6/3/2023 0 Comments Trick mirror essays![]() ![]() ![]() What if we allowed ourselves to ask, even privately: In what ways did this book alienate me from-rather than connect me to-my experience of navigating the world?Īs is the case for many young women writers, Jia Tolentino exists in my life as the de facto aspirational model. I wondered, though, if Oyler might be onto something (at least more than the net-unanimous critical praise of Trick Mirror would lead us to believe). ![]() But Oyler’s criticisms were unfortunately obscured by her own hair-splitty, exasperated prose even on Twitter, the piece blew over quickly. This could have been significant for Tolentino, resident darling of the literary world, who had yet to receive any major bad press on her first book of essays. Oyler’s critique was essentially twofold: first, that Tolentino’s self-centered writing allows her to “make any observation about the world lead back to own and feelings, though it should be the other way round ” and second, that her “PR-style” persona preemptively undermines any genuinely risky ideas she might otherwise seem inclined to explore. In January, Lauren Oyler published a searing review of Trick Mirror in the London Review of Books. We awoke to a brave new world: one in which it is marginally more OK to criticize Jia Tolentino. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |