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No Judgment: Essays – Trenchant Cultural Critique on Technology, Celebrity, and Contemporary Life
From the national bestselling novelist and essayist, a groundbreaking collection of brand-new pieces about the role of cultural criticism in our ever-changing world. In her writing for Harper’s , the London Review of Books , The New Yorker , and elsewhere, Lauren Oyler has emerged as one of the most trenchant and influential critics of her generation, a talent whose judgments on works of literature—whether celebratory or scarily harsh—have become notorious. But what is the significance of being a critic and consumer of media in today’s fraught environment? How do we understand ourselves, and each other, as space between the individual and the world seems to get smaller and smaller, and our opinions on books and movies seem to represent something essential about our souls? And to put it bluntly, why should you care what she—or anyone—thinks? In this, her first collection of essays, Oyler writes with about topics like the role of gossip in our exponentially communicative society, the rise and proliferation of autofiction, why we’re all so “vulnerable” these days, and her own anxiety. In her singular prose—sharp yet addictive, expansive yet personal—she encapsulates the world we live and think in with precision and care, delivering a work of cultural criticism as only she can. Bringing to mind the works of such iconic writers as Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, and Terry Castle, No Judgment is a testament to Lauren Oyler’s inimitable wit and her quest to understand how we shape the world through culture. It is a sparkling nonfiction debut from one of today’s most inventive thinkers.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 19, 2024
86 people are currently reading
4199 people want to read
About the author
Lauren Oyler
9 books271 followersLauren Oyler's essays on books and culture have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, London Review of Books, The Guardian, New York magazine’s The Cut, The New Republic, Bookforum, and elsewhere. Born and raised in West Virginia, she now divides her time between New York and Berlin.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 183 reviews
June 17, 2024
the rumors are true: this book is poorly researched, and wildly pretentious, and mostly full of opinions and feelings it is thinly veiling as fact.
i also really enjoyed it.
and lauren oyler would probably not like me much at all. a lot of these essays are rants about things that are almost exactly behaviors that oyler engages in, but (for reasons that will not be disclosed) worse: spending time on social media, when that site is goodreads instead of oyler's favored twitter; writing reviews for goodreads instead of for pay, as oyler does; if you must spend time on goodreads, doing so for more than 5 minutes a day and unironically, rather than as a bit, the way her friend does.
anyway. none of this bothered me because i really liked her.
these essays are actually very amusing, and even though i was one of the dreaded goodreads plebeians who panned her first book on here, i found i was able to enjoy this book a lot when i turned my critic-brain off.
when it was on, oh boy, was there a lot to say: oyler loves the same 3 sentence structures and run ons. she got famous for criticizing jia tolentino for covering well-tread territory (disclaimer: in a moment of parallel thinking, so did i), and yet none of this rings particularly original. moments like gawker's downfall and ben mora's firing are to internet leftists what jia tolentino's girlboss t-shirts and reality tv are to mainstream feminists.
but i digress. i chose to turn my critic brain off because it was too exhausting, and the joke was on me, because i had a great time when i did.
awkward.
bottom line: this is not a good book, but i had a good time.
3.5
--------------------
currently reading update
of all the reasons people are mad at this book, i have seen nobody complaining about how factually inaccurate the goodreads chapter is.
as someone who has (mostly) accidentally become the best reviewer, i can tell you the only way you become the #1 best reviewer in azerbaijan is by...living in azerbaijan.
although it is very funny to imagine this guy who's trying to become a top poster frantically searching up azerbaijani users, thinking their voting power is inflated.
--------------------
tbr review
i love drama, and i'm one of the dumb goodreads plebs who didn't like lauren oyler's first book, so i wanted to read this even before bookforum published the meanest review i've ever read about it.
getting to read the inspiration behind "the renata adler of being on your phone a lot" only adds to that masochism.
(thanks to the publisher for the arc)
i also really enjoyed it.
and lauren oyler would probably not like me much at all. a lot of these essays are rants about things that are almost exactly behaviors that oyler engages in, but (for reasons that will not be disclosed) worse: spending time on social media, when that site is goodreads instead of oyler's favored twitter; writing reviews for goodreads instead of for pay, as oyler does; if you must spend time on goodreads, doing so for more than 5 minutes a day and unironically, rather than as a bit, the way her friend does.
anyway. none of this bothered me because i really liked her.
these essays are actually very amusing, and even though i was one of the dreaded goodreads plebeians who panned her first book on here, i found i was able to enjoy this book a lot when i turned my critic-brain off.
when it was on, oh boy, was there a lot to say: oyler loves the same 3 sentence structures and run ons. she got famous for criticizing jia tolentino for covering well-tread territory (disclaimer: in a moment of parallel thinking, so did i), and yet none of this rings particularly original. moments like gawker's downfall and ben mora's firing are to internet leftists what jia tolentino's girlboss t-shirts and reality tv are to mainstream feminists.
but i digress. i chose to turn my critic brain off because it was too exhausting, and the joke was on me, because i had a great time when i did.
awkward.
bottom line: this is not a good book, but i had a good time.
3.5
--------------------
currently reading update
of all the reasons people are mad at this book, i have seen nobody complaining about how factually inaccurate the goodreads chapter is.
as someone who has (mostly) accidentally become the best reviewer, i can tell you the only way you become the #1 best reviewer in azerbaijan is by...living in azerbaijan.
although it is very funny to imagine this guy who's trying to become a top poster frantically searching up azerbaijani users, thinking their voting power is inflated.
--------------------
tbr review
i love drama, and i'm one of the dumb goodreads plebs who didn't like lauren oyler's first book, so i wanted to read this even before bookforum published the meanest review i've ever read about it.
getting to read the inspiration behind "the renata adler of being on your phone a lot" only adds to that masochism.
(thanks to the publisher for the arc)
March 18, 2024
Wow, you think Marvel movies are bad??? How original. I went into this book with hopes it was going to deliver on the breathless praise for "Lauren Oyler the fearless critic"; come to find out she is completely toothless and insecure when it comes to forming her own opinions, versus savaging someone else's. So much here is warmed over stuff that would have been "hot takes" in 2014. Vulnerability is scawwy? Anxiety is tough? Autofiction: there's some annoying things about it? Wow--are two Pulitzers enough??
More to the point, she can't land anywhere. She wrote an autofiction book that sucked precisely because it lacked in vulnerability; everyone's autofiction bothers her, except she can't entirely throw the concept away because she wants to do it so badly. She is so desperate to perform her respect and appreciation (and of course, unassailable knowledge--congrats, you can name the pieces in a museum) for and about "real" art, yet her writing bears the hallmark blend of insecurity and snobbery that reflects too much time spent on social media.
The dullness and lack in consistency of the arguments aside, her prose is turgid. I could have fun reading a fresh take on as widely-accepted a stance as "Marvel movies are bad." It could, theoretically, be interesting to see someone wrestle with their relationship with autofiction, something they both participate in and find annoying! But Oyler is unable to be honest with us or herself, making the book an exercise in tedium. For someone so allergic to phoniness, the amount of phoniness in this book is stifling. There's so much "It's so fascinating of me to have this thought, haha jk I'd never say anything that earnest, unlesss?... you think it's cool? But of course we both don't because we are so much Better Than That." Exhausting! I regret to inform Oyler you can still be phony even without (unearned) earnestness or vulnerability. It's honestly shocking for a critic to not have a basic grasp of this, to think this cool-girl waffling on whether or not she is posturing is somehow better, more readable, or more entertaining.
I normally hate the criticism of critics (lol) along the lines of "it's easy to find fault in anything if you look hard and are disingenuously motivated enough," or "they are just jealous," but Oyler brings these tired lines completely alive. It feels clear now that she is animated not by "criticism," but by jealousy of other writers. Whether they are better or worse or smarter or dumber than her is immaterial. The only thing that amps her up is whether she perceives them to be more beloved and popular than she is (and to be clear, it's unfair to love any writer more than her, because in her reality distortion field, they are all so clearly worse and dumber than her; never mind that she's incapable of proving it with any of her own books). That's when the Oyler everyone loves comes out, not when she's doing "criticism" writ large, as this boring book demonstrates. And because she can't admit this, how ain't-shit she is, because it would make her so much smaller of a writer than she wants to be, we have to be confronted with her plowing blindly around in the dark like this. This is extra funny because, as this book demonstrates, she so eminently does not have the juice herself; what business has she coming down so hard on everyone else? It's the stink of wanting so badly to be Joan Didion. It's not gonna happen, sweetie.
More to the point, she can't land anywhere. She wrote an autofiction book that sucked precisely because it lacked in vulnerability; everyone's autofiction bothers her, except she can't entirely throw the concept away because she wants to do it so badly. She is so desperate to perform her respect and appreciation (and of course, unassailable knowledge--congrats, you can name the pieces in a museum) for and about "real" art, yet her writing bears the hallmark blend of insecurity and snobbery that reflects too much time spent on social media.
The dullness and lack in consistency of the arguments aside, her prose is turgid. I could have fun reading a fresh take on as widely-accepted a stance as "Marvel movies are bad." It could, theoretically, be interesting to see someone wrestle with their relationship with autofiction, something they both participate in and find annoying! But Oyler is unable to be honest with us or herself, making the book an exercise in tedium. For someone so allergic to phoniness, the amount of phoniness in this book is stifling. There's so much "It's so fascinating of me to have this thought, haha jk I'd never say anything that earnest, unlesss?... you think it's cool? But of course we both don't because we are so much Better Than That." Exhausting! I regret to inform Oyler you can still be phony even without (unearned) earnestness or vulnerability. It's honestly shocking for a critic to not have a basic grasp of this, to think this cool-girl waffling on whether or not she is posturing is somehow better, more readable, or more entertaining.
I normally hate the criticism of critics (lol) along the lines of "it's easy to find fault in anything if you look hard and are disingenuously motivated enough," or "they are just jealous," but Oyler brings these tired lines completely alive. It feels clear now that she is animated not by "criticism," but by jealousy of other writers. Whether they are better or worse or smarter or dumber than her is immaterial. The only thing that amps her up is whether she perceives them to be more beloved and popular than she is (and to be clear, it's unfair to love any writer more than her, because in her reality distortion field, they are all so clearly worse and dumber than her; never mind that she's incapable of proving it with any of her own books). That's when the Oyler everyone loves comes out, not when she's doing "criticism" writ large, as this boring book demonstrates. And because she can't admit this, how ain't-shit she is, because it would make her so much smaller of a writer than she wants to be, we have to be confronted with her plowing blindly around in the dark like this. This is extra funny because, as this book demonstrates, she so eminently does not have the juice herself; what business has she coming down so hard on everyone else? It's the stink of wanting so badly to be Joan Didion. It's not gonna happen, sweetie.
