Oh My God
I just got this book out of the library — Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz — and I’m already in love with it. And I haven’t even made it much beyond the eight page dedication.Babitz, a writer and artist “known for her collages” according to the backflap author bio, seems like the crazy/cool aunt you never had but wish you did. The aunt whose beautiful youth was full of dreams and excess. Who is as observant of life as she is enchanted by it. Published in 1974, her “confessional novel” chronicles the adventures of a young woman growing up in Los Angeles and does so in a tone that manages to be loopy, arch, enthusiastic and withering — sometimes all in the same sentence or two.Even her introductory note evinces a dotty yet straightforward and persuasive confidence, ostensibly clearing up some minor grammatical points, but really serving to dismiss and dispatch the kind of reader who just isn’t going to be up for this trip:
I want to tell you a little about myself. I am really an artist, not a writer. So, I like the way Arabic numbers look un-written out on a page. When I say someone is 15 years old, I like the way 15 looks. I like the way 9 million looks and I hate the way nine million looks. 9 seems like more a number to me.
Also, I believe that places should be capitalized. North, South, East and West are all places as far as I’m concerned… West, especially, is a serious place that should ALWAYS be capitalized. It also sounds more adventurous to go West than to go west.
Since this is my book and since the advent of James Joyce, why don’t we let me have my way? It’s such a small thing, and just think, I could be James Joyce writing in latin all the time and stuff.
Why not let her have her way? But wait — I want to go back to what may possibly be the best dedication ever. First and “mainly,” the book is dedicated to Sol and Mae, her parents. But the list of dedicatees goes on (and on) to include, among a host of some notable names and places, the following:– The Didion-Dunnes for having to be who I’m not– Eggs Benedict at the Beverly Wilshire– the purple mountains’ majesty above the fruited plain– Frank O’Hara’s “LUNCH Poems”– Dr. Boyd Cooper, gynecologist extraordinaire– sour cream– time immemorial and the suspension of disbelief– Saturday– the one whose wife would get furious if I so much as put his initials in– Desbutol, Ritilin, Obertrol and any other speed. It wasn’t that I didn’t love you, it was that is was too hard.You know what I love about as much as this book? The New York Public Library. For having this out-of-print masterpiece and for having such a great hold/pick-up system. Thanks, NYPL!I’m sure there will be a lot more to come with this. . .Sidenote: Why can’t people publish confessional novels — somewhat fictionalized memoirs — nowadays? Why is it more preferable for publishers to fishily market something as a non-fiction account and then for everyone involved to act hurt and disappointed when it turns out to be fabricated? Why not just admit it from the start? There’s a difference between fact and truth and regardless of the facts, Eve’s Hollywood certainly feels true.