
“It seemed like I had walked for miles, yet everything stayed the same.”
A lyrical punk rocker, at 70? Yet she always was, and some of the writing here to open the book is from the poet she has always been:
“Happy new year to the waxing moon, the telepathic sea.”
“Ashen birds circling the city dusted with night.”
“. . . sorrow’s vertigo. . .”
Images recur: birds, candy wrappers, cups of coffee, missing children, Medea, monkey gods. The repetition and synchronicity of dream logic.
Smith reflects on and sometimes has discussions throughout with various people about literature; in Venice Beach she has a discussion with some folks about Roberto Bolano’s masterwork, 2666, completed as he was dying. Fictional dreams within dreams within dreams. Her amulets for protection as she faces grief and the decline of so much in this time are like mine, like many of yours: The arts, reading, paying attention as she does in the notebook she carries everywhere.
As I read this book I drank tea from my Year of the Monkey cup, which I got from Chinatown here in Chicago. I got it in 2016, (see above, the Year of the Monkey) and will always now associate the cup (oddly, yin/yang?) with Smith and Trump, and my own losses of that year and this as I myself age. I began to read it on my birthday, January 6, or twelfth night, or The Epiphany. I didn't love all of the shortest essays as much as I did the ones on Sandy and Sam, but still, this book lives on in me now like a dream. I too hope daily that something wonderful is about to happen, and truthfully, every day something wonderful does.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: “Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to live.”
January 27, 2020
This is a year in the life of Patti Smith and it’s wrapped up like a dream. We start out and she is on the California coast at the Dream Inn. Her life friend Sam, I'm not sure if they’re married or not, is dying. She wraps her life up with this ‘life is but a dream’ imagery. I love her prose and how she entangles all these events together. She is moving about the country. She goes to San Francisco and Kentucky and New York and ends up in Virginia Beach. She is a rambler.
This is 2016, the year of the Monkey and the Monkey is about the trickster. She brings the election of Trump into this mischief, but she never names him.
She is trying to make sense of her world and I feel she is taking stock of the life she has lived and boiling her life down to essentials. She has lost a lot of people in her life at this point of being 70. She has a way with ideas and words. This was an enjoyable read for me. I’m so glad I picked it up.
I want to read M Train by her. Maybe Woolgathering as well. She puts you in a different headspace. It’s not about plot or conflict. It’s philosophy, it’s prose, it’s ideas and it’s people and what she can make out about that.
I generally read very plot driven stories. I do love a plot driven story, but sometimes that gets old and this is a breath of fresh air for me. Life doesn’t always need to be driven by plot and neither does fiction. Sometimes people are interesting enough on their own. I think I might be a character driven reader.
This is 2016, the year of the Monkey and the Monkey is about the trickster. She brings the election of Trump into this mischief, but she never names him.
She is trying to make sense of her world and I feel she is taking stock of the life she has lived and boiling her life down to essentials. She has lost a lot of people in her life at this point of being 70. She has a way with ideas and words. This was an enjoyable read for me. I’m so glad I picked it up.
I want to read M Train by her. Maybe Woolgathering as well. She puts you in a different headspace. It’s not about plot or conflict. It’s philosophy, it’s prose, it’s ideas and it’s people and what she can make out about that.
I generally read very plot driven stories. I do love a plot driven story, but sometimes that gets old and this is a breath of fresh air for me. Life doesn’t always need to be driven by plot and neither does fiction. Sometimes people are interesting enough on their own. I think I might be a character driven reader.
January 3, 2020
Patti Smith is nothing if not a wordsmith. I would love to spend a day in her head, because her brain is a fascinating one. Year of the Monkey is kind of a memoir of Patti living a kind of vagabond existence for one year of her life (2016 I believe), but it also veers into an area where reality and fiction are blurred. It becomes quite odd at times, and I can't say I loved all of it. But for the most part I was in such a quiet little zone reading this, I felt really detached from reality like I was wandering the streets with Patti herself, and that was great. There is something so comforting about her describing something as mundane as getting breakfast and endless cups of coffee, and I can't imagine ever not enjoying that.
December 8, 2019
There are books I love not just for what they are in themselves, but for the quality of the ideas they stimulate within me, their lingering effect. The Year of the Monkey is such a book. In a year ruled by a trickster, in a year of monkey wrenches and monkey-shines, political dire straits (2016 is the Year of the Monkey)--all a woman can do is respond to what the universe kicks up, open to the implications of the random, following where they lead.
Smith is 69, going to be seventy, when she takes to the road in this dreamscape of a book which I take to be largely fictional, peppered by moments from life. Dreams (it begins with a stay at Santa Cruz's Dream Inn, a remade surfer luxe motel, the sign of which speaks to her) thread the book together, as do touchstones of beloved authors and poets (this book is haunted by the work and life of Roberto Bolano, who also died young), and places which link memory to the present, and a myriad of losses which like earthquake aftershocks reverberate through the book.