April 11, 2024
No Judgment: Essays – Lauren Oyler – 2024
This book is an excellent and intellectually relatable collection and commentary of multi-literary online forums, from the gossip on Gawker to Goodreads, to the examination and compilation of various literary subjects, styles, forms, pop cultural observations/themes, declarations, comments, and personal (autobiographical) essays. Ms. Oyler works in the contained (remote) online environment and is proud of her status as a highbrow Ivy educated elitist and professional critic. Many of her equals are teaching or lecturing on college campuses, other schools, and (co-)facilitating writing classes, seminars, and workshops where tact and diplomacy matter considerably more.
According to Bookmarks Magazine, a three-star review translates to GOOD (Enjoyable, particularly for fans of the genre). Ms. Oyler wrote at length about her novel “Fake Accounts” (2021), and the star rating system--which is about as clear as mud, and inflated by booksellers to influence and increase the volume of sales. Elizabeth Hardwick was interviewed about the “decline of book reviewing” (1959) and Ms. Oyler observed that many (lower star) reviews are “often poorly written, biased, boring, full of errors and misinformation.” It is true that some books have been (unfairly) targeted and “review bombed” with one-star ratings. It is the least profitable to read and review a book when all the time and effort is factored in, yet Ms. Oyler enjoys promoting good books written by friends.
Berlin, Germany is like an “ill-mannered, impertinent, unintelligent scoundrel” according to Ms. Oyler-- impressed with the lower cost of living (she can work part-time) and Universal healthcare, she has chosen to live there permanently. Berlin, “abandoned and (mostly) destroyed during WWII” has a large gay community and artistic culture. International tourists flock to Berlin’s vibrant night life and (gay) dance clubs. It isn’t a requirement to be fluent in German or learn the language, as most of the residents in Berlin speak English.
In the chapter, “The Power of Vulnerability” Ms. Oyler discusses the value of self-expression through art which is “a safer strategy, realistic, and even (somewhat) mysterious.” The “Trauma Plot” which is associated with vulnerable populations, is most successful when linked to politics. To recount traumatic memories or situations through a (confessional) narrative is risky subjecting one to the judgment of others. On the plus side, there remains value through self-help, personal growth/development with a possibility of helping or inspiring others.
Skeptical of the healthcare industry that promotes and profits from patient illness, diagnosis, clinical visits and various treatments, Ms. Oyler explained in “My Anxiety” that while she has never been hospitalized for a panic attack, she is regularly tortured by her own “anxious and spiraling thought process.” While writing the essay, she received numerous (laughable) messages promoting self-help and therapy apps that claim to help elevate conditions from stress/anxiety to sleep disorders. Generalized Anxiety Disorder was invented by doctors working on the DSM while inebriated at a dinner(cocktail) party in the mid-1970’s. In the U.S. 40 million people are affected by anxiety disorders according to the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI).
It isn’t necessary to agree with or support all the viewpoints in “No Judgment” and as with Roxane Gay’s “Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business” (2023) - the importance and value of criticism mustn’t be underestimated, as we gain knowledge, a better insight and understanding of ourselves, others, and the world around us from these outstanding books.
This book is an excellent and intellectually relatable collection and commentary of multi-literary online forums, from the gossip on Gawker to Goodreads, to the examination and compilation of various literary subjects, styles, forms, pop cultural observations/themes, declarations, comments, and personal (autobiographical) essays. Ms. Oyler works in the contained (remote) online environment and is proud of her status as a highbrow Ivy educated elitist and professional critic. Many of her equals are teaching or lecturing on college campuses, other schools, and (co-)facilitating writing classes, seminars, and workshops where tact and diplomacy matter considerably more.
According to Bookmarks Magazine, a three-star review translates to GOOD (Enjoyable, particularly for fans of the genre). Ms. Oyler wrote at length about her novel “Fake Accounts” (2021), and the star rating system--which is about as clear as mud, and inflated by booksellers to influence and increase the volume of sales. Elizabeth Hardwick was interviewed about the “decline of book reviewing” (1959) and Ms. Oyler observed that many (lower star) reviews are “often poorly written, biased, boring, full of errors and misinformation.” It is true that some books have been (unfairly) targeted and “review bombed” with one-star ratings. It is the least profitable to read and review a book when all the time and effort is factored in, yet Ms. Oyler enjoys promoting good books written by friends.
Berlin, Germany is like an “ill-mannered, impertinent, unintelligent scoundrel” according to Ms. Oyler-- impressed with the lower cost of living (she can work part-time) and Universal healthcare, she has chosen to live there permanently. Berlin, “abandoned and (mostly) destroyed during WWII” has a large gay community and artistic culture. International tourists flock to Berlin’s vibrant night life and (gay) dance clubs. It isn’t a requirement to be fluent in German or learn the language, as most of the residents in Berlin speak English.
In the chapter, “The Power of Vulnerability” Ms. Oyler discusses the value of self-expression through art which is “a safer strategy, realistic, and even (somewhat) mysterious.” The “Trauma Plot” which is associated with vulnerable populations, is most successful when linked to politics. To recount traumatic memories or situations through a (confessional) narrative is risky subjecting one to the judgment of others. On the plus side, there remains value through self-help, personal growth/development with a possibility of helping or inspiring others.
Skeptical of the healthcare industry that promotes and profits from patient illness, diagnosis, clinical visits and various treatments, Ms. Oyler explained in “My Anxiety” that while she has never been hospitalized for a panic attack, she is regularly tortured by her own “anxious and spiraling thought process.” While writing the essay, she received numerous (laughable) messages promoting self-help and therapy apps that claim to help elevate conditions from stress/anxiety to sleep disorders. Generalized Anxiety Disorder was invented by doctors working on the DSM while inebriated at a dinner(cocktail) party in the mid-1970’s. In the U.S. 40 million people are affected by anxiety disorders according to the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI).
It isn’t necessary to agree with or support all the viewpoints in “No Judgment” and as with Roxane Gay’s “Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business” (2023) - the importance and value of criticism mustn’t be underestimated, as we gain knowledge, a better insight and understanding of ourselves, others, and the world around us from these outstanding books.
April 4, 2024
Yes, I see the irony in reviewing this book on Goodreads. This comes from my notes app where I jotted while reading. I didn't know another way to control the thoughts. And I'm sick of thinking about this dumb book so let's geux:
Chapter 1 (gossip): This chapter contained no new information to me. OK.
Chapter 2 (being a critic?/Goodreads): She is stuffy, and seemingly annoyed to be here. Ready to defend the idea of the critic, its role, its job or whatever, but also...again, annoyed that she even has to do this. Fun! Are these essays or are they criticism? They're criticism. LO hashes out previous things that happened to people, half I already knew, half I didn't. Made me annoyed. Why?? am I here. I also…. thought it was supposed to be funny…? That's what everyone said!!!
I am also a writer and a reader, and I can decipher the fact that “Goodreads is for readers” means it's not for writers. Sometimes words and sentences mean what they say.
3: Does anyone actually care that she lives in Berlin?
4 (autofiction): OK so, did she just decide six topics that she needed to have a permanent hot take on and write them down (mostly citing others’ ideas) and say: “this is it. This is my book.” These essays are ...barely good Internet reading for a slow work day. How did she write “an essay” on autofiction and not read Bret Easton Ellis’ The Shards?? No one cares about Sally Rooney this much unless your “argument” on defining something (wait, what?) hinges on it. LO tells us something wild & crazy happened to her (!!) and goes on to cite Lolita and never mention the crazy thing. Fun. And later, she cites the kidney?? essay from The NYT Mag (which I admittedly didn't read; I work a shift job, people, and I don't always have time). (Also “In the US we have three stages of grief.” LO—you don't get to live in Berlin and make blanket statements about living in America anymore. You don't get to do both.) And because she's still not done, she's citing Don Juan which dates back to 1824: all ripe material for the modern Internet-obsessed critic that knows she's better than us. Duh! All of these examples feel tired and nothing here felt revelatory. I genuinely believed she would have something to say about autofiction! I wanted to read it. She's just pointing out examples of it and talking about her book (which I found overwritten and obnoxious) and smirking. Pulling a face. A real Jon Stewart in the face of fascism move.
5 (vulnerability): Did someone once call LO vulnerable? What the fuck does “I'm against the tyranny of vulnerability in emotional life” mean??? I expected more than Freud (Freud??) quotes and uhhhh Parks & Rec as citations. LO says the gender of your boss is irrelevant? Sure. Citation? Lydia Tar! Sounds good to me. (She then takes pages re-telling us what Tar is about and what one critic (1) (Richard Brody) thought of it.) (For all the critics and Critic Lyfe she talks about, not many critics are mentioned.) None of this reads as an argument. LO is presenting information clearly from a smattering of sources. Actually, I'm not really sure what I'm reading or if I've learned a single thing.
6 (anxiety): I, too, have anxiety. But I'm brave (is that the word???) enough to have gone to therapy regularly for eight years and try medication for more years, come out the other side, and no longer get anxiety rashes, or bleeding gums, or sties in my eye. I can control my triggers, know how to deal with panic attacks, and so on. I was sick of feeling sick so I dealt with my shit. Going to jaw yoga once, and putting off any and all doctors visit’s for whatever reasons… isn't how dealing with crippling anxiety works. IDK, I've had a chronic illness since I was 17 (rheumatoid arthritis) so not going to a doctor is not a luxury I've ever been able to afford. LO seems smarter than straight up ignoring the problem. And because she lives in Berlin (have you heard? She lives in Berlin!) where there’s reasonable health insurance that she mentions constantly, you’d think she’d take advantage of this. But the thing with therapy is, you have to want to go. She is too busy? Important? Afraid of what she'll find? Doesn't want to take the time? Or she wants to suffer for the copy? I don't know about any of this. Anxiety crippled my actual life until I dealt with my shit. LO's physical symptoms of anxiety sound oppressive and I don't understand why she is letting it happen.
This is the only “essay” in the book. There's no plot, because LO “finds the concept of plot oppressive” (sometimes--same!! I'm a big David Lynch fan!! Who gives a shit about plot--amirite?!) but sometimes a story illustrated by personal details can be charming, OR: round out a piece of writing. Why is LO desperate to conceal herself?
