June 2013
0 posts
May 2013
4 posts
“Doubleday must have sensed that there was a danger of retailers’ failing to appreciate the title and the jacket image of a topless Wurtzel raising her middle finger. To tone down the package, the author’s nipples were airbrushed out, creating a different kind of fallout. When Entertainment Weekly pressed Wurtzel’s editor, Betsey Lerner, for a comment, Lerner responded, “Elizabeth doesn’t have any nipples.”
—http://www.salon.com/1999/05/03/wurtzel/
Does Prozac help artists be creative? →
guardian.co.uk
Wurtzel’s book has not aged well – it is stuck in the 90s, po-faced and narcissistic. It lacks the note of authenticity that characterises the best books about mental illness. Wurtzel is also unsure exactly how she feels about the drug. At one point she gushes, “Prozac was the miracle that saved my life.” Several pages later, though, she admits that “the secret I sometimes think that only I know is that Prozac really isn’t that great”.
Wow, can’t it be both? Also, can’t it be a perfect picture of the 90s instead of stuck in the 90s? These haters need to check out some Zoloft.
April 2013
15 posts
sometimes i think i need to recover to be successful but then i look at people like elizabeth wurtzel and cat marnell and realise that actually, no i don’t
Random House interview with Elizabeth Wurtzel, 1998
- Random House: What are you feelings about the current state of feminism? Do you consider yourself a feminist?
- Wurtzel: Yeah, I do. It seems like there's different people expressing different opinions; it doesn't seem like such a unified front at this point.
- Random House: Is that part of a healthy debate?
- Wurtzel: I think there is a healthy debate going on. But I think, unfortunately, it doesn't come from such a passionate place anymore. There's so much politicking involved in it, and posturing. I'll see Naomi Wolf on television periodically, I have nothing against her and what she says, but I'll feel that she's a politician, like she's got an agenda to get across and that she doesn't always say what's really true or exactly what she feels. She kind of has this need to make herself appealing, and I think, personally, she makes herself unappealing that way. It's rather dry and bland. On the other hand, I feel like Camille Paglia, who has a lot of interesting things to say in print, sounds just whacked out of her mind to me when I watch her. Feminism is a good venue for getting yourself across as much as for getting your point across.
“The truth is that her success so far has been largely down to her refusal to subscribe to any narrative of addiction, to cast herself either as someone in recovery (‘That’s the boring part. I think you want the black magic’) or as a victim looking back on the ways her life went astray (‘I don’t want to be [the confessional writer] Elizabeth Wurtzel’).”
—
Cat Marnell article from The Telegraph
Cat has a six-figure book deal now apparently. I am so going to get prescribed Adderall the next time I see the doctor. You know, FOR MY CAREER.
“It gets worse. One of Wallace’s most difficult and complicated stories, “The Depressed Person,” was ‘revenge fiction. It was his way of getting even with Elizabeth Wurtzel for treating him as a statue (or, as she would say, refusing to have sex with him). Freed from desire, he now saw that her love of the spotlight was just ordinary self-absorption.’”
—
The Apotheosis of David Foster Wallace, Trevor Quirk
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR38.2/trevor_quirk_david_foster_wallace.php
I don't understand the harsh response, but okay.
Geez, this is a SATIRICAL blog.
Oh lord. I'm sorry, but this piece about not being a grown-up makes me want to punch her in the face and then promptly slash my own wrists (vertical, not horizontal, because I'd be serious).
Rude, are you trying to say Lizzie doesn’t know how to attempt suicide properly? Because she knows how to cut, and the soundtrack she’d use, thank you. I bet you wouldn’t even score yours, poser.
I Refuse to Be a Grown-Up →
theatlantic.com
For those who found her NY Mag piece too polished and thought-out
Omg Lizzie hath blessed us with a new article in the Atlantic. Let me get my popcorn and my judging slippers.
“Nothing sounds better than an LP, but nothing feels better than not having to flip it over three times.”
— Elizabeth Wurtzel, In Bed With Bob Dylan (via bon-bon)
Lizzie Writes About Bob Dylan →
tabletmag.com
Technically, there is not a lot that’s actually about Dylan. Mostly, it’s all about Elizabeth, as per usual.
Also, she likes Mumford & Sons.
March 2013
6 posts
referring to women's day quote on your page: this is very ignorant. explore your thought in-depth; try to see what you have said is very narrow-minded. (ie, women who are ill and cannot work, lack of employment in a shit economy, professional oppression of working-class women, women who did not grow up with parental support and have not advanced due to that neglect... etc. etc. etc.)
