Eve Babitz (1943–2021)

It's important to recognize the tone here. She's typically being hyperbolic and obtuse for humorous effect. She compares her looks to Brigitte Bardot; she also compares taquitos to heroin. I don't think the literal truth of the statement is the point, the purpose is that she is the kind of character who would make both claims with equal seriousness. Probably mock seriousness.

I found the book lively. Especially the author's prose voice, which seemed to grow in skill as the book went on. It's a vivid postcard from another time and place I'll never visit, and from a perspective I'll never inhabit. But, for me, the essays were all too similar, and suggestive of more depth than I personally was able to glean from them.… (lisätietoja)

I thought I wouldn’t enjoy this book because of the reviews, but I liked Jacaranda a lot, and I was rooting for her at the end.

Here are some quotes from the book that stood out to me while reading.

“The more someone liked her writing, the fewer clothes she felt she had on”

“Sometimes when you have had a little too much to drink, people who don’t know how wonderful you are might get the wrong impression” — “You’re fun when you’re drunk. The life of the party”

“Jacaranda’s face mirrored, over and over in the shop windows, how vulnerable and foreign she was.”

“Those skies had been done as well as they ever could be. All the art she’d ever done was but a thimbleful of color compared to one inch of this Matisse…Picasso had been through the sky, come out the other end, dug to China with a child’s shovel, and sen opposite skies…while Matisse just sat at home. And somehow his skies were bluer.”… (lisätietoja)