Dear Jenny,
Last week, you recommended a book to me, Little Money Street: In Search of Gypsies and Their Music in the South of France by Fernanda Eberstadt. I feel now that at that time, I should have asked a few questions. For instance, "Is the book good?"
The first thing that struck me about the book was the shoddiness of the writing. Eberstadt can barely string a sentence together. There are many agreement problems. She can't seem to stick to a single tense. She sometimes seems to be inventing words. Organizationally, the entire thing is a mess: both chapters and paragraphs begin and end seemingly at random. She jumps back and forth through time without explanation.
These problems would be forgivable if she had a real story to tell, but unfortunately she never seems to have gotten all that close to her subjects. She spends much of the book bragging about her friendship with a Romany family, but she never manages to cough up very many stories about them. She visits an hypermarché with them, she has Palm Sunday dinner with them. That's about it. Her observations, furthermore, are not particularly revelatory. In the end, it seems like for Eberstadt, what's really strange is not a matter of culture but of class. She seems thunderstruck by the vulgarity involved in being poor. Ultimately, I found myself relating more closely to the Meziani and Espinas families than I did to Eberstadt, my supposed guide to their world.
What did you think, though? Am I being too harsh?
Love,
-- Pete
Dear Pete ,
At the end of your letter on the subject of fernanda eberstadt's latest book you asked if you where being to harsh,so here is my reply to a pathetic question that just invites commennts : Yes,you were.Firstly , you complain that eberstadt can barely string a sentence together.Who are you to judge ? If you're letter is anything to go by, you're no shakespear ! Then you whine that Eberstadt invents new words. To that I reply : Is it eberstadt's fault you're vocabulairy is as limited as that of a 2yrs old ? Next,and this is almost comic,you say eberstdt has no story to tell,that all she ever does with them is go to the hypermarché or other things along that line.At this point I must ask if you're doing it on purpose or you're just dumb.Haven't you ever heard "it's not the big events but the small moments that count"?What do you expect them to do,save the world from aliens ? WAKE UP!!!!This is a factual book about a women who loved gypies and they're colorful ways since she was a child.She tryed to befrend them whenever she met them.She was unsecesfull until, through a friend, she managed to meet them to the point that during the murderous period in Perpignan,she invited them to stay in her house for as long as was needed.And finally you reproche eberstadt the fact that you like the gypsy family more than her.Come on ! Obviously,eberstadt didn't say "I'm so great !They're rot!"Instead,she playfully made fun of her attempts to find gypsy music,not thinking anyone could be stupid enough to not see she was joking,and showed how great her friends were.
Emma
Posted by: emma | January 19, 2007 at 09:04 AM
Dear Pete ,
At the end of your letter on the subject of fernanda eberstadt's latest book you asked if you where being to harsh,so here is my reply to a pathetic question that just invites commennts : Yes,you were.Firstly , you complain that eberstadt can barely string a sentence together.Who are you to judge ? If you're letter is anything to go by, you're no shakespear ! Then you whine that Eberstadt invents new words. To that I reply : Is it eberstadt's fault you're vocabulairy is as limited as that of a 2yrs old ? Next,and this is almost comic,you say eberstdt has no story to tell,that all she ever does with them is go to the hypermarché or other things along that line.At this point I must ask if you're doing it on purpose or you're just dumb.Haven't you ever heard "it's not the big events but the small moments that count"?What do you expect them to do,save the world from aliens ? WAKE UP!!!!This is a factual book about a women who loved gypies and they're colorful ways since she was a child.She tryed to befrend them whenever she met them.She was unsecesfull until, through a friend, she managed to meet them to the point that during the murderous period in Perpignan,she invited them to stay in her house for as long as was needed.And finally you reproche eberstadt the fact that you like the gypsy family more than her.Come on ! Obviously,eberstadt didn't say "I'm so great !They're rot!"Instead,she playfully made fun of her attempts to find gypsy music,not thinking anyone could be stupid enough to not see she was joking,and showed how great her friends were.
Emma
Posted by: emma | January 19, 2007 at 09:05 AM