I Love Dick

I didn't finish this book, but I am finished reading this book. I decided to stop reading because I got bored with it, even though I know that's an unfair response. What does it mean to be bored with a piece of art that changed the world?

Let's take a look at what this book is, for a second. I think it's at least three things: it's a relationship memoir, it's an anti-novel that self-consciously inverts its tropes and standards, and it's a piece of postmodern cultural criticism that argues, for example, that the intellectual/inner life of women is so poorly represented in academia that the thought and critique must be contextualized and grounded in an individual's experience. I Love Dick was one of many pieces of art that was operating on this wavelength: the films of Jane Campion, Liz Phair, Mary Karr, etc. were all part of this zeitgeist. And they kind of won. Not a total victory, the patriarchy is alive and well and coming for your rights. But I think they did successfully expand what was “in bounds” regarding subjectivity, women's narratives, and deep structures of the patriarchy. That's part of why it's a little bit of a slog for me, reading in the present.

For example, the sloppy, confessional, raunchy and intellectual tone that must have been so refreshing when the novel (?) came out in the 90's has become the default tone of the feminist internet. Now that that tone is not as shocking, the callous way that she describes evicting her tenants, the “hicks” she lives around in various rural places across the country, and the mystical encounters she imagines with Guatemalan activists comes across as less savory, and out of step with the feminist conversations that are going on today.

In a similar vein, there are some clearly argued reasons why I Love Dick had to be written with real names and real ideas and real vulnerability. The part that hasn't aged so well is the aspect of it that is a comedy of manners among academics and artists–juice from a goose that's been cooked.

Anyway, if anything you've read about this book calls out to you, definitely go out and read it. But don't be surprised if the ways in which its dated leave you a little cold.