At 69, mortality is never far from Smith's mind, and the reality of the dead and dying-- lifelong friends fading, beloved husband and brother taken--melds with the mystery of the present moment. Chance encounters real or imagined threaded into a quest, kind of a magical mystery tour, where she follows the chain of chance and coincidence--chance being the poetic language of the universe, and Smith is always the poet, looking for signs and wonders, 'reading' scraps of paper on a beach as a sign, which link to other scraps, in memory and in the succeeding scenes, in a way that recalls The Crying of Lot 49. This is a universe you not only speak to, but which speaks in return. I found myself opening up to that language as I was reading the book, noticing in what way the world was sending me these kinds of messages and metaphors. If taken to the extreme, this is schizophrenia, but if embraced with the knowledge that this is the symbolic world, it refreshes one's own connection to life and the self.
Patti Smith aims to sandpaper the grime of accustomed living off your sensibility, which few books even attempt to do. She is eternally a pilgrim, looking for sources of awe and inspiration, moments of contact with the mysterious processes of the world. Taking this journey with her doesn't put her beyond our judgement--why did she run out on her dying friend? So she doesn't like hospitals... who does?--but at 69, having lost her best friend Robert Mappelthorpbe, her husband Fred Sonic Smith, and more recently her brother Frank, I can certainly understand. She has done her hitch, and will be doing more, as we see when she visits Sam Shepard, succumbing to ALS in Kentucky. Sometimes she does feel like the last man standing. And yet she still ventures on her pilgrimages, revisiting sites which have resonance within her personal canon or literary memory, opening herself to the random invitation, pursuing the chain of chance, as themes arise and recur, as varied as Belinda Carlisle, "We've got the Beat" to the Ghent Altarpiece to Pessoa's Lisbon.
Her imaginativeness inspires me every time. Here she is in San Diego, where she has hitchhiked in a fictional series of events: "I checked into the old San Vicente Hotel, which hadn't changed much in the decades save in name. I was happy to be back in my same room on the second floor. Once I had imagined living in this room, cloaked in obscurity, writing detective stories." (Her passion for detective stories forms another motif.)
But it's that sense of who you are now haunted by the self you'd been which moved me. It recurs throughout the book, often in relation to the people who she is losing, who knew her when they were both young, and now.
"It was all so close, the rays of the sun, the sweetness, a sense of time lost forever..."
"Staring at my image on the mercurial surface of the the toaster, I noticed I looked young and old simultaneously...."
"Seventy. Merely a number but one indicating the passing of a significant percentage of the allotted sand in an egg timer, with oneself as the darn egg. The grain pour and I find myself missing the dead more than usual. I notice that I cry more when watching television, triggered by romance, a retiring detective shot in the back while staring into the sea..."
Smith is 69, going to be seventy, when she takes to the road in this dreamscape of a book which I take to be largely fictional, peppered by moments from life. Dreams (it begins with a stay at Santa Cruz's Dream Inn, a remade surfer luxe motel, the sign of which speaks to her) thread the book together, as do touchstones of beloved authors and poets (this book is haunted by the work and life of Roberto Bolano, who also died young), and places which link memory to the present, and a myriad of losses which like earthquake aftershocks reverberate through the book.
At 69, mortality is never far from Smith's mind, and the reality of the dead and dying-- lifelong friends fading, beloved husband and brother taken--melds with the mystery of the present moment. Chance encounters real or imagined threaded into a quest, kind of a magical mystery tour, where she follows the chain of chance and coincidence--chance being the poetic language of the universe, and Smith is always the poet, looking for signs and wonders, 'reading' scraps of paper on a beach as a sign, which link to other scraps, in memory and in the succeeding scenes, in a way that recalls The Crying of Lot 49. This is a universe you not only speak to, but which speaks in return. I found myself opening up to that language as I was reading the book, noticing in what way the world was sending me these kinds of messages and metaphors. If taken to the extreme, this is schizophrenia, but if embraced with the knowledge that this is the symbolic world, it refreshes one's own connection to life and the self.
Patti Smith aims to sandpaper the grime of accustomed living off your sensibility, which few books even attempt to do. She is eternally a pilgrim, looking for sources of awe and inspiration, moments of contact with the mysterious processes of the world. Taking this journey with her doesn't put her beyond our judgement--why did she run out on her dying friend? So she doesn't like hospitals... who does?--but at 69, having lost her best friend Robert Mappelthorpbe, her husband Fred Sonic Smith, and more recently her brother Frank, I can certainly understand. She has done her hitch, and will be doing more, as we see when she visits Sam Shepard, succumbing to ALS in Kentucky. Sometimes she does feel like the last man standing. And yet she still ventures on her pilgrimages, revisiting sites which have resonance within her personal canon or literary memory, opening herself to the random invitation, pursuing the chain of chance, as themes arise and recur, as varied as Belinda Carlisle, "We've got the Beat" to the Ghent Altarpiece to Pessoa's Lisbon.