I wrote down ONE note from this entire book, and it is credited to “they” as in, “fear, they say, has an object, and anxiety seeks one.” This feels real. I wish I knew who said it. I'm always looking for bits on fear, on rage, and on anxiety because that is me. I have all that in me too, LO. I wish I’d known who said this. Some things in NJ are painstakingly quoted, others are generalized, on an annoying scale. What's the deal with this?
Stray thoughts:
LO suffers from readers being unable to know nothing about her before reading. This sucks, and is unfair. It leads me to think that the only people seeking out her book are people who know her and Her Whole Deal. Thus she truly has control over the narrative (until reviews pan her, the one in the Washington Post is quite embarrassing; but the NYT made up for it). If there is someone out there with no concept of LO and Her Deal, please point me in their direction. I do want to know what they think but everyone writing about her online leads with the preconceived notions we have about her--fun!
I did not read any reviews of this book because I’ve been looking forward to reading it since I saw her post the Publishers Marketplace screenshot of the book deal (yes). I also didn't read any of the pre-publication serializations. I wanted to save it for the real thing. So you could say I was excited enough to have my husband pre-order NJ for X-mas.
People forget LO’s original uhhhh fame was from being ruthless to Roxane Gay, of all people, on Book Slut. THAT piece of writing is VERY academic, and a fucking CHORE to read. People forget about it because that part of the Internet has been wiped. And then the piece about Trick Mirror that LOL crashed The Guardian. (That book was OK!!! They weren't all throwaways, and JT’s writing is more compelling and dare I say…smarter. Or... is more interesting to read) so.. is LO being hired because she delivers clicks? She does! I’ll click!! (Ugh.) Or because we genuinely want to know what she has to say. The line for me is getting fuzzy, and I'm annoyed. I thought she was better than that.
LO’s subjects have always been more famous than her, thus pulling her in to a kind of fame (virility) and …has it been worth it? So far...with NJ...not yet. (Is this OK though? Like, that's what a critic is for? IDK! I'm asking! Should someone get famous for their pans of other peoples' work? I live my life in the music and music journalism world and that's not really how it works there. Total sidebar: I take the utmost joy in knowing she knows nothing about music. (Her confession.) Who is this woman?? And why isn't she snobby about something meaningless, like me, like coffee?)
I have an MFA in nonfiction writing. If LO gets to constantly remind people she “is the way she is” ("I had access! Hmmph!") because she went to an ivy league school (JUST say it. Say Yale!!!!), I get to say I have an MFA in NF from Sarah Lawrence. I've been assigned essays, memoir, nonfiction, poetry, reporting, etc, and have read the joyless, draft-trash of my peers. My second workshop professor won the Pulitzer for Poetry (he refused to teach poetry and only teaches NF) during that semester, and he changed my world view many times over. These essays in NJ are... critical pieces that kiiiinda swing personal. (Except for My Anxiety, which, again, reads as a personal essay a workshop would have a lot of great feedback on.) I have also written three drafts of a memoir and truly believe: just because you can write a book, it doesn't mean it should be a book. You can tell she’s never been in a workshop, and probably thinks “I don't have time for that.” I was in a workshop with a classmate that got a book deal during the program. She would skip class and blow off any suggestions from our Pulitzer Professor because ...she knows better! She has a book deal! Duh! LOL. But...being published doesn't mean you have nothing else left to learn about writing, editing, and storytelling. Again, the piece on her anxiety is as close as we get to an essay in all of NJ, but even there, everything is surface level.
My friend w a PhD in philosophy & English literature told me “I also wonder if she's really skilled in one area (analyzing literature) and thought that meant she was good at analyzing anything?” I think, hmmm. IDK. I have never taken a literature class. (LOL.) Why does LO cite something specifically, like a 2013 article, and then generalize about what “niche queer spaces” do/believe? (This is just one of the examples of her making broad general statements with...not a whole lot more than a wink.) Is she a part of these spaces? How can she claim this? Lots of examples from LOL Slate dot com and the Internet and old poetry and literature and but then other more important stuff: glossed over. This isn't boring. It just reads as incorrect. Tell me where! If you're going to make this book and be a critic, cite your shit. Don't just say "they."
Can LO take a joke?
But really my burning question is: has LO done LSD? (That and—has she read Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love? (And The Shards??)) I see those references to MDMA (she lives in Berlin, baby! They only have club drugs in Europe apparently) and that she doesn't like weed (boring). LO is edgy, you guys.
I genuinely thought this book was supposed to be funny. That's what everyone said!!!! Ugh. Thank god it's over.
Chapter 1 (gossip): This chapter contained no new information to me. OK.
Chapter 2 (being a critic?/Goodreads): She is stuffy, and seemingly annoyed to be here. Ready to defend the idea of the critic, its role, its job or whatever, but also...again, annoyed that she even has to do this. Fun! Are these essays or are they criticism? They're criticism. LO hashes out previous things that happened to people, half I already knew, half I didn't. Made me annoyed. Why?? am I here. I also…. thought it was supposed to be funny…? That's what everyone said!!!
I am also a writer and a reader, and I can decipher the fact that “Goodreads is for readers” means it's not for writers. Sometimes words and sentences mean what they say.
3: Does anyone actually care that she lives in Berlin?
4 (autofiction): OK so, did she just decide six topics that she needed to have a permanent hot take on and write them down (mostly citing others’ ideas) and say: “this is it. This is my book.” These essays are ...barely good Internet reading for a slow work day. How did she write “an essay” on autofiction and not read Bret Easton Ellis’ The Shards?? No one cares about Sally Rooney this much unless your “argument” on defining something (wait, what?) hinges on it. LO tells us something wild & crazy happened to her (!!) and goes on to cite Lolita and never mention the crazy thing. Fun. And later, she cites the kidney?? essay from The NYT Mag (which I admittedly didn't read; I work a shift job, people, and I don't always have time). (Also “In the US we have three stages of grief.” LO—you don't get to live in Berlin and make blanket statements about living in America anymore. You don't get to do both.) And because she's still not done, she's citing Don Juan which dates back to 1824: all ripe material for the modern Internet-obsessed critic that knows she's better than us. Duh! All of these examples feel tired and nothing here felt revelatory. I genuinely believed she would have something to say about autofiction! I wanted to read it. She's just pointing out examples of it and talking about her book (which I found overwritten and obnoxious) and smirking. Pulling a face. A real Jon Stewart in the face of fascism move.
5 (vulnerability): Did someone once call LO vulnerable? What the fuck does “I'm against the tyranny of vulnerability in emotional life” mean??? I expected more than Freud (Freud??) quotes and uhhhh Parks & Rec as citations. LO says the gender of your boss is irrelevant? Sure. Citation? Lydia Tar! Sounds good to me. (She then takes pages re-telling us what Tar is about and what one critic (1) (Richard Brody) thought of it.) (For all the critics and Critic Lyfe she talks about, not many critics are mentioned.) None of this reads as an argument. LO is presenting information clearly from a smattering of sources. Actually, I'm not really sure what I'm reading or if I've learned a single thing.
6 (anxiety): I, too, have anxiety. But I'm brave (is that the word???) enough to have gone to therapy regularly for eight years and try medication for more years, come out the other side, and no longer get anxiety rashes, or bleeding gums, or sties in my eye. I can control my triggers, know how to deal with panic attacks, and so on. I was sick of feeling sick so I dealt with my shit. Going to jaw yoga once, and putting off any and all doctors visit’s for whatever reasons… isn't how dealing with crippling anxiety works. IDK, I've had a chronic illness since I was 17 (rheumatoid arthritis) so not going to a doctor is not a luxury I've ever been able to afford. LO seems smarter than straight up ignoring the problem. And because she lives in Berlin (have you heard? She lives in Berlin!) where there’s reasonable health insurance that she mentions constantly, you’d think she’d take advantage of this. But the thing with therapy is, you have to want to go. She is too busy? Important? Afraid of what she'll find? Doesn't want to take the time? Or she wants to suffer for the copy? I don't know about any of this. Anxiety crippled my actual life until I dealt with my shit. LO's physical symptoms of anxiety sound oppressive and I don't understand why she is letting it happen.
This is the only “essay” in the book. There's no plot, because LO “finds the concept of plot oppressive” (sometimes--same!! I'm a big David Lynch fan!! Who gives a shit about plot--amirite?!) but sometimes a story illustrated by personal details can be charming, OR: round out a piece of writing. Why is LO desperate to conceal herself?
I wrote down ONE note from this entire book, and it is credited to “they” as in, “fear, they say, has an object, and anxiety seeks one.” This feels real. I wish I knew who said it. I'm always looking for bits on fear, on rage, and on anxiety because that is me. I have all that in me too, LO. I wish I’d known who said this. Some things in NJ are painstakingly quoted, others are generalized, on an annoying scale. What's the deal with this?
Stray thoughts:
LO suffers from readers being unable to know nothing about her before reading. This sucks, and is unfair. It leads me to think that the only people seeking out her book are people who know her and Her Whole Deal. Thus she truly has control over the narrative (until reviews pan her, the one in the Washington Post is quite embarrassing; but the NYT made up for it). If there is someone out there with no concept of LO and Her Deal, please point me in their direction. I do want to know what they think but everyone writing about her online leads with the preconceived notions we have about her--fun!
I did not read any reviews of this book because I’ve been looking forward to reading it since I saw her post the Publishers Marketplace screenshot of the book deal (yes). I also didn't read any of the pre-publication serializations. I wanted to save it for the real thing. So you could say I was excited enough to have my husband pre-order NJ for X-mas.
People forget LO’s original uhhhh fame was from being ruthless to Roxane Gay, of all people, on Book Slut. THAT piece of writing is VERY academic, and a fucking CHORE to read. People forget about it because that part of the Internet has been wiped. And then the piece about Trick Mirror that LOL crashed The Guardian. (That book was OK!!! They weren't all throwaways, and JT’s writing is more compelling and dare I say…smarter. Or... is more interesting to read) so.. is LO being hired because she delivers clicks? She does! I’ll click!! (Ugh.) Or because we genuinely want to know what she has to say. The line for me is getting fuzzy, and I'm annoyed. I thought she was better than that.
