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Title: More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction by Elizabeth Wurtzel ISBN: 0-7432-2331-4 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 31 December, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.25 (16 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: What A Drag.......
Comment: I became a "fan" of Wurtzel's, as did many others, after "Prozac Nation" was published. I dutifully read "B*tch", following the twists and turns of her Ritalin-addled brain. I avoided "More, Now, Again" when it was released because I just had a feeling that it would be bad.....After reading the book last night (yes,....it is a one-nighter) I realized what this feeling stems from. No longer a college freshman with romantic ideas about depression and substance abuse, I have simply outgrown Wurtzel. The book is interesting in that we see how she lives while writing "B*tch," which explains a lot about that particular book. As with "Prozac Nation", I love the way she begins each section with a snippet of song or poetry (and the Gordon Gano that begins the tale is right on the mark.) In the end, Wurtzel is like a smart but self-destructive ex-boyfriend: She likes great music (I love the way she writes about Bob Dylan), can talk about good books and makes you feel a little better about your own life but the relationship is just not very much fun.
Rating: 4
Summary: So this is what it's like to be orbiting Axis 2
Comment: I don't really know if this is a "good" book or not. One could argue that the writing is sloppy and/or self-indulgent, or that this is the SECOND autobiography that Ms Wurtzel has written before the age of 35, or whatever. Yeah, okay: technically speaking, it is possible to trash this book.
BUT --
I liked this book. First of all, I have to admit that I like Ms. Wurtzel's writing style. She does not read like she spent years at an MFA program honing her craft. THANK GOD! She sounds ALIVE, which is ten times more than I can say for most of the lovely, "deep", and ultimately soporific literature that is being written these days. If you open More, Now, Again, you'll probably read the whole thing. Which is the acid test of good writing.
Second, I've made a pet project of trying to read first-hand accounts of mental illness (I'm a psychiatry resident). More, Now, Again and Prozac Nation are as good as anything I've read about what it's like to have a personality disorder (in her case, probably hovering between Borderline and Narcissistic personality disorders). If you happen to be a mental health care worker and want to "see what it's like" to have a personality disorder, this is probably as good as you'll get.
On a secondary note, I found her tale of "recovery" to be interesting - I like how she discusses her struggles with accepting the banal practices of recovery programs. It's interesting how so many reviewers on this site found the "recovery" section of the book to be a bit of a drag compared with the "speed freak" part. I'm sure many drug users feel exactly the same way about their lives -- in a way, recovery is an exercise in accepting a boring, everyday life.
Anyway, though: thumbs up.
Rating: 4
Summary: Another crazy rich woman with talent
Comment: I picked up a remaindered copy of Elizabeth Wurtzel's More, Now, Again, a memoir of her addiction to Ritalin. I was curious about this book, because the author of Prozac Nation clearly knows that the Ritalin subculture is just as messed up as the Prozac one (if not more. Wurtzel writes beautifully, though I can't help wondering why so many rich, well-educated women become depressed, cut themselves, shoplift, and court addiction. Is it endemic in the life-style as well as the genes? Do poor women also manifest this kind of behavior?
Wurtzel's NY-based psychiatrist precribed Ritalin to help Wurtzel concentrate. Unbeknownst to her psychiatrist, Wurtzel began snorting Ritalin while she was living in her mother's Florida condo and writing her second book, Bitch. While Wurtzel was living in Florida, her psychiatrist had W's Ritalin Fed-Exed to her. The naive doc accepted Wurtzel's lame excuses for the disappearance of too many pills before her prescription was up.
Wurtzel's writing is absolutely stunning, but after awhile (50 pages or so) I became impatient with her sadness and her addiction and squandering of her talent . Here's the dreadful truth: she probably does have a personality disorder that makes her unable to function. So she writes pages and pages of beautiful, sorrowful prose about an absolutely repugnant life-style. I don't know whether to recommend this book or not. I really admire the writing, but... anyway, I'll err on the side of generosity and assign the book four stars.
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Title: Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel ISBN: 0385484011 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 18 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America : A Memoir by Elizabeth Wurtzel, Riverhead Books ISBN: 1573225126 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Radical Sanity : Commonsense Advice for Uncommon Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel ISBN: 0812991605 Publisher: AtRandom Pub. Date: 20 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Wasted : A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher ISBN: 0060930934 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 15 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Skin Game by Caroline Kettlewell ISBN: 0312263937 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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