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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 11, 2014)
When she campaigned in Eugene for Sen. Jeff Merkley, her energy and conviction came across in a rush unusual in American politics today. In her book, she plays dress-up with her grandchildren, shares her love for her Aunt Bee and other family members who helped her go through law school and into teaching while raising two children. Her love for the dogs in her life is a constant. But we finish A Fighting Chance wondering if Wall Street will allow Elizabeth Warren to go higher. Born in 1949, her age might limit her. This book has no insights into her knowledge of foreign policy. Whatever the next step, after reading this book, we know there will be one. — Anita Johnson My Struggle: Book One by Karl Ove j. michaels books A PErfect = A Readers! perfect gift Cheers to beer Eugene Weekly We are proud to serve our local to beer your lovers! Door ! in Store or shipped TOP PICKS browse in the BOTTLESHOP or buy bottles online Painter’s Progress: A Portrait of Lucian Freud by David Dawson. Knopf, $65. My Favorite Things by Maira Kalman. Harper Design, $36. Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness by Rebecca Solnit. Trinity University Press, $25.95. Knausgård. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16. Given the choice, would you agree to follow a Blue Horses: Poems by Mary complete stranger through Oliver. The Penguin Press, the rambling pathways $24.95. of his most intimate Faithful and Virtuous Night: memories, as he recalls Poems by Louise Gluck. Farrar, his life as thoroughly and Straus and Giroux. $23. Winner fearlessly as possible, of the National Book Award for though not always in poetry 2014. the most linear fashion? Being Mortal: Medicine and This might be a loaded What Matters in the End by question, but, in essence, Atul Gawande. Deckle Edge, Norwegian author Karl $26. Ove Knausgård is asking no less of his reader in his six-volume autobiographical Lila: A Novel by Marilynne novel My Struggle (Min Kamp in Norweigan, and yes, Robinson. Farrar, Straus and that title is controversial to say the least). The first Giroux, $26. book of Knausgård’s grand project — widely heralded Redeployment by Phil Klay. as one of the towering literary achievements of this The Penguin Press HC, $26.95. century — begins and ends, as do many great novels, Winner of the 2014 National with the specter of death. Namely, it is the death of the Book Award for fiction. author’s father that so haunts him, as he and his brother spend hundreds of pages dealing with the aftermath Prune by Gabrielle Hamilton. Random House, $45. of alcoholic demise, cleaning a grotesquely cluttered house full of decaying food and endless empty bottles. Mix It Up by Herve Tullet. Knausgård’s prose meanders along with the Chronicle Books, $15.99. ebbs and flows of daily life, sometimes lingering for interminable passages on the everyday stuff of existence and occasionally bursting forth in stunning moments of revelation and reckoning. He flits back and forth through time, forever wrapping the present into the past and visa versa, and interspersing this with philosophical asides that distill experience into some sort of meaning, even in its apparent meaninglessness. Like Proust, Knausgård is obsessed with memory and the obsessive hold it has on us, the way every moment of our life accrues, often painfully, into this present moment. — Rick Levin more than 1000 varieties beer, cider, mead and wine thebierstein.com 1591 Willamette St. DEC 13 6-8pm De Garde Exclusive Eugene Bottle Release & Tap Invasion Upcoming Events: DEC 18 5-10pm Claim 52 Beer & Cheese Pairing DEC 19 6-8pm Good Life Vintage Tap Invasion DEC 20 Goose Island Bourbon County Stout Food for Lane County Can Drive Not That Kind of Girl: A young woman tells you what she’s “learned” by Lena Dunham. Random House, $28. Lena Dunham, even before her memoir, was a polarizing figure. With the 2012 debut of HBO show Girls, people either loved her — for candidly capturing at least a slice of the millennial zeitgeist, for her goofy narcissism, for her proud feminism — or they hated her — for that very candor, for her neuroses, for her privileged bohemian SoHo upbringing, for her early success or for her casual nudity. To that I said, “Down with the haters!” But then the allegations came: Upon the release of Not That Kind of Girl, critics pointed to passages that Dunham wrote as evidence that she sexually abused her younger sister. Knowing that I’d be reading and reviewing this book, I didn’t want to have the same fangirl blind spot that many have for, say, Woody Allen. So I will say this: I’ve read the book, I’ve read the criticisms and then I read all the responses from sexual therapists, counselors and psychologists and their resounding answer is no, this is not sexual abuse, this is natural, albeit weird, adolescent exploration. The last thing I will say about that, because this book has a lot more to offer, is that Dunham may have fared better if she had composed these passages with less snark and more reflection. Otherwise, Not That Kind of Girl is delightful. Here Dunham’s voice is original and strong, her writing more elegant and her insights into the female experience more poignant than on Girls. Dunham recounts her failures with glee and little vanity, exposing the worst of herself and others e.g., pondering unruly nipple hair while filming nude scenes, recounting her irresponsible relationship with prescription drugs or describing a breakup with a conservative college dude because of his “Phillip-Rothian” disdain for women. Dunham is ever the hilarious narcissist, but a softness and empathy does shine through, like when she writes, “My bed was a rest stop for the lonely, and I was the spinster innkeeper.” If I could go back in time, I’d tell my 18-year-old self to read Not This Kind of Girl and not to worry so much. — Alex V. Cipolle e u g e n e w e e k l y . c o m • D e c e m b e r 11 , 2 014 13