LO’s subjects have always been more famous than her, thus pulling her in to a kind of fame (virility) and …has it been worth it? So far...with NJ...not yet. (Is this OK though? Like, that's what a critic is for? IDK! I'm asking! Should someone get famous for their pans of other peoples' work? I live my life in the music and music journalism world and that's not really how it works there. Total sidebar: I take the utmost joy in knowing she knows nothing about music. (Her confession.) Who is this woman?? And why isn't she snobby about something meaningless, like me, like coffee?)
I have an MFA in nonfiction writing. If LO gets to constantly remind people she “is the way she is” ("I had access! Hmmph!") because she went to an ivy league school (JUST say it. Say Yale!!!!), I get to say I have an MFA in NF from Sarah Lawrence. I've been assigned essays, memoir, nonfiction, poetry, reporting, etc, and have read the joyless, draft-trash of my peers. My second workshop professor won the Pulitzer for Poetry (he refused to teach poetry and only teaches NF) during that semester, and he changed my world view many times over. These essays in NJ are... critical pieces that kiiiinda swing personal. (Except for My Anxiety, which, again, reads as a personal essay a workshop would have a lot of great feedback on.) I have also written three drafts of a memoir and truly believe: just because you can write a book, it doesn't mean it should be a book. You can tell she’s never been in a workshop, and probably thinks “I don't have time for that.” I was in a workshop with a classmate that got a book deal during the program. She would skip class and blow off any suggestions from our Pulitzer Professor because ...she knows better! She has a book deal! Duh! LOL. But...being published doesn't mean you have nothing else left to learn about writing, editing, and storytelling. Again, the piece on her anxiety is as close as we get to an essay in all of NJ, but even there, everything is surface level.
My friend w a PhD in philosophy & English literature told me “I also wonder if she's really skilled in one area (analyzing literature) and thought that meant she was good at analyzing anything?” I think, hmmm. IDK. I have never taken a literature class. (LOL.) Why does LO cite something specifically, like a 2013 article, and then generalize about what “niche queer spaces” do/believe? (This is just one of the examples of her making broad general statements with...not a whole lot more than a wink.) Is she a part of these spaces? How can she claim this? Lots of examples from LOL Slate dot com and the Internet and old poetry and literature and but then other more important stuff: glossed over. This isn't boring. It just reads as incorrect. Tell me where! If you're going to make this book and be a critic, cite your shit. Don't just say "they."
Can LO take a joke?
But really my burning question is: has LO done LSD? (That and—has she read Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love? (And The Shards??)) I see those references to MDMA (she lives in Berlin, baby! They only have club drugs in Europe apparently) and that she doesn't like weed (boring). LO is edgy, you guys.
I genuinely thought this book was supposed to be funny. That's what everyone said!!!! Ugh. Thank god it's over.
March 28, 2024
I thought the topics covered in No Judgment would interest me—gossip, goodreads, autofiction—but the parts of those things Oyler covered at length were the parts that interested me least. Like gossip about journalists I've never heard of at a magazine I never read or her own friends' handwringing about being turned into her book characters.
I did appreciate her skewering complaints about the merits of works of fiction versus autofiction, because at the end of the day isn't all fiction just autofiction in a way? But then that quickly devolved into her complaining that "people think they know me because they read my novel" and my eyes kind of glazed over.
The essays also have an undeniably snobby voice which put me at odds with her even when I didn't want to be—even when I agreed with her opinions there was this weird adversarial position of reader versus writer or vice versa. I don't feel like I came out of this having really learned about anything or having thought about something in a new way so I can't really recommend it on that merit either. tbh I just didn't like it.
I did appreciate her skewering complaints about the merits of works of fiction versus autofiction, because at the end of the day isn't all fiction just autofiction in a way? But then that quickly devolved into her complaining that "people think they know me because they read my novel" and my eyes kind of glazed over.
The essays also have an undeniably snobby voice which put me at odds with her even when I didn't want to be—even when I agreed with her opinions there was this weird adversarial position of reader versus writer or vice versa. I don't feel like I came out of this having really learned about anything or having thought about something in a new way so I can't really recommend it on that merit either. tbh I just didn't like it.
April 6, 2024
uuuuuuuggggghhhhh this was so mid i'm now JUDGING myself for ever having liked oyler's criticism. i sincerely feel this is a profound waste of literary talent. does lauren oyler sincerely feel.......anything? other than annoyance and disdain??? why choose to be so humourless and condescending about pop culture, a thing you apparently loathe and don't seem to partake in unless required to do so for a piece you're working on (did u guys know....................tedtalks and marvel movies and goodreads..............are cringe???), when you are in fact capable of writing inventively about artworks that challenged you, disappointed you, and perhaps even......moved you? i ask that as someone who strongly agrees with oyler about the importance of [developing good] aesthetic judgement, about the value in paying attention to things and thinking critically about culture, cultural objects and, specifically, literature. it's pretty weird to read (and i think, weirder even to write) an entire essay defending autofiction against an imaginary hoard of 'haters' in a world where the novels of sally rooney and elif batuman are wildly popular and, at least in the case of the former, being adapted into widely watched and reviewed tv shows. 'readers find the implicit request for their time being made by this boring self-obsessed memoirist-masquerading-as-novelist infuriating'......um, do they?? is this actually true, lauren?? have you maybe been reading and internalising too many 1-star goodreads reviews of your novel fake accounts? oyler explains in the preface that this essay began its life as a 'jaunty 2,500 word' footnote culled from a draft of fake accounts, her autofictive first novel which she brings up a bunch of times throughout the essay, and the middling reception of which clearly haunts her every waking moment, as evidenced by her decision to reheat this footnote and publish it as a full length work for all her haters to read. if there are still fresh, interesting things to be said about autofiction as a form, you won't find them in this essay.
the only piece i really liked was the one about living as an american expat in berlin. i loved her account of visiting a private contemporary art collection in Paris located in the former stock exchange and unexpectedly encountering a melting, full scale wax replica by the Swiss artist Urs Fischer of the 16th century Giambologna sculture 'the rape of the sabine women', and feeling stunned, and then somewhat unsettled by the context of the experience (private art collection housed in a historical government building 'reclaimed' now as a commercial space); she observes that the homogenising forces of globalisation and the internet means that cultural life in major cities sucks now, because everybody just wants the same instagrammable experience of art (she doesn't mention teamLab but that's immediately where my mind went); this is obviously a bad development for humanity, but still, great art exists, and you can engage meaningfully with it if you're not always looking over your shoulder at what other people are doing, or at what's been left behind. i think i like this essay the most because it feels like the only one in the book which wasn't written as a direct response to people having dumb opinions on the internet.
the only piece i really liked was the one about living as an american expat in berlin. i loved her account of visiting a private contemporary art collection in Paris located in the former stock exchange and unexpectedly encountering a melting, full scale wax replica by the Swiss artist Urs Fischer of the 16th century Giambologna sculture 'the rape of the sabine women', and feeling stunned, and then somewhat unsettled by the context of the experience (private art collection housed in a historical government building 'reclaimed' now as a commercial space); she observes that the homogenising forces of globalisation and the internet means that cultural life in major cities sucks now, because everybody just wants the same instagrammable experience of art (she doesn't mention teamLab but that's immediately where my mind went); this is obviously a bad development for humanity, but still, great art exists, and you can engage meaningfully with it if you're not always looking over your shoulder at what other people are doing, or at what's been left behind. i think i like this essay the most because it feels like the only one in the book which wasn't written as a direct response to people having dumb opinions on the internet.
August 28, 2024
In many ways Oyler is the archetypal midwit: she cannot be described as stupid, but she is too lazy a thinker to be taken seriously.
The most striking thing about this book is how few books she actually talks about. (She seems to be a big TV and fanfic fan?) The second most striking thing is that she seems to think criticism exists to justify one's opinions. (Personally I engage with criticism to experience another intellect engaging with art in a manner I find interesting, revelatory, etc, but okay.) Third most striking is how much of the book is taken up by Tolentino-Trick-Mirror-esque exhaustive recounting of Gawker drama, Wikipedia-inflected recitations of minutiae such as the history of starred ratings, etc. Fourth most striking is the anxiety essay, which is a personal essay rather than criticism but also the book's only worthwhile read.
Is my generation stupid or are editors lazy...porque no los dos. 🌚
Postscript: I did not find her Berlin essay particularly risible. The rest of the book is so sweatily faux-intellectual that "I am not good at German after years in Berlin" is like well of course not. You're too busy hating yourself for being from West Virginia and not reading as much as you want people to think you do, very obviously.
The most striking thing about this book is how few books she actually talks about. (She seems to be a big TV and fanfic fan?) The second most striking thing is that she seems to think criticism exists to justify one's opinions. (Personally I engage with criticism to experience another intellect engaging with art in a manner I find interesting, revelatory, etc, but okay.) Third most striking is how much of the book is taken up by Tolentino-Trick-Mirror-esque exhaustive recounting of Gawker drama, Wikipedia-inflected recitations of minutiae such as the history of starred ratings, etc. Fourth most striking is the anxiety essay, which is a personal essay rather than criticism but also the book's only worthwhile read.
Is my generation stupid or are editors lazy...porque no los dos. 🌚
Postscript: I did not find her Berlin essay particularly risible. The rest of the book is so sweatily faux-intellectual that "I am not good at German after years in Berlin" is like well of course not. You're too busy hating yourself for being from West Virginia and not reading as much as you want people to think you do, very obviously.
March 19, 2025
I dunno. Folks pile on Oyler like she was Franzen, or pile-on the pile-onners. It's all too very much too very much online (he sez, online). But I really was really ambivalent about this one, wondering what the point of the first piece, on revenge (or the last, on spoilers), even was, but quite enjoying the ones on living in Berlin and gossip/embarrassment and the angsty one about her anxiety (and refusal of categorization of and for—quite the tour de force of self-scrutiny, that one).
But it's the one on autofiction that most will come for, to nod along with or shake their fists at, and it represents the heart of the heart of her country, I spose...And it alternated for me between making a fair bit of sense and making me make that little 4-year-old Korean girl's YouTube "Whatever" shrug. YMM-most-definitely-V here. I'm still not a huge fan of 1st-person narratives where pure invention seems lacking, but I'm probably more likely to read her Fake Accounts now than I was previously (and much more likely to read it than Knausgård & Co, and don't @me too too much on that one cos I do really know that it's likely just me)...
All in all, though and on balance, that balance is tipped toward wanting to read more of what Lauren Oyler writes, for some reason I can't quite yet put my finger on. Perhaps it's her willingness to walk a high wire in public, with her thinking cap on but with all her self-consciously embarassing stuff on display.