Her imaginativeness inspires me every time. Here she is in San Diego, where she has hitchhiked in a fictional series of events: "I checked into the old San Vicente Hotel, which hadn't changed much in the decades save in name. I was happy to be back in my same room on the second floor. Once I had imagined living in this room, cloaked in obscurity, writing detective stories." (Her passion for detective stories forms another motif.)
But it's that sense of who you are now haunted by the self you'd been which moved me. It recurs throughout the book, often in relation to the people who she is losing, who knew her when they were both young, and now.
"It was all so close, the rays of the sun, the sweetness, a sense of time lost forever..."
"Staring at my image on the mercurial surface of the the toaster, I noticed I looked young and old simultaneously...."
"Seventy. Merely a number but one indicating the passing of a significant percentage of the allotted sand in an egg timer, with oneself as the darn egg. The grain pour and I find myself missing the dead more than usual. I notice that I cry more when watching television, triggered by romance, a retiring detective shot in the back while staring into the sea..."
January 1, 2020
[6/10]
As with most Patti Smith books, I think I'll enjoy this one the more time I ponder it and when I inevitably read it again. It's very dreamy and wandering, about a year in her life where she was a sort of vagabond. So the prose meanders as well and it's hard to find your footing. Nevertheless, as I always say, I love Smith's writing style and will read whatever she puts out. And I'll be sure to revisit this one again in the future.
As with most Patti Smith books, I think I'll enjoy this one the more time I ponder it and when I inevitably read it again. It's very dreamy and wandering, about a year in her life where she was a sort of vagabond. So the prose meanders as well and it's hard to find your footing. Nevertheless, as I always say, I love Smith's writing style and will read whatever she puts out. And I'll be sure to revisit this one again in the future.
October 22, 2019
Reading this was like being apart someone's dream with insight into their reflections and thoughts while with the feeling of suspension in time that dreams often evoke. Patti Smith writes about the year 2016, which is the Chinese Year of the Monkey. She spends time hitchhiking and relating her free spirited journey to various places in America while subsequently reminiscing on life, loss, aging, and politics. The dreamlike quality lasts throughout, and it is hard to know what is real and what is illusion. Her polaroids (that she is known for) are interspersed throughout adding to the feeling of floating through time that she has fashioned in this artistic and graceful memoir.
November 15, 2020
"Nothing is ever solved. Solving is an illusion. There are moments of spontaneous brightness, when the mind appears emancipated, but that is mere epiphany."
Since I've loved Patti Smith for as long as I can remember, it was clear that I would pick this new memoir up on release day, even though her other recent one, M Train , was a bitter disappointment—I liked this better than that last attempt, but only marginally so, not enough to warrant a full additional star.
Everything that worked in Just Kids ' favor now falls flat. What once could be accepted as the endearing bohemian quirks of a poor, struggling artist, now read as the eccentricities of an aging spinster who, despite her fame and fortune, is still trying to hold on to a different time. Her prose might still exhibit some sparks of introspective beauty every once in a while, but most of the time it feels somewhat contrived, if not exactly insincere. Then, other times, it just reads like gibberish. Recognizable reality is woven into Patti's own world of dreams and visions, where fact and fiction blend together in poetry, and I was often torn between wishing I could see things as she does, and thinking that a weird, babbly sort of senility must've caught up with her at last. I had the distinct impression that her mind seemed to aimlessly wander more than it used to when I last saw her live (in the Year of the Goat, the year before the one this memoir concerns itself with), and I can see it reflected in her writing, too. It's a harsh thing, seeing one's heroes grow old.
In M Train, she made a point about writing about nothing at all, while there is a certain theme throughout Year of the Monkey, which chronicles her solitary wandering in 2016, coming off a tour, and approaching her seventieth birthday, with her signature polaroids interspersed throughout. It was a year with many unexpected turns that had her grappling with loss, change, and her own aging... and the dramatic results of the US election. While most of the book feels somewhat intangible—it's the dreamy recollection of a turbulent, watershed year, after all—I thought that she finally found her flow and thread towards the end as she muses about mortality... and then the book ends.
