Carnal Acts: Essays Book

I confess I'm putting off homework by reviewing this book -- in part because a review is easier, right now, than trying to assemble Nancy Mairs's detritus from the process of writing Remembering the Bone House into a coherent narrative. There must be one! My professor wouldn't have put this on the book list if it didn't have one; she's not that tricky! No, only time and the framing device (basically "I wrote this stuff while I was writing the other stuff") hold this together.

I wish it had held my interest. The problem is that she's writing... like a writer, I think, and not so much like the human being behind the academic. Her publisher was right to toss a bunch of material ("too academic"). I feel as if she's talking down to me in this "But, First..." and I want to shake her. I want to say, "Nancy, we're the same, though you have MS and I am but a lowly CFS/ME/WTFer. You write highblown personal essays and I'm most at home in my dystopia, but we're both human."

At least she knows her audience: herself.

Or else I am too modern. Too postmodern? Too tired of seeing technique everywhere, perhaps? Because what I did, and what may never make me famous but always leaves me satisfied, was throw away the technique when I was talking about myself. I shouldn't be wondering if this is her actual voice -- but of course for some people this is exactly how they speak and think; after years of it professionally something must sink into their hearts of hearts. Whatever the reason, I see technique and I think "precious" but I don't think "real" except when she drops the pretense that she's anything better than you or me.

Two stars for the moments when the pretense falls away.