Home truths about homespun
By Judith Newman |
June 3, 2012, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
HERE'S the thing about being a brand name: What people want most from you is a kind of comforting predictability. And so it is with Anna Quindlen, who's as close to a brand name as a writer can be. Her twinkling aphorisms, her gentle homespun humor: This is what her fans expect from her. And this is what she serves to them in generous portions in "Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake."
Quindlen's latest collection of essays deals with crossing the Rubicon from late middle age to early old age. Each chapter muses on a different aspect of the way her life has changed as she moves from her 50s toward her 60s. With headings like "Faith," "Expectations" and "Mirror, Mirror," Quindlen leads us to examine what we already know - and makes us feel good for being so clever as to know it.
News flash: Solitude can be wonderful. Our girlfriends are incredibly important to us. Society has an unacceptable view of women's bodies. Fear is the great enemy. Having stuff is not that important. Even though our butts have fallen, most of us would not want to be 20 again.
Do I sound a little churlish? I suppose I am. I was with her through the 1980s and early 1990s, when Quindlen was one of the first, and certainly the best, to write about family and balance outside the confines of women's magazines. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning columns for The New York Times, she showed that domestic issues were worthy of serious examination, and she was a bold yet nuanced voice on topics ranging from spousal abuse to abortion. But today she seems much more interested in holding our hands than pulling our hands away from our eyes. "You're like a cake when you're young," she says. "Rising takes patience, and heat." Does it? Really? Tell that to Mark Zuckerberg.
And therein lies the problem for those of us who have loved Quindlen but at this point are a bit exasperated: Her verities, while deeply soothing, aren't always entirely believable. The underlying premise of "Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake" is that we change profoundly as we get older, and in all sorts of wonderful ways. We worry less about what others think of us. We're kinder, more thoughtful, wiser, easier on ourselves, more willing to stop and smell the roses.
And of course there's some truth to this. Some. Five percent? Maybe 10? But in fact most of us (and by "us," I mean me) are more or less the same idiots we were when we were 25, with perhaps a few more useful limitations. But, anyway, please don't try to convince me that the march toward the hereafter is like a skip down the Yellow Brick Road.
The first time I wrote for a women's magazine, the editor-in-chief gave me this piece of advice: "Whatever you write, just make sure there's a great big hug for readers at the end." "Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake" has hugs for us on nearly every page, and lots of women love them.
But some of us are secretly thinking, "Anna, stop squeezing already."
Quindlen's latest collection of essays deals with crossing the Rubicon from late middle age to early old age. Each chapter muses on a different aspect of the way her life has changed as she moves from her 50s toward her 60s. With headings like "Faith," "Expectations" and "Mirror, Mirror," Quindlen leads us to examine what we already know - and makes us feel good for being so clever as to know it.
News flash: Solitude can be wonderful. Our girlfriends are incredibly important to us. Society has an unacceptable view of women's bodies. Fear is the great enemy. Having stuff is not that important. Even though our butts have fallen, most of us would not want to be 20 again.
Do I sound a little churlish? I suppose I am. I was with her through the 1980s and early 1990s, when Quindlen was one of the first, and certainly the best, to write about family and balance outside the confines of women's magazines. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning columns for The New York Times, she showed that domestic issues were worthy of serious examination, and she was a bold yet nuanced voice on topics ranging from spousal abuse to abortion. But today she seems much more interested in holding our hands than pulling our hands away from our eyes. "You're like a cake when you're young," she says. "Rising takes patience, and heat." Does it? Really? Tell that to Mark Zuckerberg.
And therein lies the problem for those of us who have loved Quindlen but at this point are a bit exasperated: Her verities, while deeply soothing, aren't always entirely believable. The underlying premise of "Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake" is that we change profoundly as we get older, and in all sorts of wonderful ways. We worry less about what others think of us. We're kinder, more thoughtful, wiser, easier on ourselves, more willing to stop and smell the roses.
And of course there's some truth to this. Some. Five percent? Maybe 10? But in fact most of us (and by "us," I mean me) are more or less the same idiots we were when we were 25, with perhaps a few more useful limitations. But, anyway, please don't try to convince me that the march toward the hereafter is like a skip down the Yellow Brick Road.
The first time I wrote for a women's magazine, the editor-in-chief gave me this piece of advice: "Whatever you write, just make sure there's a great big hug for readers at the end." "Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake" has hugs for us on nearly every page, and lots of women love them.
But some of us are secretly thinking, "Anna, stop squeezing already."
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