Yes, I'll leave it at that, intrigued, but not yet convinced.
Edit: I totally forgot about her GR-related essay, "My Perfect Opinions", which like all such rough beasts written by those not-in-the-know (who are not longtime users of the site—kinda a pre-req for writing a knowledgeable essay on it, no?) seems (at times) to touch tangentially on GR's, shall we say, issues, but really misses pretty much everything else about it.
I place some of it here, though, in the spoiler below, by way of rescuing a reading update that I want to preserve to later remind me: don't ever ever ever ever ever ever ever become "that guy" who befriends everyone on a site like this one cos he is in search of clout or "reach" ot whatevs...GR is for me, above all else about trading reactions to books with real (and almost always really considerate, often also really friendly) people, and expanding my own reading universe thereby...It is, for all its faults, still the best social network I've ever been on, and my brain-and-heart would be much the poorer without it (& so if tempted to mess with it more than you have so far, please do leave it the hell alone, Mr. Bezos)....
By "that guy" I mean the one in this spoiler, whom I don't know from Adam but who, as I said earlier in the reading notes, "friended me here back in the day, never to be heard from otherwise. Hope he is well":
But it's the one on autofiction that most will come for, to nod along with or shake their fists at, and it represents the heart of the heart of her country, I spose...And it alternated for me between making a fair bit of sense and making me make that little 4-year-old Korean girl's YouTube "Whatever" shrug. YMM-most-definitely-V here. I'm still not a huge fan of 1st-person narratives where pure invention seems lacking, but I'm probably more likely to read her Fake Accounts now than I was previously (and much more likely to read it than Knausgård & Co, and don't @me too too much on that one cos I do really know that it's likely just me)...
All in all, though and on balance, that balance is tipped toward wanting to read more of what Lauren Oyler writes, for some reason I can't quite yet put my finger on. Perhaps it's her willingness to walk a high wire in public, with her thinking cap on but with all her self-consciously embarassing stuff on display.
Yes, I'll leave it at that, intrigued, but not yet convinced.
Edit: I totally forgot about her GR-related essay, "My Perfect Opinions", which like all such rough beasts written by those not-in-the-know (who are not longtime users of the site—kinda a pre-req for writing a knowledgeable essay on it, no?) seems (at times) to touch tangentially on GR's, shall we say, issues, but really misses pretty much everything else about it.
I place some of it here, though, in the spoiler below, by way of rescuing a reading update that I want to preserve to later remind me: don't ever ever ever ever ever ever ever become "that guy" who befriends everyone on a site like this one cos he is in search of clout or "reach" ot whatevs...GR is for me, above all else about trading reactions to books with real (and almost always really considerate, often also really friendly) people, and expanding my own reading universe thereby...It is, for all its faults, still the best social network I've ever been on, and my brain-and-heart would be much the poorer without it (& so if tempted to mess with it more than you have so far, please do leave it the hell alone, Mr. Bezos)....
By "that guy" I mean the one in this spoiler, whom I don't know from Adam but who, as I said earlier in the reading notes, "friended me here back in the day, never to be heard from otherwise. Hope he is well":
March 7, 2024
3.75 stars - thanks to harperone and netgalley for the digital galley!
lauren oyler explores gossip, goodreads, living in berlin, autofiction, vulnerability, and mental illness in this essay collection. my favorite pieces were: my perfect opinions; i am the one who is sitting here, for hours and hours and hours; and my anxiety. no shock to anyone that the one about goodreads and the one about autofiction were top tier for me!
i thought this was a great mix of both personal and researched writing - lauren’s own anecdotes and the examples she pulls from other sources are all used in an entertaining and intriguing way. these are longer essays that reference a lot of other works (both essays and books). i added a lot of new stuff to my list of things to read, and find myself keen to read more essays published outside of the typical essay collection format, starting with a bunch of the ones mentioned in this book! it really stands out to me that i have a genuine interest in doing further reading, because that doesn’t always happen for me with super referential work - it’s a signifier that i was pulled in by the topics discussed here.
no judgment is a very realistic look at the subjects of each essay. oyler is skilled at unpacking the opposing viewpoints, while maintaining the strength of her opinions. i appreciate that she’s able to make conceits where necessary and acknowledge the multifaceted and sometimes hypocritical nature of humans beings. the tone is funny, verging on millennial humor but in a self aware way. lauren and i both love a dash, a semicolon, and a parenthetical, but certain sentences felt a bit overwritten and hard to follow so i welcomed those moments of levity. overall a solid collection and i really need to check out her novel fake accounts!
reading wrap up!
lauren oyler explores gossip, goodreads, living in berlin, autofiction, vulnerability, and mental illness in this essay collection. my favorite pieces were: my perfect opinions; i am the one who is sitting here, for hours and hours and hours; and my anxiety. no shock to anyone that the one about goodreads and the one about autofiction were top tier for me!
i thought this was a great mix of both personal and researched writing - lauren’s own anecdotes and the examples she pulls from other sources are all used in an entertaining and intriguing way. these are longer essays that reference a lot of other works (both essays and books). i added a lot of new stuff to my list of things to read, and find myself keen to read more essays published outside of the typical essay collection format, starting with a bunch of the ones mentioned in this book! it really stands out to me that i have a genuine interest in doing further reading, because that doesn’t always happen for me with super referential work - it’s a signifier that i was pulled in by the topics discussed here.
no judgment is a very realistic look at the subjects of each essay. oyler is skilled at unpacking the opposing viewpoints, while maintaining the strength of her opinions. i appreciate that she’s able to make conceits where necessary and acknowledge the multifaceted and sometimes hypocritical nature of humans beings. the tone is funny, verging on millennial humor but in a self aware way. lauren and i both love a dash, a semicolon, and a parenthetical, but certain sentences felt a bit overwritten and hard to follow so i welcomed those moments of levity. overall a solid collection and i really need to check out her novel fake accounts!
reading wrap up!
Read
April 13, 2024I’ve eagerly anticipated this collection since reading Oyler’s debut novel “Fake Accounts,” which is one of my all-time favorite books. As dramatic as it might sound, I credit “Fake Accounts” with reorienting my perspective on fiction, making me more inquisitive about authorship and the capaciousness of the novel form, while also just being a complete blast to read. I really haven’t been the same reader since; I think about fiction a lot more now, rather than just experiencing it and casting an unassailable opinion. The same can be said for Oyler’s essay collection; we not only finally get her treatise on autofiction (my favorite topic) but also her takes on gossip, revenge, Berlin, vulnerability, Goodreads, spoilers, and anxiety (some of my other favorite topics).
While the book is about the practice of criticism, and Oyler proffers Her Perfect Opinions™️ accordingly, the book interestingly simmers in the implications of moving between private and public spaces, both for herself as a novelist and critic with a reputation, and for her (likely chronically online) readers. It’s an inquiry she cleverly addressed in novel form and now expounds on it without the veil of fiction. The collection makes the case for thinking and making sense of what to do with judgment when we have it, or encounter it: “I think ‘Why I’m Right’ should be the subtext of any piece of critical writing, balancing as it does subjectivity with objectivity.” But it also raises the sticky issue, in ways both explicit and implicit, of what happens when such judgments are publicized, attached to a person, potentially misconstrued, yet hopefully grappled with fairly. This is captured in the book’s opening lines: “Well, well, well. The book has started. There’s no turning back.” There is indeed no turning back, for both Lauren and us readers, and we are all better for it. Read it! I will be judging you if you don’t.
While the book is about the practice of criticism, and Oyler proffers Her Perfect Opinions™️ accordingly, the book interestingly simmers in the implications of moving between private and public spaces, both for herself as a novelist and critic with a reputation, and for her (likely chronically online) readers. It’s an inquiry she cleverly addressed in novel form and now expounds on it without the veil of fiction. The collection makes the case for thinking and making sense of what to do with judgment when we have it, or encounter it: “I think ‘Why I’m Right’ should be the subtext of any piece of critical writing, balancing as it does subjectivity with objectivity.” But it also raises the sticky issue, in ways both explicit and implicit, of what happens when such judgments are publicized, attached to a person, potentially misconstrued, yet hopefully grappled with fairly. This is captured in the book’s opening lines: “Well, well, well. The book has started. There’s no turning back.” There is indeed no turning back, for both Lauren and us readers, and we are all better for it. Read it! I will be judging you if you don’t.
May 24, 2024
The essays in this collection are strangely and sometimes interestingly entangled, and not always in ways that Oyler would find flattering, I think. In their author’s eagerness to let glamorous-sounding, anonymized anecdotes drop on nearly every page, all the essays, not just the one on gossip, are gossipy. For the same reasons, all the essays, not just the somewhat falsely modest, “what? oh, this old thing?” essay about Oyler’s no-big-deal life in hip Berlin, are at one point or another revealed to be mainly about that life. All the essays, not just the one about the entanglement of autobiography and invention, entangle autobiography and invention. And above all, every essay, every page, sometimes it seems every sentence, is held together by the internet: by its logic, and most unmistakably and pervasively, by its snarky lol everything is meaningless lmao lol voice.
Martin Amis’s last novel, Inside Story, is structured in part by the idea that reading is a social engagement, and an author serves for the reader as a kind of host. This began for Amis in the observed distance between, in particular, the (relative) sociability of Nabokov and the remote inscrutability of Joyce: reading Nabokov is for Amis like being greeted cheerfully at the door, invited in to take a seat by the fire in a warmly lit room, and offered a glass of whatever you like best to drink; reading Joyce is like showing up at the appointed time to find the door slightly ajar and the author mumbling to himself in the next chamber of a dark, cold labyrinth.
What sort of host is Lauren Oyler?
Not a host at all, because you aren’t actually invited. Though your attention is essential here, none of this is really for you. Imagine not a gathering at someone’s home but a studiously performative Twitter thread meant for other, perhaps cooler eyes but which you, too, can scroll through. (In the opening essay, Oyler mentions in passing that she feels the phrase “extremely online” is a dated one, implying, I guess, that she thinks we’re all now online all the time and it’s meaningless to speak in terms of varying degrees of “online-ness.” I disagree—and I think this is something that only an extremely online person would say. Oyler is clearly extremely, terminally, fundamentally, ontologically online.)
