´The Odd Woman and the City´

 

A memoir of intellectual friendships and life encounters in New York City, The Odd Woman and the City - translated into German by pociao as Eine Frau in New York - is a nostalgic meditation on life´s ends and memories. Gornick, whose writing and intellectual life engaged on the side of radical feminism, is using the city as a meditation about life. Because her life is defined by this city, including when she is not here.

Her memories of the city are recreated through fragments of remembrances, through friendships, old loves and literary fragments. It is a highly intellectual rendition of the city, through the intimacy created across years. Streets and buildings and addresses do have the flavour of a past, they are telling stories and reimagine memories.

I loved particularly the way in which the city is a medium for intellectual counterpoint, how it does create a certain discourse that cannot be held anywhere else. It is a memoir in the making, as the memories reappear in a certain intellectual and geographical context, while passing near old stores or visiting old buildings.

The Odd Woman and the City is a reminder of all literary essays, where the intellectual curiosity cannot stay still and excited relies on every single crumb of reality to go beyond every single fragment of reality.

Rating: 4 stars