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New Hollywood Gomorrah

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Stuck in the Neuropsychiatric unit, 31-year-old has-been actress Maria Wyeth asks us with lip-smacking nihilism, "What makes Iago evil?" and the story is set into motion. This story that is not feel-good, that is not happy endings, that is not cute-and-fluffy, that is not boy-wizards or other pieces of fantastical amazement. This story is filled with wrath, apathy, detachment, anomie, and best of all, realism, such realism that turns those off who encounter it and immediately denounce its meaning to shock. Though shock is what I feel is further than anything when it comes to Maria and the world she encounters. Shock would be too ridiculous and too easy.

The novel is set in late, post-Summer of Love California, in which consumerism has paved the way for the young, shaggy-beard renegade filmmakers whose countercultural films have given them wealth and prominence. Here Maria is reeling the estranged marriage between she and her director husband Carter Lang, whose name and ego have completely overshadowed her once-promising acting career that she has given up. Acting, she realizes, was another role in her life that she assumed such as daughter, wife, or mother, as she is to 4-year-old Kate, who resides in a private hospital for the "soft on her spine." Waking up at dawn, hitting the freeway, and blasting the radio with her bare feet on the petals, Maria finds some form of routine and purpose in her life, a feeling that she knows has left her some time ago. Her only ally in the decadent Hollywood world of crackpot hanger-ons and flaky representation is producer BZ, who has already lost his belief and hope in society, only clinging to the ennui and depravity that has come to be a way of life.

In 84 short but lucidly descriptive chapters, we follow Maria's day-to-day life in southern California as she goes from schmooze fests to blank motel rooms to lazy, warm afternoons by the pool, her life seemingly in the hands of no one and her fate much more tragic. This is not a story that is new and was not even new at the time of its release. In fact, this is a classic story of loneliness and alienation only without that sheer possibility of light at the end of the tunnel. Though what makes this intensely refreshing and brilliant to me is its way of twisting the "turn on, tune in, drop out" culture that was permeating the Hollywood scene after "Easy Rider" became a large hit. This was the world led and conquered a few years later by Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese, though it's hard to read this without thinking of them as the manic, selfish directors and Faye Dunaway and Jane Fonda as their socialite wives and girlfriends. In Play It As It Lays, we are forced to look at this de-glittering world of youth and genius and see the mindless contraptions of modern life that is rarely displayed in a truthful matter involving Americans. Many can talk of "ennui" in the sense of European art house, yet I see nothing in these characters that I see in those. At least in those movies, there was a glint of bittersweetness behind the savagery. Here, we have nothing but sorrow and regret--classic American traits.

Yet the true beauty of this novel is the deadpan, short-sentenced dialogue and narrative that strips down elements of grandeur and romance, creating a material world unmasked. Though you hear of them going to The Bistro or Palm Springs or riding around in Lear jets, it is easy to forget that this is the money-swallowing environment of celebrities that we as millennial society have become so bombarded by. Instead of imagining Maria as the flashy Beverly Hills housewife, wife of young director, cameras shining on her face and smiles in all right areas, we are taken deeper into her knowingly-boring past of trivial modeling shoots and disgusting exes and even further with gambling fathers and neurotic mothers. Over and over again, we witness the "roles" that Maria keeps "playing," those of which seem to never age or disappear and only seem to resonate more and more.

Many reviewers and readers in general are not invigorated by Miss Didion's sweet, dense prose, though I believe it's because they are either overcynical or simply just do not "get it," to put it vapidly. Yes this is not the clearest story and yes this does not tug at your heart's strings, but this is real life and this is the decline of a culture boosted by confidence and self-indulgence, a culture that has only but heightened as the century turned. In this time more than ever, there is a similarly modest decadence of designer clothes and relaxed morality, in which we are still asking ourselves questions and still finding out the most obvious answer of them all: Nothing applies.

Not Much There, There

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I bought this novel since it was listed on Time Magazine's list of the Best 100 Novels written in English since 1923. I have no idea why Time Magazine selected it for that esteemed honor. It was mercifully short (easily finished in a couple of hours, if that), but otherwise provided modest rewards for those looking for high-quality literature. Proving a sketch of the morally-bankrupt Los Angeles drug and sex scene of the 1960s, primarily through the internal mental narrative of 31-year-old would-be actress Maria Wyeth, Play It As It Lays doesn't seem to plow any new ground in 20th century literature. Its description of Maria's poorly-performed illegal abortion is the most memorable scene in an otherwise forgettable pastiche of characters and settings. Being on Time's 100 List sets a burden of expectations, and this book certainly fell far short on that score.

Just sort of "Blah"

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I agree with the criticism about the bleakness of "Play it," and that the story and its characters are painfully flat, but at the same time it is important to remember that the book is meant to be subversive. The dullness is a mode of irony, one that comes through similarly in other writers like John Cheever or Bret Ellis. And like Ellis' "Less Than Zero" (which is like this book in too many ways), it can be difficult to want to keep reading. After a while the story becomes obvious anyway, and even if your intuition about what comes next is wrong it doesn't matter much because nothing really seems to matter. The merit of the book is its indictment of hollywood and celebritism, but, as someone else pointed out in another review, it isn't hard to indict hollywood of emptiness anymore. so it goes.

this book can be easily read in a few hours and is still worth the experiance, at least for the sake of sampling this flavor of American prose.

In the Thick of Nothingness [T]

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I have now read two books by Didion - this and the Pulitzer Prize winning "The World of Magical Thinking." Each is devilishly depressing.

The similarities do not end there. The main character of this book, Maria Wyeth, physically resembles the author. Her roots are similar. And, she is an actress in the Hollywood that the author wrote and wrote more for.

But, there are differences too. This is fiction, "Year" is nonfiction. This book revolves around a plundered marriage. Her own was good until it ended with her husband's unfortunate death as explained in "Year." This book delves with reproaching nothingness - Didion's continued works evidence her life was well beyond the expanse of void. Didion survived in a world beyond Maria's nullity.

Some characteristics may or may not have been Didion's own - and the reader really cannot care. Maria sleeps around more than she probably should, drinks too much, may smoke more pot than she should, and experiences a horrible emotional scarring with an unwanted abortion.

The intense emotional depiction is painted evenly and simply by Dideon's masterful use of language. The first chapter biographically recites Maria's entire life in a Valley-girl way, with each sentence appearing to be disjunctive from the previous - but actually all tie together magnificently and very intentionally.

Portions of this book reminded me of the angst experienced by the dipsomaniacal protagonist in Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano." Each book crawls under your skin as you feel the emotion -- the pain and strain experienced by the respective characters who fall into deep funks in their apparent inevitable demise.

This is a quick read, unlike "Volcano." If you wonder if your psyche is strong enough for such literature, read this first as it is shorter and much less intense.

Memorable Book

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Play It As It Lays is a book that stays with you after you read it. It's also a book that you will probably want to read more than once. I read it for the first time back in November and I've already gone back and re-read it to pick up on subtleties that I missed the first time. The storyline is very sad and depressing, but quite realistic, I think. I can feel Maria's (the main character) pain and the emptiness of the life she lives. Masterful writing here.