Part of the charm of her writing has always been the way she writes about the very mundane, but she often takes it too far here—I wish she'd spent less time recounting her meals in grimy diners in minute detail, and more time putting fleeting feelings into words, something she can do so well when she turns her pen and mind to it—I love her art, but I don't care what she had for breakfast on a January morning in 2016. The last few chapters of the book, when she stepped back and considered the larger picture that the changed political landscape entails, and worked in her considerations about death and aging when Sam Shepard passed on, were much more powerful than the dreamlike, stream-of-consciousness musings that preceded it, and they left me dissatisfied, because I wanted more of the good stuff. All in all, it's worth reading if you're a fan, but I found it a meager, stilted offering, somewhat redeemed only by the last quarter, which had some insight to offer, while the rest lacked depth and emotion. I'll keep her records and Just Kids close to my heart, but I unfortunately don't think that her prose is for me, otherwise.
January 5, 2021
‘Maymun Yılı’, Patti Smith’ten okuduğum üçüncü kitap oldu. En az ‘Hayalperestler’ ve ‘M Treni’ kadar sevdim bu kitabı da. Bir oturuşta bitti. Zarif ve detaycıydı. Kitabın en çok ‘umutsuz umutlu’ havasını sevdim sanırım. Patti Smith’le tanışma kitabı olarak da gayet uygun bir seçim bence ‘Maymun Yılı’...
July 18, 2019
Patti Smith is a poet warrior who's maybe reaching her peak as the country reaches a low point. This book is hypnotic and , as the title warns you, dream like. Long sections are hallucinatory, inspired, and it's impossible to tell what's real and what's not real but still truthful. This is a book about loss--Sam Shepherd to ALS, Sandy Pearlman to a cerebral hemorrhage, America to its President. Smith lives in a dreamy world of poetry and opera. Spending a few hours dreaming with her is a privilege.
September 20, 2019
My favorite Patti Smith book (so far). I will discuss this book with Kimley on our podcast Book Musik.
September 3, 2021
3.5 Stars!
In some ways this is a book about absolutely nothing at all. I can see why someone could love or hate this. Personally I really enjoyed the whimsical, easy-going feel to it, with a hearty sprinkling of darkness to finish, which Smith seems to do so well.
There are just so many random scenes and moments in here that it starts to take on a semi-cinematic feel. Like a quirky road movie with a bit of David Lynch about it. One of the strangest scenes has to be when she hitches a lift with this couple on the condition that she doesn’t speak a word in the entire journey. After a while Smith is really enjoying the music and accidentally says “What a great playlist!” then the guy pulls over and opens her door and says, “We said no talking. It’s the cardinal rule.” After she apologies, he agrees to give her one last chance, but then when they later stop somewhere for gas and she goes into the bathroom she says them pulling away into the horizon, leaving her stranded.
The ghosts of the departed loom around the fringes of these recollections, and the ticking clock of mortality appears to slowly get louder with each turn of the page. Her pictures look like Polaroids found at a series of strange unsolved crimes, and yet that is part of their allure. This could make for heavy reading at times and yet I couldn’t help but get a sense of warmth and optimism from it. I enjoyed this, but it’s certainly not for everyone.
August 1, 2019
Patti Smith's latest memoir recounts the happenings of her life in 2016, which, somewhat unsurprisingly, was the year of the monkey (猴年) in the Chinese zodiac. The reader follows Smith as she hitchhikes around the U.S. while grappling with the death and illness of two close friends.
I loved the first half of this - it felt reminiscent of some of Joan Didion's writing at times, dreamy passages about California and life in "the in-between". It lost steam a little for me in the second half, but still made for an enjoyable introduction to Smith's writing.
Thank you Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
I loved the first half of this - it felt reminiscent of some of Joan Didion's writing at times, dreamy passages about California and life in "the in-between". It lost steam a little for me in the second half, but still made for an enjoyable introduction to Smith's writing.
Thank you Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.
October 20, 2021
no shade but I did not understand a single thing that happened in this book.
March 14, 2022
I liked this, but nowhere near as much as I loved two other books by Patti Smith: the moving elegy to photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, Just Kids; and M Train, which was part travelogue, part tribute to Patti’s deceased husband, musician Fred “Sonic” Smith.
This book, like those, consisted of loosely connected, hallucinogenic sketches. It had a mournful and dreamy tone, like a sad LSD inspired prose poem. This book was more meandering than the other two books I mentioned above.
Patti riffs on the sadness of losing longtime friends Sandy Pearlman (musician in Blue Oyster Cult, band manager, and music producer); and playwright Sam Shepard, who succumbs to ALS. She touches on the sorrows of the pandemic and the 2016 election and its aftermath. She travels to Ghent, Belgium to view the restored Ghent alter piece painted by Jan van Eyck. She travels to California to perform and visit the comatose Pearlman in the hospital. She stays in a place called “The Dream Inn” and gets advice from its sign. She meets a guy named Ernest in San Diego, and he turns up in several other places Patti travels to, including Virginia Beach. We don’t always know when Patti is dreaming and when she’s awake. Neither does she.
