Metropolitan Life

by Fran Lebowitz

A witty, sometimes curmudgeonly, often helpful look at various fads, crazes, morals, fashions, and mores in America today ranges from comments on good weather to a pontifical guide for the truly ambitious

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Essays, Classics, New York, Comedy, Womens

Paperback

First published March 1, 1978

About the author

Frances Ann "Fran" Lebowitz is an American author and public speaker. Lebowitz is known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York City sensibilities. Some reviewers have called her a modern-day Dorothy Parker.

Reviews

[Darla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a strange child. I read this book when I was about 12 years old and immediately decided that when I grew up I wanted to be Fran Lebowitz. I still want to be Fran Lebowitz but I'm not so sure about the growing up part.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of essays by Fran Leibowitz has been a favorite of mine ever since I ran across it as a kid in 1983. Fran's first-person voice mixes ego-centric, 1970s swagger with an underlying sense of alienation, setting the stage for her timeless, sardonic wit and biting social commentary.

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Fran, no matter how dry, how droll, or how dated she is. Yes, the references maybe a bit old, but there is a spirit of time and place in Fran's pithy critiques of modern metropolitan life. At the heart of her acerbic wit is a pure love for being a New Yorker and I love that. I read this collection as I was reading essays by Maeve Brennan and The Portable Dorothy Parker. These women and their New York style are a complementary set, best read with a glass of Shiraz and a dinner of Steak Diane.

[Trin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing: I don't think this has aged well. There are some tart and memorable one-liners, but also a lot of set-ups designed merely to end in weak puns, and as excellent as Lebowitz is at evoking (and razzing on) New York City, she is a much less successful and amusing writer on topics such as race or sexual orientation. At least to these delicate modern sensibilities.

Halfway through I was struggling to figure out who she stylistically reminds me of--it wasn't Dorothy Parker--and then I realized: Terry Pratchett. Many of these pieces remind me of extended runs of Pratchettarian societal observation (NYC subbing for Ankh-Morpork), except these never connect back to the plot, and Granny Weatherwax never shows up. I can't unsee it now, and it's quite unsettling.

[Sketchbook · Rating 4 out of 5]

The lady is a camp. Pub c 1980, some is outdated,
but a lot is still very acute. Fran, as we all know,
went into major writer's bloc, moved fr the Village
to adjacent Carnegie Hall, and suffers in co-op style.
Her kvetch/opines resulted in an HBO doc (huhh? how??)
Well, that's America.

Best Frans: why she likes sleep. "Sleep is death without
the responsibility."

On meeting a Trick: "Treat the Trick amicably. Your friend
will divest himself and for the rest of your life the Trick
will be coming up to you at parties and saying hello."

Rome: "One needs but spend an hour or two there to realize
that Fellini makes documentaries."

Mothers & Sons, or the restaurant mum : "How was lunch, dear?"
Desired response, pls, "Mommy, the sandwich was superb. The
Wonder Bread softly unobtrusive, the perfect foil for the
richly poignant Superchunky Skippy..."

NYC : "To me the outdoors is what you must pass through
to get from your apartment into a taxicab."

Come back, Fran. Time for an update.

[Mark Hartzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dave Barry; HL Menken; PJ O'Rourke; Erma Bombeck; etc... are just some of the humorists I've loved over the years. David Sedaris & Jenny Lawson are 2 of my current favorites, so I thought I would take a re-read of Fran Lebowitz's series of essays published back in 1978. Oh my. This has not aged well. At all.

I'm old enough to remember mood rings and CB radios, but they wern't all that funny then, and they are definitely not funny now. Here is a section from the essay titled: "Why I Love Sleep"

'I love sleep because it is both pleasant and safe to use. Pleasant because one is in the best possible company and safe because sleep is the consummate protection against the unseemliness that is the invariable consequence of being awake. What you don't know won't hurt you. Sleep is death without the responsibility.'

This is one of the funnier passages in my opinion, and frankly, I just don't find this all that amusing. 2.5 stars

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this when it first came out, because of a review in NYT Book review which, unfortunately, as so often, held at least half the best lines in the book. But I recall, nearly thirty years later, this on T-shirts with messages: "If we don't want to hear from you, what makes you think we wish to hear from your shirt?"
In "Success Without College" (which she didn't attend, in fact thrown out of a High School and a prep school for "surliness"--her trademark), she notes the restaurant critic speaking to his mother,
"Mommy, the sandwich was superb. The Wonder Bread, softly unobtrusive, the perfect foil for both the richly poignant Superchunky Skippy and clear, fragrant Welch's grape."

[Kirsti · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Sleep is death without the responsibility."

Slight but fun. I enjoy the idea of lying around all day reading magazines, though I doubt I could get anyone to pay me for that. I read somewhere that the author was a cab driver when she was young, so it wasn't all Perrier and high-thread-count sheets for her.

This has some extremely dated references, including jokes about est, but it's a window into a specific place and time. I got the audiobook version (the publisher combined this and Social Studiesto make The Fran Lebowitz Reader). Her voice is a delight.

