Photo Credit: "Woman" by s whitford on Photobucket
Smming up what happened to many of her Outward Bound companions, “The skinny realtor finds a rich new boyfriend and gains a few pounds,”
From All Over The Map (Harmony), travel writer Laura Fraser’s memoir.
In the world of culture-tainment—women are represented by Julia Roberts starring in the film version of the mega best-seller “Eat, Pray, Love” and men have Thomas Jane’s well-endowed character Ray Drecker—in HBO’s dramedy series, “Hung,” disparaged by cultural critics even when it is being damned with faint praise.
Single women turn forty, go off on travel adventures, have sex, find new love, in exotic places, write books—and get more love from the readers. They are brave, fearless, admired.
Men, single or married, turn forty and get dumped, face career setbacks, buy a new skinny woman if they can afford one—and earn contempt whether they write books or not.
Surely you’ve noticed that the penis is in disfavor.
The Italian Affair, Fraser’s first memoir which preceded the giantess of the genre, “Eat, Pray, Love”, is sophisticated and sexy, focusing on her affair in Italy with a French professor. At the time I read it, I was having an affair with an Italian. One of the memories from both affairs, hers and mine: Fresh Italian sardines—little shiny silver beauties barely resembling those things we eat out of tins—crisply fried and served with pasta.
Inevitably, even though Fraser came first, All Over The Map will be compared to EPL, the adored book and soon in theatres, the adored movie. Who doesn’t adore Julia Roberts? But Fraser is wiser and funnier in this new book than she was first time around—or Elizabeth Gilbert was in EPL. A seasoned travel writer, she covers a lot of ground, virtually all over the map as the title promises. (The book is one of Oprah’s Top Ten Summer Reads.)
In an interview, she said, “I hate sharing things in small groups.” I can identify with that. Few people understand how one can write intimately of one’s life and yet not be comfortable taking part in the emotional circle jerk that is so often a part of going out with the girls. I get it.
And she says, “I am just so sick of women’s magazines that feel like women don’t have a brain, who don’t think that there’s room for a lively, snarky voice. I think people respond to what I write because I have some attitude and there’s so little attitude in women’s magazines.
“And while I’m venting: one of the things that really pisses me off is when people call my book chick lit.”
YES! Fraser’s All Over The Map is not chick lit, but an expansion into higher territory than the category, travel memoir by woman. Buy it for the vulva, but read it for the brain.
Are you a devotee of “Hung” or one of those people who says frostily, It’s all about when is he going to show it?
The concept: Former college basketball star with super-sized cock, left by wife for doctor, career as high school coach faltering, house falling apart, prostituting his big penis in attempt to pay the bills.
In “Hung: A Parable for Crass Times” on salon.com, Heather Havrilesky, writes, , “…like some modern version of John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom, [Ray] asks himself, Wasn't I a winner once? How did I wind up in a hotel room, doing the deed with a big bossy woman who says I'm ‘almost as good’ as her vibrator?”
Interesting comparison. If you have not read Updike’s Rabbit series, you really should put it on your list. Rabbit Run, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich, Rabbit At Rest—regarded by many critics as his best work—define the late 20th Century in America. Like the Rabbit books, “Hung” is darkly comic and somewhat disturbing. Nobody understands Ray. Nobody seems to try. And nobody makes love to him.
Is Ray—with his over-sized penis—the man for our times, not because the times are crass, but because we hold the penis in little regard?
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