This was a reference to one of Elizabeth’s Wurtzel’s articles in which she states that belief. This is a satirical blog about Wurtzel’s work and public persona. This is definitely NOT my view.
I believe women who are supported by men are prostitutes, that is that, and I am heartbroken to live through a time where Wall Street money means these women are not treated with due disdain.
http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/01/elizabeth-wurtzel-on-self-help.html
Happy International Women’s Day! Unless you’re supported financially by a man. Then you are a prostitute and its kind of a gray area.
“As Wurtzel says, however, “The question of whether the ‘real you’ is the person on lithium or the person on illegal drugs doesn’t matter…What matters is whether you function or not. We don’t know that the medication isn’t helping you become the real you.”
—http://marywhipplereviews.com/andrew-shaffer-literary-rogues-biographies-a-scandalous-history-of-wayward-authors/
“
Those born on July 31 take a special interest in what it means to be a human being. Philosophical and moral questions concerning the nature of humanity absorb them, especially where unusual and abnormal aspects of people are concerned.
[…]July 31 people have a great need to share and communicate what they have learned. […]there is a marked descriptive or visual talent associated with those born on this day.
[…]As family members they are not infrequently the subject of controversy and the object of criticism. Some July 31 people may even choose to live alone precisely for this reason; it is as if they are too much involved with mankind in general to have time for a great deal of personal interaction.
Those born on this day generally have a practical, realistic outlook but may tend at times toward the pessimistic. If their assessment of life around them becomes overly negative and then gets turned inward, it can make for true unhappiness. Thus the realism of July 31 people can be valuable and healthy but must never become a destructive negativity. Those born on this day must remind themselves that the immediate world around them can be greatly improved through their efforts, and that their dedication to more universal social issues may be of less usefulness. Perhaps practicing daily acts of kindness themselves constitutes their best chance of becoming the ideal human being they so greatly admire.
” —http://www.thesecretlanguage.com/report/celebrity/?id=28491
Eerily accurate from my view.
Hello. I run a Tumblr devoted to Jonathan Franzen (Franzenfreude) and I just wanted to say that I love what you're doing with this blog!
Thanks! Props to the name
February 2013
9 posts
Yes! With Sarfraz Manzoor. And no kidding, me too lol. Maybe a tad too obsessed? Nah, I don't think so :) I have all my favourite passages in her books highlighted so that I can go through them without having to read the whole book. I'm trying to force myself to read something OTHER than Elizabeth (as difficult as it is) ;)
What is your favorite chapter? Everyone can reply to this as well.
My instinct would be to say Drinking In Dallas (chapter 7) or Black Wave (chapter 5), but what I actually have highlighted the most is chapter 14, Think of Pretty Things, which is good and bad.
How old are you? Have you ever spoken to Lizzie?
I have never personally spoken to Lizzie, but I have messaged her on Twitter when I had one and I know she has read this blog at least once. Hopefully she secretly checks it every day. :) Love you, Lizzie!
“During her appearance in Adams, Wurtzel said that she had proposed that the book be called I Hate Myself and I Want to Die, and that her publicist had thought up the actual title (Wurtzel appeared to want to present herself as allied with her audience against the forces of marketing and capitalism). In fact, it’s unclear whether Prozac Nation—certainly a misleading title, as Wurtzel admits—would be better titled I Hate Myself and I Want to Die, or I’m Clinically Depressed and I Want to Die, or, as an audience member at Sunday’s presentation suggested, I Hate Late Capitalism and I Want to Die.„
Inasmuch as Prozac Nation sets out to make broad or generalizable points about the nature of society, the family, youth culture, politics, or whatever, it fails roundly. As the memoir of Wurtzel’s troubled coming of age it might have some sort of appeal, if only a prurient and very limited one, especially to those familiar with the Harvard-specific sites of her antics. But even the interest that inheres in a peer’s extravagances is undercut by the fact that Wurtzel is neither a good writer nor an appealing individual. She comes off as an irritating, solipsistic brat. Wurtzel is interested not in depression as a phenomenon, but in her own depression, so her narrative will contain little interest even for depressed Harvard students, who would seem to be the perfect audience. Wurtzel views everything through the prism of her personal hell, so everything ends up being about her, including a lot of things that shouldn’t be. For example, she imagines her lover lost somewhere in Uruguay, “a country that lends itself very well to the vagaries and paranoias of fiction because life and death is everywhere in Latin America,” which is just silly.” —“Prozac Nation: Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Unofficial Guide to Whining—THIS GIRL MAY BE DEPRESSED, BUT SHE KNOWS HOW TO PARTY”, by Erica L Werner, in the Harvard Crimson, September 29th, 1994 (via marginalutilite)