But there’s an obvious intelligence and talent in play throughout here, and with that comes certain basic pleasures of depth and writerly craft. Oyler is smart, and for better and worse, she knows it. Which means there’s some genuinely fine writing but also quite a bit of irksome showing off here, too, and at the sentence level a couple of odd, equal-but-opposite tendencies: when they’re long, they can sometimes be quite turgid and overcooked; when they’re short, they sometimes aim at lapidary aphorism but land nearer to nonsense and bafflegab. (I keep thinking about one phrase in particular: amid the various details in her long “confession” of elite snobbery, Oyler writes that as a reader she “value[s] style over voice.” This seems to want to say something profound, but I cannot work out what it is. Near as I can tell, it says nothing at all.) But she is smart, witty, and often impressively in command: referring to the “personal story related to your book,” the narrativizing of the process by which it came into being, as “Romansbildung” was worth the price of admission alone.
The writer that Oyler reminds me of most here in the end, for reasons good and bad, is David Foster Wallace, and I say this as someone with lots of time for Wallace who nonetheless appreciates what people dislike about him as a stylist. She’s intelligent but also exhausting in roughly similar ways, and the most tiresome piece in this collection, “My Anxiety,” reads like a DFW pastiche: a long, spiralling disquisition on mental illness and catalogue of anxiety symptoms that purports to point outward toward the culture but in the end, like the rest of the book, ultimately points only inward at Oyler. Here and elsewhere, she even seems to cop Wallace’s odd blend of thesaurusy fanciness and aww-shucks plainspoken informality, that tendency he has to mix pompous diction with street slang and pseudo-verbal “and but so” constructions, etc. Sometimes this effectively takes the intellectual edge off a bit, as it seems meant to do. And sometimes it subcommunicates insecurity, trowelling on a protective layer of unserious internet-style lmao irony, as it also seems meant to do. (An example, satisfying here because it also reiterates part of the unbearable title of Oyler’s infamous hatchet job on Jia Tolentino, is the “ha ha” in the following: “the reader’s idea of the author is being simultaneously constructed by the author’s public image (or lack thereof) as well as by the text in which the autofictional narrator appears, which the reader is theoretically reading right at the very moment its form is being, ha ha, formed.”)
Martin Amis’s last novel, Inside Story, is structured in part by the idea that reading is a social engagement, and an author serves for the reader as a kind of host. This began for Amis in the observed distance between, in particular, the (relative) sociability of Nabokov and the remote inscrutability of Joyce: reading Nabokov is for Amis like being greeted cheerfully at the door, invited in to take a seat by the fire in a warmly lit room, and offered a glass of whatever you like best to drink; reading Joyce is like showing up at the appointed time to find the door slightly ajar and the author mumbling to himself in the next chamber of a dark, cold labyrinth.
What sort of host is Lauren Oyler?
Not a host at all, because you aren’t actually invited. Though your attention is essential here, none of this is really for you. Imagine not a gathering at someone’s home but a studiously performative Twitter thread meant for other, perhaps cooler eyes but which you, too, can scroll through. (In the opening essay, Oyler mentions in passing that she feels the phrase “extremely online” is a dated one, implying, I guess, that she thinks we’re all now online all the time and it’s meaningless to speak in terms of varying degrees of “online-ness.” I disagree—and I think this is something that only an extremely online person would say. Oyler is clearly extremely, terminally, fundamentally, ontologically online.)
But there’s an obvious intelligence and talent in play throughout here, and with that comes certain basic pleasures of depth and writerly craft. Oyler is smart, and for better and worse, she knows it. Which means there’s some genuinely fine writing but also quite a bit of irksome showing off here, too, and at the sentence level a couple of odd, equal-but-opposite tendencies: when they’re long, they can sometimes be quite turgid and overcooked; when they’re short, they sometimes aim at lapidary aphorism but land nearer to nonsense and bafflegab. (I keep thinking about one phrase in particular: amid the various details in her long “confession” of elite snobbery, Oyler writes that as a reader she “value[s] style over voice.” This seems to want to say something profound, but I cannot work out what it is. Near as I can tell, it says nothing at all.) But she is smart, witty, and often impressively in command: referring to the “personal story related to your book,” the narrativizing of the process by which it came into being, as “Romansbildung” was worth the price of admission alone.
The writer that Oyler reminds me of most here in the end, for reasons good and bad, is David Foster Wallace, and I say this as someone with lots of time for Wallace who nonetheless appreciates what people dislike about him as a stylist. She’s intelligent but also exhausting in roughly similar ways, and the most tiresome piece in this collection, “My Anxiety,” reads like a DFW pastiche: a long, spiralling disquisition on mental illness and catalogue of anxiety symptoms that purports to point outward toward the culture but in the end, like the rest of the book, ultimately points only inward at Oyler. Here and elsewhere, she even seems to cop Wallace’s odd blend of thesaurusy fanciness and aww-shucks plainspoken informality, that tendency he has to mix pompous diction with street slang and pseudo-verbal “and but so” constructions, etc. Sometimes this effectively takes the intellectual edge off a bit, as it seems meant to do. And sometimes it subcommunicates insecurity, trowelling on a protective layer of unserious internet-style lmao irony, as it also seems meant to do. (An example, satisfying here because it also reiterates part of the unbearable title of Oyler’s infamous hatchet job on Jia Tolentino, is the “ha ha” in the following: “the reader’s idea of the author is being simultaneously constructed by the author’s public image (or lack thereof) as well as by the text in which the autofictional narrator appears, which the reader is theoretically reading right at the very moment its form is being, ha ha, formed.”)
March 21, 2024
While there are plenty of unbearable solipsists writing for New York media who are more self-absorbed than Lauren Oyler, I was greatly impressed by the way that Oyler somehow surpassed their insufferability with her unearned hubris ("I am a snob," she writes, even when she only seems to quote from the beginnings of books -- such as Walter Abish and Nabokov -- like some ADD-addled egomaniac and when she ONLY seems to quote source texts that anyone even vaguely literate is already familiar with, making NO JUDGMENT a kind of comfort food for unambitious, apolitical, and incurious lemmings who love swimming inside their filter bubbles). This "essay collection" reveals Oyler to be remarkably superficial, not very bright, and apparently unable to recognize (or maybe unwilling) her own narcissistic contradictions. I guarantee that she won't have much of a career or, if anybody still DOES publish this dreadful loser, anything particularly interesting to say in about ten years. Her repugnant Ivy League privilege -- which she is incapable of acknowledging -- runs through this wretched volume like a mottled disease, abiding by the "Rules for thee, but not for me" credo of those who cleave to shaky perches when she insinuates that her awful novel, FAKE ACCOUNTS, is somehow right up there with the best of literature -- even though I know nobody in my highly discerning literary circle who has liked it and the book sustains a rightfully low rating here on Goodreads. It takes some chutzpah to rebuke Brene Brown for landing gigs after her successful TED Talk without Oyler divulging the obvious truth that SHE is clearly the one who relishes money, influence, and power. Predictably, she shares the common debilitation seen in her generation of falsely perceiving the heyday of Gawker as a handbook on how to get ahead. And she reminds us throughout the book of having so many friends, although these friends come across as vacuous types who would drop her the minute she fades from the spotlight.
I am certain that Oyler will call me a sexist for pointing all this out, much as she conveniently overlooked Rachel Cooke's points about her considerable deficiencies as a thinker to call her "sexist," a pathetic and desperate attempt to insulate herself from criticism. But bad writing and bad thinking are bad writing and bad thinking. Oyler has a panache for both. Oyler wants a career and she resents anyone committing the perfectly human practice of wondering what bits of fiction emerge from an author's life. (She proudly boasts -- in the telltale manner of a humorless person sadly attempting to crack a joke -- that FAKE ACCOUNTS is drawn from 72% of reality.) Oyler condemns the rules of the game in which authors cannot respond to reviews (and also, in one essay, has her feeble crosshairs locked on Goodreads), but, on the other hand, she very much angles to be in an untouchable position. I'm surprised that this book didn't include an essay in which Oyler demanded a MacArthur fellowship for her dubious "genius."
The book also contains one of the most unintentionally hilarious misreads of Todd Field's masterpiece TAR that I've ever read, completely failing to understand what that great film says about power. Oyler, in fact, has a lot in common with that fictitious composer in that she believes she can throw her shaky weight around without consequence. (And judging by the way that certain foolish literary types have defended her against Becca Rothfeld's review in the Washington Post, falsely characterizing Rothfeld's punchy but level-headed takedown as "scathing," she's done a nimble job at circling the wagons among her network of sycophantic acolytes.)
Even in writing about Berlin and anxiety, Oyler reveals herself to be an incurious bore incapable of meaningful introspection. Oyler as "center of the universe" is the only way to negotiate living. And while she is currently flavor of the month, this is not going to be a long-term strategy if Oyler expects to persuade us (I'm sorry, I'm trying to suppress laughter right now) that she is a serious intellectual.
I have never cared for Sheila Heti's work, but in reading the thoroughly gormless way in which Oyler dismissed Heti, I was left thinking that I had probably been too hard on her. Maybe I should thank Oyler for revealing herself to be such a nasty piece of work that it had me summoning empathy for authors I have, historically speaking, despised with every fiber of my being.
This is a book written by someone with nothing but choleric piss and misanthropy in her moribund tank. (You're seriously condemning Martin Scorsese for trying to be charitable to those who like Marvel movies?) For those of us who actually LIKE people, NO JUDGMENT is an unwelcome reminder of the type of bitter and sneering parvenu to avoid in life.
I am certain that Oyler will call me a sexist for pointing all this out, much as she conveniently overlooked Rachel Cooke's points about her considerable deficiencies as a thinker to call her "sexist," a pathetic and desperate attempt to insulate herself from criticism. But bad writing and bad thinking are bad writing and bad thinking. Oyler has a panache for both. Oyler wants a career and she resents anyone committing the perfectly human practice of wondering what bits of fiction emerge from an author's life. (She proudly boasts -- in the telltale manner of a humorless person sadly attempting to crack a joke -- that FAKE ACCOUNTS is drawn from 72% of reality.) Oyler condemns the rules of the game in which authors cannot respond to reviews (and also, in one essay, has her feeble crosshairs locked on Goodreads), but, on the other hand, she very much angles to be in an untouchable position. I'm surprised that this book didn't include an essay in which Oyler demanded a MacArthur fellowship for her dubious "genius."
The book also contains one of the most unintentionally hilarious misreads of Todd Field's masterpiece TAR that I've ever read, completely failing to understand what that great film says about power. Oyler, in fact, has a lot in common with that fictitious composer in that she believes she can throw her shaky weight around without consequence. (And judging by the way that certain foolish literary types have defended her against Becca Rothfeld's review in the Washington Post, falsely characterizing Rothfeld's punchy but level-headed takedown as "scathing," she's done a nimble job at circling the wagons among her network of sycophantic acolytes.)
