"On the subject of Ms. Didion’s writing about herself, Ms. Roiphe concludes: 'Didion did it elegantly, but many of those who followed did it not so elegantly.' She names Anna Quindlen, Maureen Dowd, Susan Orlean and Meghan Daum, though she fails to name herself." —Katie Roiphe's "body of criticism presumes culture is determined entirely by things people have said to or about her."
Lock up your daughters: Kate Roiphe is waxing nostalgic again. In her latest paean to the Days of Wine and Date Rape, a piece in Sunday's New York Times entitled "The Allure of Messy Lives," Roiphe wonders if the popularity of the AMC series "Mad Men" is a sign that we all secretly miss the "fun" of swapping spouses, harassing employees, and getting blackout drunk at the office. In her usual "I'm just saying" style, Ms. Roiphe allows that "it's hard" to defend alcoholism and infidelity, (and "harder still" to defend the far greater sin of smoking,) but, in the name of eulogizing the vital "intensity" so many [...]
Has Katie Roiphe ever not been last to notice something? Except for her fictional observations, like about rape not existing?
— Kate Aurthur (@KateAurthur) March 14, 2012
Y'know what? It's probably better that I not go look. I'm gonna sit this one out, thanks.
Professional Internet troll Katie Roiphe has been on a tear! (If you missed her pre-Christmas salvo, "We Like Rapey Movies Because They Help All of Us to Keep Thinking Of Ourselves as Victims Even Though None of Us Actually Are, Because Rape Is So Vanishingly Rare," well, enjoy!) Now for the new year she's back, with a column called "Turning Off the Internet Is Impossible but Even Though We Actually Can, Thanks to Cool Tools, But Really It Is Illusory, Because Our Very Minds Are Different Now, and We Will Live Only Inside the Internet Forever"! It's actually a weird plea about human helplessness, or her own [...]
Have you ever loved a writer or book real hard? So hard that when someone got her or him-or it-all wrong, it was like you'd just been gutted? Well, then: the Katie Roiphe essay, from this weekend's New York Times Book Review.
There are some things to admire here. Chief among them is her argument that a lot of contemporary dude fiction is pretty flaccid stuff. Consider all those fish effectively barrel-shot. And I'm also on board for championing the virtues of erotic ecstasy that are there to be found in mid-century dude fiction. This is less-obvious ground to be treading, these days. (And yes, even if it was [...]
David: I need a haircut, Maria. I look like a duckling right now.
Maria: And a stiff drink, if you listened to that radio interview with Caitlin Flanagan, like we were supposed to. Evidently the women of America had calmed down too much since her last book, To Hell With All That, caused such a ruckus over what was widely perceived as the author's throwback and essentialist anti-feminist ideology. So not content to get people in a stir with Atlantic Monthly and New Yorker appearances, she's written a new one, Girl Land. Even the cover of which is pretty provoking.
All these moms are fine [...]
"Last week Double X published Katie Roiphe's desperate cry for relevance, 'Get Your Kid Off Your Facebook Page.' Roiphe, you might remember, is a little famous for a book about how college girls shouldn't let themselves get raped so much." I do remember that! Impossible as it sounds, this gets even better.