The piece wanders all over the place, as Patti reminisces about her kids, the leak in her Manhattan apartment’s skylight, and her many lost friends and relatives. It doesn’t seem to have a structure; or rather, the structure becomes more apparent after later reflection.
The book is poignantly illustrated by the spare little Polaroid photos she takes, which remind me of old sepia toned pictures.
Following the Ghent altarpiece theme towards the end, the book has multiple epilogues. Several of them are framed as “Panels”.
Patti is enamored of all things Chinese: Chinatowns, Chinese herbs, Chinese restaurants (she loves New York’s Wo Hop, which I too have enjoyed several times), Chinese New Year celebrations. We start off in the Year of the Fire Monkey (2016), traverse the Year of the Fire Rooster (2017), and end in the Year of the Metal Rat (2020).
I usually avoid memoirs, but I make exceptions if they’re written by certain favorite writers, like Patti Smith.
As usual, Patti reads her own audios. She’s not the best audio reader, but she’s not bad.
This book, like those, consisted of loosely connected, hallucinogenic sketches. It had a mournful and dreamy tone, like a sad LSD inspired prose poem. This book was more meandering than the other two books I mentioned above.
Patti riffs on the sadness of losing longtime friends Sandy Pearlman (musician in Blue Oyster Cult, band manager, and music producer); and playwright Sam Shepard, who succumbs to ALS. She touches on the sorrows of the pandemic and the 2016 election and its aftermath. She travels to Ghent, Belgium to view the restored Ghent alter piece painted by Jan van Eyck. She travels to California to perform and visit the comatose Pearlman in the hospital. She stays in a place called “The Dream Inn” and gets advice from its sign. She meets a guy named Ernest in San Diego, and he turns up in several other places Patti travels to, including Virginia Beach. We don’t always know when Patti is dreaming and when she’s awake. Neither does she.
The piece wanders all over the place, as Patti reminisces about her kids, the leak in her Manhattan apartment’s skylight, and her many lost friends and relatives. It doesn’t seem to have a structure; or rather, the structure becomes more apparent after later reflection.
The book is poignantly illustrated by the spare little Polaroid photos she takes, which remind me of old sepia toned pictures.
Following the Ghent altarpiece theme towards the end, the book has multiple epilogues. Several of them are framed as “Panels”.
Patti is enamored of all things Chinese: Chinatowns, Chinese herbs, Chinese restaurants (she loves New York’s Wo Hop, which I too have enjoyed several times), Chinese New Year celebrations. We start off in the Year of the Fire Monkey (2016), traverse the Year of the Fire Rooster (2017), and end in the Year of the Metal Rat (2020).
I usually avoid memoirs, but I make exceptions if they’re written by certain favorite writers, like Patti Smith.
As usual, Patti reads her own audios. She’s not the best audio reader, but she’s not bad.
January 30, 2021
Bir Artonin Artaud alıntısıyla başlıyor Maymun Yılı: "Amansız bir deliliğe yakalanıyor dünya." 2016 yılının ilk gününde yakalıyoruz Patti Smith'i, Santa Cruz'da Dream Inn adında bir otele giriş yapıyor. Aslında yalnız olmaması lazım, plan böyle değildi. Ancak buraya beraber gelmeyi planladığı yakın dostu Sandy Pearlman bir otoparkta geçirdiği beyin kanamasının ardından hastanede, yoğun bakımda. Ve bu noktadan başlayıp bir seneden uzun bir zamanı Smith'in hem peşinde hem de kafasının içinde geçiriyoruz.
Anlaşılacağı üzere Maymun Yılı'nda da M Treni'nde olduğu gibi Smith'in günlük tuttuğu notları okuyoruz. Ancak bu sefer Smith'in anlatımı biraz daha muğlak, rüyalar ve gerçekler iç içe geçmiş durumda. Gerçi galiba Sam Shepard diyordu kitabın bir yerlerinde, "Rüyadaki ellerin benim ölü ellerimden daha az gerçek olduğunu söyleyebilir miyiz?". Gerçekler ve rüyalar kol kola girip kitap boyunca beraber ilerliyor.
Kitaba en çok damgasını vuran şey Smith'in uzun süredir tanıdığı ve artık yavaş yavaş aramızdan ayrılmaya başlayan dostları olmuş. Sandy, Sam, Lenny hep oradalar; hastane yatağında yatıyor da olsalar tekerlekli sandalyeye mahkum da, Smith gittiği her yere onların tahayyülünü de götürüyor. Ki bir açıdan mantıklı aslında, çünkü Çoluk Çocuk'ta Mapplethorpe'u, M Treni'nde de eşi Fred'i dinlemiştik. Bir de tabi Smith'in sevdiği yazarlar, filmler, diziler ve polisiye romanlar var. Bolano, Conrad, Pessoa, Ginsberg, Burroughs kitap boyunca karşımıza çıkan bazı isimler sadece.