Inasmuch as Prozac Nation sets out to make broad or generalizable points about the nature of society, the family, youth culture, politics, or whatever, it fails roundly. As the memoir of Wurtzel’s troubled coming of age it might have some sort of appeal, if only a prurient and very limited one, especially to those familiar with the Harvard-specific sites of her antics. But even the interest that inheres in a peer’s extravagances is undercut by the fact that Wurtzel is neither a good writer nor an appealing individual. She comes off as an irritating, solipsistic brat. Wurtzel is interested not in depression as a phenomenon, but in her own depression, so her narrative will contain little interest even for depressed Harvard students, who would seem to be the perfect audience. Wurtzel views everything through the prism of her personal hell, so everything ends up being about her, including a lot of things that shouldn’t be. For example, she imagines her lover lost somewhere in Uruguay, “a country that lends itself very well to the vagaries and paranoias of fiction because life and death is everywhere in Latin America,” which is just silly.” —“Prozac Nation: Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Unofficial Guide to Whining—THIS GIRL MAY BE DEPRESSED, BUT SHE KNOWS HOW TO PARTY”, by Erica L Werner, in the Harvard Crimson, September 29th, 1994 (via marginalutilite)
we interrupt these posts reiterating the obvious awfulness of Elizabeth Wurtzel to remind you of something very important
Consideration should be given to Bitch, Wurtzel’s sloppy, often absurd, yet somehow compelling examination of women that both the mainstream and most feminisms disavow.
Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women has absorbed more critical venom than any book since, well, Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation.
People bitch about Elizabeth Wurtzel but I think Prozac Nation is the main book that helped me come to terms with my depression/BPD and I have a lot to be grateful to her for that.
January 2013
8 posts
NOT KNOWING
I don’t know if this is directly Cat Marnell-related or indirectly Cat Marnell-related (in no world is it unrelated to Cat Marnell), but I read some random shits this week about the potential and relative value of writing from inside an experience, rather than, I guess, from around it or past it. And every person on my Twitter feed was very “What’s yr deal, Elizabeth Wurtzel?” even though she had just explained her deal, in detail! And then sometimes also parsing, in quick bits, the ego and intentions of Lena Dunham, there less “What’s yr deal” and more “Let me tell you about yr deal” which is the diff between 26 or whatever and 40 or whatever.
I like this in a HAHAHAHAHAHA kind of way because what it presumes, that anyone with some distance (…) is somehow and necessarily in a better position to reflect on the meaning of transgression (than the currently transgressing! HOW?!), is both incorrect (which is no big deal) and ungenerous and self-important (bigger deals).
Coming from a place, in memoir or whatever else, of I-don’t-know!-ness, of vulnerability and conflict and nuance, is so much more interesting and important and legitimate, and should be important to people who front as arbiters of authenticity.
Elizabeth Wurtzel Confronts Her One-Night Stand of a Life →
nymag.com
So excited to have some new content from Lizzie!!!
First off, the shade of that title. Not to mention misleading. ‘One night stand of a life’ and ‘self-help’ seem somewhat at odds.
So, at the beginning of the year in 2012, Lizzie had a stalker, the previous tenant of her apartment. She tried going to the police but,
the police are not equipped to manage crazy women and could not understand why someone who was neither a rejected lover nor a cast-out roommate was behaving this way. They always sent pairs of very fat female cops. As soon as I opened the door, I knew it was hopeless.
I guess she and her violent stalker were too thin to be mediated by any fatties.
They would ask if I wanted to file a complaint. I would look at the forms in white, pink, and yellow triplicate, all very 1986. I wondered if they were forgotten in an aluminum filing cabinet in the 6th Precinct or if they were folded into paper airplanes and flown into garbage bins with empty Styrofoam coffee cups and more of the same.
??? So, there was NOT a complaint filed?……
We then digress, as we are wont to do.
“…[A]t 44 my life was not so different from the way it was at 24. Stubbornly and proudly, emphatically and pathetically, I had refused to grow up[…] By never marrying, I ended up never divorcing, but I also failed to accumulate that brocade of civility and padlock of security—kids you do or don’t want, Tiffany silver you never use—that makes life complete. Convention serves a purpose: It gives life meaning, and without it, one is in a constant existential crisis.
Kids you don’t want make your life complete.
