hibsta's reviews
156 reviews

even though the beat generation ended about two decades prior, kathy acker seems to have derived stylistic and thematic inspiration from the beatniks in her 'new york in 1979'. however, there was this one passage on janey that stuck out to me as the antithesis of the beatnik idea of liberation and breaking free from perceived 'normal behaviors': it was the one where the author described janey's clothing and accessories in a manner that they seemed to be wearing janey (and not the other way round); it was an interesting mental picture of what shapes confinement can take. maybe that's precisely in line with the beat idea; the feelings of confinement and restrictions were what lead to the explosive birth of the beat generation.
other than that, personally, I don't think I'm a huge fan of sexual liberation being expressed as a violent, explosive force. 

I normally steer clear off of self-help types; I find them to be a bit too preachy or too... 'simple-age-old-concepts-repackaged-as-profound-new-ideas'. But this one, I quite liked. It was short and sweet. 

This one left me feeling lonely 

I mean I had to keep reminding myself that this book was written in a very different time when a lot of the things that are not okay today, were completely okay and normal back then. there's a lack of empathy and compassion in the lot of friends and they keep dropping loved ones left, right, and centre. but I guess that's what made beatniks, beatniks. on the whole, the story spoke deeply to my wanderlust and I was quite fascinated with the characters living such different lives within one lifetime and in so many different, unique parts of America. 

oh what privilege it is to have been allowed to read such gorgeous letters. but in reading, I felt as though I was invading the two lovers' little private world. and though we only get a one-sided account of the affair in this collection, we still get glimpses of milena, echoes of milena's fierce voice in the quotations kafka lifts from her letters. 

loved "visions of a totalitarian future" above all essays in this short collection. 

This short story made me realise I have a thing for Southern gothic! 

I think the mother, by and large, represents a patriarchal society; the story opens with a whole laundry list of, well, laundry for starters, and a bunch of other chores a woman needs to know how to do in order to keep house, which is essential to a society that considers women subordinate to men and "homemakers" in general. The story is composed wholly of a stream of advice and do's and don'ts, which kind of mirrors society's constant pressuring of women through subliminal and explicit messaging. And there are rules for every little situation a woman may or may not find herself in--things a man wouldn't even think of. 
We can also note an underlying fear in the mother's barrage of advice: a fear of her daughter becoming a "slut." Isn't that something society also fears? Present-day society is no different in its hatred for sexually liberated women. 

In a strange and sort of dark way, I find humor in the fact that the mother teaches the daughter how to make a potion to voluntarily produce a miscarriage after she has scorned the daughter multiple times during the course of her stream of advice for being 'bent on becoming a slut.' 
Based on the daughter's unconventional antics, she definitely thinks the daughter must end up in a situation with an unwanted pregnancy out of wedlock (something people looked down on back then and thought only "loose women" or "sluts" could do). She's thus prompted to include this piece of advice by the end of it. It's as if she thinks the daughter won't heed any of her advice and yet continues to go on to give it.