Sonlara doğru 2016 Amerika seçimleri giriyor çerçeveye ve tabi ki Smith'in Trump ile ilgili düşüncelerini dinliyoruz. Smith'in pek ilgi gösteremediğim ilk sözleri bunlar oldu galiba. Söylediği her şeye katılıyorum ama Trump hakkında o kadar çok kişiden o kadar çok şey dinledik ve bunlar o kadar birbirine benziyor ki ne bir özgünlüğü ne de bir ilginçliği kaldı konunun. Bir de kitabın en sonunda 2020'yle ve kısacık da olsa pandemiyle ilgili düşüncelerine de yer vermiş. Bob Dylan'ın aldığı Nobel'i de aslında 2016'nın sonlarında Smith gidip kabul etmişti ama o konudan hiç bahsetmiyor kitapta.
Çevirmen Seda Ersavcı yine iyi iş çıkarmış, editörlük de sorunsuzdu. Daha önce de söyledim ve söylemeye devam edeceğim, Patti Smith dünya üzerinde dinlemeyi, okumayı en sevdiğim seslerden biri. Ne anlattığından ziyade nasıl anlattığı, etrafını nasıl gördüğü büyülüyor beni. Böyle olunca yediği yemekten de bahsetse kaldığı otelden de, ilgiyle okuyuyorum. M Treni'nde de dediğim gibi herkese göre bir kitap değil Maymun Yılı, ama M Treni'ni okuyup sevdiyseniz bunu da seveceğinize şüphem yok. Günün birinde Smith de dostları gibi aramızdan ayrılacak ve pek kimse bunun farkında olmayacak olsa da o gün hepimiz için çok acı bir gün olacak.
Anlaşılacağı üzere Maymun Yılı'nda da M Treni'nde olduğu gibi Smith'in günlük tuttuğu notları okuyoruz. Ancak bu sefer Smith'in anlatımı biraz daha muğlak, rüyalar ve gerçekler iç içe geçmiş durumda. Gerçi galiba Sam Shepard diyordu kitabın bir yerlerinde, "Rüyadaki ellerin benim ölü ellerimden daha az gerçek olduğunu söyleyebilir miyiz?". Gerçekler ve rüyalar kol kola girip kitap boyunca beraber ilerliyor.
Kitaba en çok damgasını vuran şey Smith'in uzun süredir tanıdığı ve artık yavaş yavaş aramızdan ayrılmaya başlayan dostları olmuş. Sandy, Sam, Lenny hep oradalar; hastane yatağında yatıyor da olsalar tekerlekli sandalyeye mahkum da, Smith gittiği her yere onların tahayyülünü de götürüyor. Ki bir açıdan mantıklı aslında, çünkü Çoluk Çocuk'ta Mapplethorpe'u, M Treni'nde de eşi Fred'i dinlemiştik. Bir de tabi Smith'in sevdiği yazarlar, filmler, diziler ve polisiye romanlar var. Bolano, Conrad, Pessoa, Ginsberg, Burroughs kitap boyunca karşımıza çıkan bazı isimler sadece.
Sonlara doğru 2016 Amerika seçimleri giriyor çerçeveye ve tabi ki Smith'in Trump ile ilgili düşüncelerini dinliyoruz. Smith'in pek ilgi gösteremediğim ilk sözleri bunlar oldu galiba. Söylediği her şeye katılıyorum ama Trump hakkında o kadar çok kişiden o kadar çok şey dinledik ve bunlar o kadar birbirine benziyor ki ne bir özgünlüğü ne de bir ilginçliği kaldı konunun. Bir de kitabın en sonunda 2020'yle ve kısacık da olsa pandemiyle ilgili düşüncelerine de yer vermiş. Bob Dylan'ın aldığı Nobel'i de aslında 2016'nın sonlarında Smith gidip kabul etmişti ama o konudan hiç bahsetmiyor kitapta.
Çevirmen Seda Ersavcı yine iyi iş çıkarmış, editörlük de sorunsuzdu. Daha önce de söyledim ve söylemeye devam edeceğim, Patti Smith dünya üzerinde dinlemeyi, okumayı en sevdiğim seslerden biri. Ne anlattığından ziyade nasıl anlattığı, etrafını nasıl gördüğü büyülüyor beni. Böyle olunca yediği yemekten de bahsetse kaldığı otelden de, ilgiyle okuyuyorum. M Treni'nde de dediğim gibi herkese göre bir kitap değil Maymun Yılı, ama M Treni'ni okuyup sevdiyseniz bunu da seveceğinize şüphem yok. Günün birinde Smith de dostları gibi aramızdan ayrılacak ve pek kimse bunun farkında olmayacak olsa da o gün hepimiz için çok acı bir gün olacak.