I am committed to feminism and don’t understand why anyone would agree to be party to a relationship that is not absolutely equal. I believe women who are supported by men are prostitutes, that is that, and I am heartbroken to live through a time where Wall Street money means these women are not treated with due disdain.
JFC, Elizabeth….PLEASE don’t talk about feminism and then shame other women five seconds later while also condemning sex workers. Don’t do it.
Until I went away to law school, I made a very good living as a writer and never had to do anything else. But I never saved or invested, because I believe if you take care of the luxuries, the necessities will take care of themselves.
[…]
He is the smartest person I have ever met, and it is a steep fall to second place. I knew David Foster Wallace pretty well, and he was pretty smart, but David Boies makes David Wallace look like, well, some other lesser David
Stop bringing it up.
Welp, it has nothing to do with self-help. Or, in many cases, reality.
So I went to the bookstore
and bought Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel…in hindsight, I probably should have bought Manifesta instead, but I’ve never read a shallow faux-feminist book before, so I’m interested to see what I’ll find.
Please, the authors of Manifesta probably didn’t even do any coke while they wrote it.
take it like a teenage tough.: and what is worse about it is that i know, i just know that a quick... →
ihatepeterandthewolf.tumblr.com
and what is worse about it is that i know, i just know that a quick trawl through the internet would lead me to a wealth of teenagers using prozac nation, the book or the film, as this piece of art to admire and relate to, and in so many cases to aspire to: no. it doesn’t come across in the book…
They think Elizabeth makes depression sound beautiful?…they DID read about the accidental blow job, right?
December 2012
5 posts
SIX-WORD MEMOIR NIGHT ON JEWISH LIFE →
newyorker.com
SMITH magazine, which is known for its Six-Word Memoir project, presents a night of six-minute stories about Jewish life, with Elizabeth Wurtzel, Jane Shore, Deborah Copaken Kogan, Rachel Sklar, Lynn Harris, Anthony Giglio, and David Wolkin. (Lexington Ave. at 92nd St. 212-415-5500. Dec. 6 at 8:15.)
If anyone goes to this, I WANT PICS AND VIDEO.
November 2012
9 posts
I just saw that! Haha, I would be honored ;) It was included in that BBC interview with Elizabeth this past October. I think it may just be one of my favourite pictures/collage type thing of her. Not sure if you listened to it. I'd include the link but apparently Tumblr won't let us in messages? lol
With Sarfraz Manzoor? I don’t think I have heard that one, not sure how to best find podcasts and the like. I usually do an intensive search of Google News once a week, but this has led me to some unearthed gems. Thanks!
Are you mentally ill? I mean, speaking from experience, her books immensely helped me through my recovery. You don't need to answer this if you're uncomfortable, however, haha. I was just curious if that's why you have such a strong connection to her writing. Love your blog, by the way! I think Elizabeth Wurtzel may just be my God/spirit animal all wrapped up into one glorious writing package :) But anyway, keep it up! I always love checking in and getting my online Lizzie fix lol.
I am. I first read PN in high school more at the beginning of my struggle with depression. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but the more time that passes, the more insight I think Lizzie had. When I get in a bad depressive spiral, I go back and read some of the chapters, especially Drinking in Dallas and Black Wave.
Glad to see another devotee!
“The men have piled up in my past, have fallen trenchantly through my life, like an avalanche that doesn’t mean to kill but is going to bury me alive just the same…. I attract (and seek) bottle throwing, foot stomping, door slamming, pot clanging, hair pulling, and, above all, a lot of loud screaming and walking out in a huff—usually leaving me crying, wondering what just happened, or, more often, too astonished to cry.
Or else: There is the thrill of loving for a little while—a night, a week, a month, even a year—and then loving stops, just like that, in the coldest, blankest way, a screen going snowy at the end of a movie. There is no yelling, only silence—the kind in a Carole King song: the phone that doesn’t ring, or the words you didn’t say that you think of on the staircase spiraling down once the door is locked behind, or maybe even months later.” —Elizabeth Wurtzel
Failure to Launch: When Beauty Fades
May 20th, 2009 (via marilyndimaggio)
Or else: There is the thrill of loving for a little while—a night, a week, a month, even a year—and then loving stops, just like that, in the coldest, blankest way, a screen going snowy at the end of a movie. There is no yelling, only silence—the kind in a Carole King song: the phone that doesn’t ring, or the words you didn’t say that you think of on the staircase spiraling down once the door is locked behind, or maybe even months later.” —Elizabeth Wurtzel
Failure to Launch: When Beauty Fades
May 20th, 2009 (via marilyndimaggio)