Even in writing about Berlin and anxiety, Oyler reveals herself to be an incurious bore incapable of meaningful introspection. Oyler as "center of the universe" is the only way to negotiate living. And while she is currently flavor of the month, this is not going to be a long-term strategy if Oyler expects to persuade us (I'm sorry, I'm trying to suppress laughter right now) that she is a serious intellectual.
I have never cared for Sheila Heti's work, but in reading the thoroughly gormless way in which Oyler dismissed Heti, I was left thinking that I had probably been too hard on her. Maybe I should thank Oyler for revealing herself to be such a nasty piece of work that it had me summoning empathy for authors I have, historically speaking, despised with every fiber of my being.
This is a book written by someone with nothing but choleric piss and misanthropy in her moribund tank. (You're seriously condemning Martin Scorsese for trying to be charitable to those who like Marvel movies?) For those of us who actually LIKE people, NO JUDGMENT is an unwelcome reminder of the type of bitter and sneering parvenu to avoid in life.
March 12, 2024
Acerbic essays with an off-putting tone only magnified when listening to the audiobook read by the author. She feels like the type of person who would corner you at a party and talk at you for hours, uninterested in anything but the sound of her own voice. I believe that she believes she’s the smartest person in the room. I fell asleep once listening to this, oops, and found myself tuning out a lot despite making an honest attempt to focus and give it a shot. We did not vibe.
In one of the essays she discusses review culture and Goodreads, (hiiiiiii) and uses the book American Dirt to illustrate how elitism and bad reviews in certain spaces didn’t translate to sales. Felt a bit egregious to discuss this book while completely ignoring the reason it received such backlash in the first place—the author misrepresented herself. She identified as white only until she started marketing this book and then mentioned a Puerto Rican grandmother when she realized it might be a problem. The book was called out for problematic storylines and stereotypical characters by Latinx authors and readers to rightly point out the problems with platforming and supporting a white author writing a book about Mexican migrants instead of choosing to support #ownvoices books with the same vigor and marketing budget. It was a big part of an important conversation and feels strange to talk about it in this capacity without any mention of that. It wasn’t elitism that was trying to discourage reading and platforming this book as much as it was marginalized voices expressing their discontent with the status quo, and actually it’s not a surprise at all that those issues would be ignored by most readers and do nothing to prevent it becoming a bestseller. I never read it for that reason.
This was towards the beginning of the book and was the moment I realized oooooh I’m not going to enjoy this one, nope nope nope! Especially when she writes with what feels like a very condescending air. I found the essays about review culture (minus the above) and auto-fiction interesting but not enough to balance out the tedious more personal ones about her life in Berlin, the movie Tár (haven’t seen it) and her anxiety. And I did not appreciate her opinions enough to make up for the general (for me) ick of her tone.
I’m sure there’s plenty of people who this collection might appeal to, but it was not for me. If you plan on reading it, you might want to avoid the audiobook.
In one of the essays she discusses review culture and Goodreads, (hiiiiiii) and uses the book American Dirt to illustrate how elitism and bad reviews in certain spaces didn’t translate to sales. Felt a bit egregious to discuss this book while completely ignoring the reason it received such backlash in the first place—the author misrepresented herself. She identified as white only until she started marketing this book and then mentioned a Puerto Rican grandmother when she realized it might be a problem. The book was called out for problematic storylines and stereotypical characters by Latinx authors and readers to rightly point out the problems with platforming and supporting a white author writing a book about Mexican migrants instead of choosing to support #ownvoices books with the same vigor and marketing budget. It was a big part of an important conversation and feels strange to talk about it in this capacity without any mention of that. It wasn’t elitism that was trying to discourage reading and platforming this book as much as it was marginalized voices expressing their discontent with the status quo, and actually it’s not a surprise at all that those issues would be ignored by most readers and do nothing to prevent it becoming a bestseller. I never read it for that reason.
This was towards the beginning of the book and was the moment I realized oooooh I’m not going to enjoy this one, nope nope nope! Especially when she writes with what feels like a very condescending air. I found the essays about review culture (minus the above) and auto-fiction interesting but not enough to balance out the tedious more personal ones about her life in Berlin, the movie Tár (haven’t seen it) and her anxiety. And I did not appreciate her opinions enough to make up for the general (for me) ick of her tone.
I’m sure there’s plenty of people who this collection might appeal to, but it was not for me. If you plan on reading it, you might want to avoid the audiobook.
Read
April 9, 2024yes i did run to pick up my ARC after the bookforum debacle
March 11, 2024
What it is: Long essays, some more personal than others, addressing trends in literature and culture. They're told in Oyler's distinctive voice–and her prose is every bit as rare as the word-pairing of "distinctive voice" is cliche.
What it's not: An emotional salve, a jargon-filled academic collection, a presentation of solutions for the eco/politico issues of the day. A book that even a single time uses the phrase "now more than ever."
When I’m reading Lauren Oyler, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. Her essay on gossip ("Embarrassment, Panic, Opprobrium, Job Loss, Etc.") takes a million brilliantly sharp corners.
Her incredibly honest, maddeningly clever exploration of life as an artsy-American-in-Berlin, "Why Do You Live Here?" explains why expats (like her) desperately distinguish themselves from tourists: "Tourists harsh the vibe." She titles her piece about online reviews and book criticism “My Perfect Opinions,” and she’s not wrong.
What it's not: An emotional salve, a jargon-filled academic collection, a presentation of solutions for the eco/politico issues of the day. A book that even a single time uses the phrase "now more than ever."
When I’m reading Lauren Oyler, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. Her essay on gossip ("Embarrassment, Panic, Opprobrium, Job Loss, Etc.") takes a million brilliantly sharp corners.
Her incredibly honest, maddeningly clever exploration of life as an artsy-American-in-Berlin, "Why Do You Live Here?" explains why expats (like her) desperately distinguish themselves from tourists: "Tourists harsh the vibe." She titles her piece about online reviews and book criticism “My Perfect Opinions,” and she’s not wrong.
July 10, 2024
As someone chronically online, I liked (most of) the Goodreads essay and I liked the history of gossip in popular culture. The other three essays were pretty hit/miss for me, I simply wasn't engaging with Oyler's move to Berlin and refusal to learn German.
People think the issue with being a (self-described) snob is that all of your energy is spent believing your opinions are better than other people's. The actual issue is that there's sometimes a lack of critical meta thinking- thinking about thinking- that most laypeople perform in order to stand by their opinions. If you believe your opinion is better simply because you thought it, there's often very little concrete evidence provided to support one's arguments.
The Madame Web of essays: neither good enough to merit all the discourse or bad enough to warrant all the outrage.
People think the issue with being a (self-described) snob is that all of your energy is spent believing your opinions are better than other people's. The actual issue is that there's sometimes a lack of critical meta thinking- thinking about thinking- that most laypeople perform in order to stand by their opinions. If you believe your opinion is better simply because you thought it, there's often very little concrete evidence provided to support one's arguments.
The Madame Web of essays: neither good enough to merit all the discourse or bad enough to warrant all the outrage.
April 15, 2024
Thanks to Harper One for the ARC I found this collection uneven, especially the autofiction piece.
July 17, 2024
I suggest Ms Oyler reads up on Russian imperialism before snarking on Ukrainians who have to deal with its consequences on a daily basis.
April 9, 2024
This essay collection is getting roasted by some critics right now - maybe deservedly, maybe not, but I had a lot of fun listening to the audiobook. Sometimes I just like to hear someone think critically out loud about topics I care about (in this case: gossip, Goodreads, autofiction, and more), even if I disagree vehemently with some - many - of their conclusions.
April 17, 2024
A disappointing bunch of essays that display a shocking lack of discipline - on the part of the writer and her editor(s). One would assume that a self-professed "snob" critic could summon some actual cultural material to engage with in a robust and substantive way. What we get instead are essays that speak in broad generalizations on topics ranging from done-to-death (Gawker, being an expat, the death of criticism) to tail-chasing around topics without saying much of anything at all (review culture, autofiction, anxiety). The autofiction essay is especially egregious; Oyler spends a lot of time numerating what autofiction *isn't* and then critiques works that are not autofiction on the grounds that they are actually just failed autofiction. Her reading of Sally Rooney's Beautiful World Where Are You is especially bizarre, as she seems unable to actually recognize the genre distinctions she claims to be making. One extra star tacked on for the promise displayed at the start of the "My Anxiety" essay, which displays a glimpse of the supposed intellectual rigor that Oyler professes to possess, only it too eventually chases its own tail in circles to conclude with what amounts to a shrug emoji. Everything in this book felt like its own rough draft, and I question the editor who let some of these go to print. I don't expect a critic to have all the answers, but I do expect a good critic to have a point of view. She ends many of her essays with the childish assertion that she is correct, her opinions are perfect, but rarely backs up her points with evidence stronger than a dictionary definition or a vague assertion of trends she has borne witness to. No Judgment is the work of a writer who loves to signify that they are doing deep thinking without actually producing any work to show for it.
April 10, 2024
Perhaps contrary to the rest of the Goodreads reviews for this book, I actually liked it a lot. I think Oyler writes very well - she has an incisive wit and an observer's mind, and I found myself nodding and snapping along with many of the lines in these essays. I haven't read Fake Accounts or any of her other writing, so I can't speak to if these essays are a big departure from her typical tone. However, I don't mind the fairly negative attitude she takes with a lot of the essays - after all, isn't that the point of many of these collections? Why we pick up a book of what are essentially a series of "takes" from some author, for their ability to write cultural criticism and commentary? I liked her takes on the Brene Brown-ification of vulnerability, the strange world of Goodreads (as evidenced by the reviews on this collection...), the uncomfortable realizations of learning German as an American expat in Berlin, etc. Thanks to Libro.fm for the ALC!
January 9, 2024
I wanted to like this book – I generally like essay collections by thoughtful and acerbic female writers, like Olivia Laing and Jenny Diski – but it wasn't quite enough. The insights, analyses and passages of description weren't sufficiently better than those many non-professional writers could provide. Oyler is certainly a better writer than I am, and she is probably smarter than I am, but not by enough. If I've had most of the thoughts she's had, what's the point in reading her?