July 31, 2020
Het jaar 2016 begint en eindigt in hotel Dream Inn in Santa Cruz. Tussen — bij manier van spreken — Nieuwjaar en Oudjaar beleeft Patti Smith niet bepaald de meest zorgeloze tijd. In haar opschrijfboekje noteert ze haar bevreemdende dromen en gedachten, haar ervaringen en herinneringen, hier en daar gedocumenteerd met een polaroid.
De dagen van dit ‘Jaar van de aap’ ademen een bepaalde onrust. Of Smith nu in Portugal of België verblijft, in Australië of de Verenigde Staten, ze is niet echt bezig met zichzelf. Zeventig, so what. Ze is meer op anderen en op de wereld gericht. Het zijn in het bijzonder haar goede vrienden (producer) Sandy Pearlman en (toneelschrijver/acteur) Sam Shepard die het jaar beheersen. Allebei zijn ze ernstig ziek, om niet te zeggen stervende. “Iedereen gaat dood,” had hij [Sam Shepard] gezegd, kijkend naar de handen die langzaam hun kracht verloren, ‘hoewel ik dit nooit had zien aankomen. Maar ik heb er vrede mee. Ik heb mijn leven geleid zoals ik dat wilde.”
Wegkwijnen en verdwijnen zorgen voor een voortdurende zoemtoon in dit boek. In een paar zinnen brengt Smith de nieuwsfeiten van 2016 in herinnering. Ze hoeft Trump niet eens met naam te noemen. Haar zorgen over de wereld herken ik meteen. De wereld is niet goed bezig. “De dood van de laatste witte neushoorn. De verwoesting van Puerto Rico. De slachting van schoolkinderen. De minachtende woorden en daden gericht tegen immigranten.”
Dit is geen ‘boekje voor even tussendoor’. Logisch. Voor een heftig jaar moet je de tijd nemen.
‘Jaar van de aap’ is uit het Engels vertaald door Astrid Huisman.
De dagen van dit ‘Jaar van de aap’ ademen een bepaalde onrust. Of Smith nu in Portugal of België verblijft, in Australië of de Verenigde Staten, ze is niet echt bezig met zichzelf. Zeventig, so what. Ze is meer op anderen en op de wereld gericht. Het zijn in het bijzonder haar goede vrienden (producer) Sandy Pearlman en (toneelschrijver/acteur) Sam Shepard die het jaar beheersen. Allebei zijn ze ernstig ziek, om niet te zeggen stervende. “Iedereen gaat dood,” had hij [Sam Shepard] gezegd, kijkend naar de handen die langzaam hun kracht verloren, ‘hoewel ik dit nooit had zien aankomen. Maar ik heb er vrede mee. Ik heb mijn leven geleid zoals ik dat wilde.”
Wegkwijnen en verdwijnen zorgen voor een voortdurende zoemtoon in dit boek. In een paar zinnen brengt Smith de nieuwsfeiten van 2016 in herinnering. Ze hoeft Trump niet eens met naam te noemen. Haar zorgen over de wereld herken ik meteen. De wereld is niet goed bezig. “De dood van de laatste witte neushoorn. De verwoesting van Puerto Rico. De slachting van schoolkinderen. De minachtende woorden en daden gericht tegen immigranten.”
Dit is geen ‘boekje voor even tussendoor’. Logisch. Voor een heftig jaar moet je de tijd nemen.
‘Jaar van de aap’ is uit het Engels vertaald door Astrid Huisman.
November 9, 2019
This book is my "kind of coat".
Daug negražbiliaujant... imkit šią knygą ir...klausykite. Aš ją perklausiau iš eilės dukart. Va toks tas gėris yra Patti Smith balsas.
2016 -ieji, pagal kinų horoskopą Beždžionės metai, turėjo būti įpatingi autorei, jei ji parašė savo išgyvenimų per tuos metus memuarus. Jie liūdni...pačių artimiausių draugų ir šeimos narių netektys, rinkimų rezultatai....Bet juk visi mes turim tokių metų...Tačiau taip poetiškai, su humoru aprašyti kasdienybės momentus, skausmą, liūdesį...ir viltį sugeba nedaugelis.
''Sam is dead . My brother is dead. My mother is dead. My father is dead. My husband is dead....Yet still I keep thinking that something wonderful is about to happen''.
Patti Smith photo.
Tuos melancholiškus ir slogius metus Patti jaučiasi labiau išsapnavusi....ir ''the trouble with dreaming is that we eventually wake up''.
Labai rekomenduoju. Užsisakiau bibleje ir spausdintinę. Dar noriu pavartyti...