[Rimgailė 🤓 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last week I saw an interview with Fran Lebowitz and I immediately understood that I've known so much about her yet I've never read Metropolitan Life. I felt ashamed. This book is simply brilliant. Full of irony and sarcasm. Of course, real life as we know it. And one might think that maybe the comments would not be very important nowadays, the situations and examples that Fran provides are still a living thing today. It's an ingnoreland that we are still living up to this day. 📚

[Flo]

Basically,

I love her.

[Gila Gila · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a long time after this book, there was excited, hopeful chatter about The Novel Fran Lebowitz was writing. Before the Chelsea Hotel was essentially demolished, Leibowitz gave a reading of perhaps a chapter, perhaps just passages, in the little blue lit bar downstairs. I wish I could remember any of it, but my sole memory of that evening is the q and a that came afterward, during which I asked some dumb question which she quickly made arch fun of, to the delight of the audience. Today, years later, I would have laughed along; but back then all I wanted was to sink into the wine sticky floor. The long awaited book is still MIA, and I’d still nab it. And although Metropolitan Life is still funny, it’s become another piece of the New York I knew, and ache for.

[Myra Breckinridge · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publication."

Had she taken her own advice, perhaps we wouldn't have this collection of superficial notions and jokes that are so much more masturbatory and self-satisfying than they are thoughtful or noteworthy. The entire collection reads like a bunch of half-assed blogs by a smart-assed kid, which is made all the worse by the casual racism, homophobia, and thoughtlessness of her era.

[Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adore Fran, no matter how dry and how dated some of the references seems to be. Her wit is always cutting and brilliant and her observations are spot on. She defines NEW YORK and the ultimate metropolitan life and the flow of language is more than a distinct pleasure.

I also appreciate how she doesn't spend a great deal of time with fancy words, and long, flowing sentences, she wastes no words.

A true classic of New York modern literature taken in a humorous delightful way.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could read this book again and again and again and again.

[Salma]

“A Brush with Death” made me laugh. It’s about artist groups from different movements who take over buildings (sometimes with hostages) and their demanded ransoms are that their manifestos be enforced. Here’s a line from one of the stories: “A small band of exiled Cubists took over the Great Rotunda in the Capitol Building in Washington DC, and threatened to set it on fire unless the entire city was broken down into its basic geometric forms.” An Abstract Expressionist is later sent in to negotiate, and he accuses Braque X, the leader of the Cubists, of having no perspective on the matter.

Rarely is complaining entertaining to read or listen to. I would have enjoyed this book better if I were listening to Fran read it to me.

[Mia Holiday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Need to go to the club w her

[Colin Claybrook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly funny and well thought out, one of the few books to make me audibly laugh. While some of it is a little dated, most of it holds up surprisingly well.

[Michael Lindgren · Rating 3 out of 5]

While obviously dated, these comic essays / standup routines from 70s icon Lebowitz were still capable of eliciting a robust laugh or two. The book seems a memento of a rougher, harder, funnier time: it's amusing to bump against someone who is so unapologetcally un-PC, fractious, and misanthropic. Any book that starts out with the lines "The phone rings. I am not amused" can't be all bad.

[Katrina · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of Lebowitz essays that originally were published in Warhol's magazine, Interview and in Mademoiselle and all were written in the 1970's. Very few of them stand the test of time. Lebowitz clearly has a witty, frequently snarky voice but I found most of it only mildly entertaining or interesting to read. Perhaps, it's just too dated.

[Ewan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing remarkably funny or insightful, Metropolitan Life struggles to find that sweet spot between comedy and commentary. Fran Lebowitz's earlier works within this book are decent, but it peels away to weaker texts later on.

[Hilda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although very dated in her references and in the events she describes, her wit and wordplay are spot-on. The book captures 70s New York City perfectly.

I recommend it, especially if you’re a fan. If you can, get it read by her. Her voice is part of the experience.

[Melody · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my guide to hipness when I was 14. I like to think I've aged considerably more gracefully than the book.

[Nick Menzhuber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laughed out loud many times; docked one star because several passages have really not aged well.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretentious navel gazing. Not witty, rather bitter.

[Inês]

"Any child who cannot do long division by himself does not deserve to smoke."

[Shanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do not live in new york and I probably never will, I don’t know why I read this. Love Fran tho

[Inês · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publication.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[olenius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Френ Лейбовіц написала цю збірку літературних скетчів у свої 20s. Незважаючи на те що її зерно образу я б описала як Буковскі + Вуді Аллен, інколи в тексті зʼявлявся Оскар Уайлд і ми чудово провели час за judging. Ну і англійська у неї звісно важкоатлетична…. у мене ледь не розвʼязався пуп.
А ще мені от що захопливо у Френ, як можна у сімдесят залишитись такою ж як у 20?… Вона наче народилась з сигаретою і в піджаку, скептично глянула на світ і впродовж життя так і залишилась при своїй думці, в тому ж самому фасоні піджака, тримаючи сигарету у тій самій руці. Ніщо її так і не змогло вразити…

[Kyle Dubiel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fran Lebowitz is a national treasure and quite possibly the funniest woman alive.

That being said, it was hard to read a book of essays like a regular book. I borrowed this from the library but it’s something I’d probably get more out of as an owned book that I can grab once in a while and read an essay here and there.

It’s really cool to read about a long gone era of New York, but at the same time, boy are most of these essays dated!