July 15, 2024
Not that she cares - she of course won't read this especially if we're to understand her comments on Goodreads' as sincere - I don't think I've entirely grasped the essence of Lauren Oyler. There's is something a bit enigmatic about her, though this is perhaps by design.
What we do know is that she's a thritysomething elite aspirant and internet media addict. She came up out of flyover country (West Virginia) to the ivy league and now into the lit mag scene. She appears to have imbibed and then become somewhat disillusioned with many of the stereotypical left-liberal memes and aesthetics common to the elite yet middlebrow sphere. She's well-read in contemporary literature, has demonstrated some degree of good taste (e.g. an unironic appreciator of David Foster Wallace), and has functioned as a competent critic in a competitive and saturated landscape. She developed a distinct-enough sharp and wry literary persona and has been able to graduate beyond criticism, dabbling in literary fiction (Fake Accounts). Nonetheless, she appears pre-occupied with some inane issues and is perhaps blinkered in disappointing ways.
The theme of this collection is revenge. Oyler sees grudges as one of the primary motivating forces in literary and critical production. This is often true, especially for artists who see themselves as tastemakers or important etc. Despite her reputation as a takedown artist, Oyler is more restrained than I expected in this essay collection.
There are six essays in total: 1) Embarrassment, Panic, Opprobrium, Job Loss, Etc (concerns gossip) 2) My Perfect Opinions (concerns criticism) 3) Why Do You Live Here? (concens expat life) 4) I Am the One Who Is Sitting Here, for Hours and Hours and Hours (concerns autofiction) 5) The Power of Vulnerability (concerns gender and power) and 6) My Anxiety (concerns therapeutic culture). These essays are transparently an exercise in solipsism. Oyler is working through preoccupations of hers. This doesn't mean the writing is uninteresting. It's just that Oyler's interests and concerns are largely particular to her, and an unfamiliar reader coming to these essays is likely to be put off by them even when Oyler is being self-critical and/or clever. I appreciate the honesty even when she retreats behind various defenses but the targets of analysis often leave much to be desired or don't quite cut to the core of things. She could have pushed further and deeper. She turns an issue around a few times, raises some doubts and concerns, and then discards it without affirmatively defending a conclusion.
Perhaps, I am missing somethings. I will return to these essays. I found a lot of the actual content interesting. I share some similar interests with Oyler. I think gossip is an important social mechanism. I participate in amateur criticism (she gets paid to do it), patronize Goodreads, and obsess over cultural artifacts and internet media. I am curious about the state of the modern novel - why autofiction is so prevalent. I too am skeptical of therapeutic culture. She addresses herself to many of these topics and illuminates certain aspects of them. I was simply left wanting more.
What we do know is that she's a thritysomething elite aspirant and internet media addict. She came up out of flyover country (West Virginia) to the ivy league and now into the lit mag scene. She appears to have imbibed and then become somewhat disillusioned with many of the stereotypical left-liberal memes and aesthetics common to the elite yet middlebrow sphere. She's well-read in contemporary literature, has demonstrated some degree of good taste (e.g. an unironic appreciator of David Foster Wallace), and has functioned as a competent critic in a competitive and saturated landscape. She developed a distinct-enough sharp and wry literary persona and has been able to graduate beyond criticism, dabbling in literary fiction (Fake Accounts). Nonetheless, she appears pre-occupied with some inane issues and is perhaps blinkered in disappointing ways.
The theme of this collection is revenge. Oyler sees grudges as one of the primary motivating forces in literary and critical production. This is often true, especially for artists who see themselves as tastemakers or important etc. Despite her reputation as a takedown artist, Oyler is more restrained than I expected in this essay collection.
There are six essays in total: 1) Embarrassment, Panic, Opprobrium, Job Loss, Etc (concerns gossip) 2) My Perfect Opinions (concerns criticism) 3) Why Do You Live Here? (concens expat life) 4) I Am the One Who Is Sitting Here, for Hours and Hours and Hours (concerns autofiction) 5) The Power of Vulnerability (concerns gender and power) and 6) My Anxiety (concerns therapeutic culture). These essays are transparently an exercise in solipsism. Oyler is working through preoccupations of hers. This doesn't mean the writing is uninteresting. It's just that Oyler's interests and concerns are largely particular to her, and an unfamiliar reader coming to these essays is likely to be put off by them even when Oyler is being self-critical and/or clever. I appreciate the honesty even when she retreats behind various defenses but the targets of analysis often leave much to be desired or don't quite cut to the core of things. She could have pushed further and deeper. She turns an issue around a few times, raises some doubts and concerns, and then discards it without affirmatively defending a conclusion.
Perhaps, I am missing somethings. I will return to these essays. I found a lot of the actual content interesting. I share some similar interests with Oyler. I think gossip is an important social mechanism. I participate in amateur criticism (she gets paid to do it), patronize Goodreads, and obsess over cultural artifacts and internet media. I am curious about the state of the modern novel - why autofiction is so prevalent. I too am skeptical of therapeutic culture. She addresses herself to many of these topics and illuminates certain aspects of them. I was simply left wanting more.
Read
March 6, 2024not gonna rate on principle i guess
April 16, 2024
i'm torn between finding lauren oyler's voice wry and engaging and unbearably smug. she can definitely write an entertaining essay, and there are times when her contrarianism is compelling, but the way she pretty much like. backs away from any sincere or earnest thought she might have is pretty frustrating. she seems much more comfortable tearing into other people's opinions than developing any sharp, unique opinions of her own.
however, despite my reservations, i did find this essay collection to be an enjoyable read. her more Online essays are brisk, funny reads if not exactly enlightening in their observations on internet culture in the 21st century. my favorite essays here were definitely the berlin essay (i will choose to ignore that line that's like "it's striking because, well, lights" out of the kindness of my heart. it was good other than that) and the anxiety essay, probably because they were not so drenched in terminal onlineness.
overall, i did like this essay collection, though it's certainly not perfect. will probably pick up more of oyler's work in the future
3.5 stars
however, despite my reservations, i did find this essay collection to be an enjoyable read. her more Online essays are brisk, funny reads if not exactly enlightening in their observations on internet culture in the 21st century. my favorite essays here were definitely the berlin essay (i will choose to ignore that line that's like "it's striking because, well, lights" out of the kindness of my heart. it was good other than that) and the anxiety essay, probably because they were not so drenched in terminal onlineness.
overall, i did like this essay collection, though it's certainly not perfect. will probably pick up more of oyler's work in the future
3.5 stars
April 17, 2024
No, Judgment.
March 28, 2024
NO JUDGMENT by Lauren Oyler is such an amazing and fun book for those that love criticism, essays and perfect opinions - LOL. The first essay goes straight into it about our cultural obsession with gossip and revenge. I loved the essay on Goodreads and how Adam Dalva successfully overtakes the algorithm - just riveting storytelling here. More fun topics explored : autofiction, Berlin, dating, anxiety, and mentions of everyone from deux moi to Annie Ernaux, Tar and the bad art friend story. Even if FAKE ACCOUNTS wasn’t your jam (it was mine!), this is a great collection of writing.
did-not-finish
March 25, 2024Listened to almost half of this.
Kind of a brain-dead flop that reads like a millennial stuck in a pre-pandemic fugue state.
Kind of a brain-dead flop that reads like a millennial stuck in a pre-pandemic fugue state.
Read
June 24, 2024thank you to harperone and netgalley for the digital arc! sorry it took me three months to read LOL
i am truthfully shocked that anyone has that strong of opinions about this 🤪 i read half of this essay collection before all the *drama* and finally finished the second half long after the drama left the literary conversation. and honestly i just don't get it? i left this collection feeling remarkably neutral.
at the beginning, i thought i was in for a grand old time. i loved the essays on gossip and goodreads. (the goodreads essay actually inspired me to change my bio to "amateur critic, professional hater" lol) however, the essay about living in berlin was so deeply uninspiring that i finished it and put this book down for like two full months. i got absolutely nothing from that essay and will never think of it again. <3
the rest of the collection was similarly bland for me, aside from the essay on autofiction. oddly, the essays on vulnerability and anxiety were rather in distant in tone, at least to me, and i struggled to connect with any deeper meaning oyler may have intended.
but again...none of this inspired any significant ire?? i simply moved on with my life. maybe i am just not online enough to understand what lauren oyler means to literary criticism, but i just didn't think any of this was that deep.
also, the last words in the digital galley i have are a footnote of the words "i'm kidding," which i think sums up this collection. it is not that serious, y'all. lauren oyler herself doesn't think so lol
i am truthfully shocked that anyone has that strong of opinions about this 🤪 i read half of this essay collection before all the *drama* and finally finished the second half long after the drama left the literary conversation. and honestly i just don't get it? i left this collection feeling remarkably neutral.
at the beginning, i thought i was in for a grand old time. i loved the essays on gossip and goodreads. (the goodreads essay actually inspired me to change my bio to "amateur critic, professional hater" lol) however, the essay about living in berlin was so deeply uninspiring that i finished it and put this book down for like two full months. i got absolutely nothing from that essay and will never think of it again. <3
the rest of the collection was similarly bland for me, aside from the essay on autofiction. oddly, the essays on vulnerability and anxiety were rather in distant in tone, at least to me, and i struggled to connect with any deeper meaning oyler may have intended.
but again...none of this inspired any significant ire?? i simply moved on with my life. maybe i am just not online enough to understand what lauren oyler means to literary criticism, but i just didn't think any of this was that deep.
also, the last words in the digital galley i have are a footnote of the words "i'm kidding," which i think sums up this collection. it is not that serious, y'all. lauren oyler herself doesn't think so lol
April 8, 2024
It is with great delight that I write a Goodreads review of No Judgment, as I know from her essay on Goodreads that Lauren Oyler will read this (hi, Lauren!). Thoughts after a first pass at this essay collection: Lauren is smarter than me and also slightly younger, which -- unlike some other Goodreads reviewers -- I have the ego strength to sit with and often enjoy. The essays in No Judgment demonstrate a v. sharp mind at work; they sometimes meander, refusing to conclude (here I mean both "end" and "arrive at a definitive judgment"). I found myself more easily enjoying the essays that remained narrower in scope (expat-hood, anxiety) and were perhaps more "personal," though there were choice lines from every piece that I would have highlighted, if I was the kind of person to highlight in a book. At her best, Lauren's thinking is clear and she is never afraid to change her mind. At her worst, she decided -- for some reason -- to move to Berlin, obstructing (for now) the v. clear outcome that she and I will be friends.
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