Daug negražbiliaujant... imkit šią knygą ir...klausykite. Aš ją perklausiau iš eilės dukart. Va toks tas gėris yra Patti Smith balsas.
2016 -ieji, pagal kinų horoskopą Beždžionės metai, turėjo būti įpatingi autorei, jei ji parašė savo išgyvenimų per tuos metus memuarus. Jie liūdni...pačių artimiausių draugų ir šeimos narių netektys, rinkimų rezultatai....Bet juk visi mes turim tokių metų...Tačiau taip poetiškai, su humoru aprašyti kasdienybės momentus, skausmą, liūdesį...ir viltį sugeba nedaugelis.
''Sam is dead . My brother is dead. My mother is dead. My father is dead. My husband is dead....Yet still I keep thinking that something wonderful is about to happen''.
Patti Smith photo.
Tuos melancholiškus ir slogius metus Patti jaučiasi labiau išsapnavusi....ir ''the trouble with dreaming is that we eventually wake up''.
Labai rekomenduoju. Užsisakiau bibleje ir spausdintinę. Dar noriu pavartyti...
March 21, 2021
It's funny. The first time I read this book, a year or so ago, I didn't vibe at all with it. Just Kids and M Train both blew me away. This...not so much. I think I was expecting something similar to the prior books; I was taking everything too literally. Patti Smith doesn't profess to have written a memoir - rather this is literature. When you read it as such...this book can blow your socks off. It is rich, rich, rich, in symbolism and imagery that makes you stop and wonder. Smith is a poet after all, and with all poetry, it is best to stop and linger over the words; allow them to slowly sink and imbed themselves across amidst the soft tissue of brain and fill the minds eye such that the words linger; the sorrow, hope and optimism and darkness make for an intoxicating wondering concoction. This is a dreamy book. Allow it to be so. Something I am already looking forward to re-reading.
May 7, 2021
I didn't realize I could feel such nostalgia for memories inhabited by someone else.
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June 8, 2022There's something uniquely charming about Patti Smith. In almost anyone else's hands, this material would absolutely suck. But somehow, this particular boomer just kinda riffing about her life, the state of the nation, etc. is able to thread the needle. I'm not sure how she does it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she is one of the last representatives of the old bohemian New York sensibility that now only exists as a fading memory, one of the last true rebels against bourgeois dullness. I listened to Horses as an angsty teen and it projected something of the adulthood I wanted to have. I read Patti Smith's memoirs as an anxious adult and it projects something of the elderliness I might someday have. There is always hope, even if it's barely there.
September 28, 2022
patti smith might be the only celebrity in the world where i know absolutely everything about her personal life and absolutely nothing about her career, but that’s not going to stop me from reading her memoirs!
‘year of the monkey’ is my second book of her’s, after several read-throughs of ‘just kids,’ and i enjoyed it almost as much!
i am a huge defender of over analyzing & over explaining in memoirs which is something smith does very well, but i have to admit some of the references she makes are a bit nonsensical.
it’s very obvious that she draws inspiration from the beat generation (if the absolutely random mention of burroughs “accidentally” killing his wife wasn’t enough of a clue) her cadence and constant allusions to pop culture feel very reminiscent of allen ginsberg. this convinced me to read alongside the audiobook (and reread howl) which helped digest her writing style a bit more.
one thing i will say, and is probably the reason why ‘just kids’ still ranks higher for me, is smith is a lot better at writing about the past than she is the present. in ‘just kids’ she approached major political events with extreme detail which help create an aura of protonostalgia that made her writing very easy to contextualize 50+ years in the future. however in ‘year of the monkey’ she discussed worldly events like the trump inauguration and the COVID-19 pandemic with such nonchalance that it seems poorly aged only 6 & 3 years removed from the start of both events.
‘year of the monkey’ is my second book of her’s, after several read-throughs of ‘just kids,’ and i enjoyed it almost as much!
i am a huge defender of over analyzing & over explaining in memoirs which is something smith does very well, but i have to admit some of the references she makes are a bit nonsensical.
it’s very obvious that she draws inspiration from the beat generation (if the absolutely random mention of burroughs “accidentally” killing his wife wasn’t enough of a clue) her cadence and constant allusions to pop culture feel very reminiscent of allen ginsberg. this convinced me to read alongside the audiobook (and reread howl) which helped digest her writing style a bit more.
one thing i will say, and is probably the reason why ‘just kids’ still ranks higher for me, is smith is a lot better at writing about the past than she is the present. in ‘just kids’ she approached major political events with extreme detail which help create an aura of protonostalgia that made her writing very easy to contextualize 50+ years in the future. however in ‘year of the monkey’ she discussed worldly events like the trump inauguration and the COVID-19 pandemic with such nonchalance that it seems poorly aged only 6 & 3 years removed from the start of both events.
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