When Did 'Commonsense' Start Meaning 'Stupid'?
Written: Oct 15 '01 (Updated Oct 23 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Short
Cons: packed with bad, condescending advice
The Bottom Line: 86 pages of bad advice I would not curse my worst enemy with.
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| Darkmistress's Full Review: Radical Sanity: Commonsense Advice for Uncommon Wo... |
I started reading Radical Sanity (which is available in real book form, not just ebook form) because I so mercilessly made fun of The Rules and because it looked like it might be the polar opposite.
Well, sort of, but not really. The Rules presents itself as the ONLY way you will ever find happiness in a relationship (you know, by playing games before marriage.) I hoped Radical Sanity would offer some kind of, um, commonsense advice for women who know that The Rules are the quickest way to find yourself unhappily married and/or divorced. Sadly, Radical Sanity presents itself as the ONLY way to be a young feminist while focusing mostly on men, the getting, keeping and f*****g of men.
Yes, boys and girls the very first problem I had with this book was the fact that, despite her Harvard education, Ms Wurtzel swears like a truck driver. You would think with that high class education she would know some better words, but no. Maybe she’s trying to prove how very feminist she is by swearing like one of the guys, but it just doesn’t fly for me. Being as good as a man doesn’t mean swearing like a Teamster in any of the circles I’ve traveled.
And in addition to mailing Ms Wurtzel a thesaurus, I would like to also send a manuscript annotation guide. On page 81 she quotes John Lennon without citing her source (i.e she never said John said it first.) This was the most glaring example to me, but I’m sure there are others.
The advice itself ranges from quite clever to positively toxic. Examples:
From the chapter titled "Save Yourself," "Don’t expect some guy to save you. Do not sit around thinking that all would be perfect if only you had a boyfriend to catch your pained tears and hold a Kleenex around your nostrils while you blow your nose." Quite obviously sane, sound and good advice. I have no quibbles with this.
However, this chapter title says it all for me. "The Only Way To Get One Person Off Your Mind Is To Get Another One On Your Body." Yes, the very liberated Ms Wurtzel is advocating going directly out after breaking up with one male and f******g another. This is one of the most outrageously bad pieces of advice I have ever seen printed. I had a friend in college who did just this and 10 years later she’s just as big a mess as she was then. Possibly bigger.
In between there are pieces of mediocre, good, and bad advice. Never go camping is one. Why? Because SHE doesn’t like camping and what SHE doesn’t like is obviously bad. Another tidbit is always appear made up, mascara and lipstick are fine. Funny, but I know women headed for divorce who are thoroughly unhappy yet who are always scrupulously made up and I, who consider Chapstick make up, am happily married.
Wait, did you just say that it was unfair of me to use my singular experience to define rules for a generation? Funny, but that’s exactly what Ms Wurtzel did. She used drugs and drank to excess, you should use drugs and drink to excess, other wise you won’t have stories to tell your kids. You weren’t having kids? Don’t be stupid, you must have kids.
There was one thing I truly valued in this book. Brevity. It’s 86 pages long broken into 28 chapters (at $15 that’s $.54 a chapter, only half of which are useful.) At least I didn’t have to spend a lot of time reading her silly pointless babbling on how I’m living my life wrong.
In the end I would not curse my worst enemy with this book. The sensible advice she gave I had come up with on my own and seeing it in print doesn’t make it any more true. The terrible and the just plain stupid advice could actually be damaging. Ms Wurtzel is also responsible for Prozac Nation and B!tch: In Praise of Difficult Women, both of which looked like interesting reads to me until this little misadventure. Don’t mistake wittiness for wisdom and don’t buy this book. Find yourself a girlfriend with half a brain and have coffee instead. (Think of all the coffee you can buy with the $15 you’re not spending on this book.)
Recommended:
No
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Darkmistress
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