My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand

[jserraglio]

Streisand's memoir is alive, fascinating, self-deprecating, and rendered in the vibrant idiosyncratic voice she uses in her songs. Read it. Nuff said.

[Ricordanza]

It's also 970 pages! Where was her editor? As much as I admire Barbra Streisand, I'm reluctant to plough through a book of this length.

[Belle]

It's also 970 pages! Where was her editor? As much as I admire Barbra Streisand, I'm reluctant to plough through a book of this length.

Totally agree. Excerpts of her autobiography - and about how all her male co-stars were always in love with her - were in "The Australian" newspaper on Thursday. She came across as not the sharpest tool in the shed. This explains a lot!!!

[jserraglio]

She came across as not the sharpest tool in the shed. This explains a lot!!!

That snarky ad hominem attack on the author by someone who can't be bothered even to read her book explains a lot too. It reveals more about her than Ms. Streisand.

In my view, Streisand's lively, colloquial writing is a helluva lot more readable than most. I am already more than a third of the way thru the book and wouldn't have it any shorter. Yes, Streisand's oddball voice is of generous proportions, but it consistently rings true: it is the voice of a gifted raconteur and comedienne.

Streisand’s narrative is filled with striking mundane visual details a la Edith Wharton — colors, furnishings, clothes, paintings, land and city scapes. Things are evoked with proper nouns and I often had to look them up. The positive notices she got and her occasional fights of metaphysical fancy are mostly undercut by irony, puzzlement or self deprecation. Indeed, large parts of her book struck me as wickedly funny. The long chapter on Brando, for instance, is itself a luscious tour de force, comic yet poignant. Why would anybody wish it shorter?

And it is decidedly not the case that Streisand claims all her leading men fell in love with her. Quite the contrary.

But of course, one who hasn't read the book is free to claim, ungenerously, that she knows otherwise.

After I finish reading, I’m gonna be real tempted to listen to the audiobook simply because Streisand herself is the reader. I did listen to the "Prologue" and it is just hilarious!

I need to finish it first, but right now I’m thinking: in its audio format, this might just go down as one of the great American autobiographies.

Emperor Joseph II: My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.

Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty? — Peter Shaffer, Amadeus

[Belle]

When you've been an English teacher you pretty quickly learn to assess the writing quality of somebody - even if that's only about 3,000 words. If it takes longer than that then you're probably in the wrong job!! After all, that's what a university lecturer has to do every day.

Streisand had a good voice when she was making 'Funny Girl' for Wyler and a few songs after that. It didn't take long for her to yell pop tunes and IMO she lost her mojo and just became another screamer. Not bad as an actress, but her schtick does wear you down after a while.

The final nail, for me, was her fatuous commentary about Donald Trump and his supporters. 'Twas then I realized she was in reality just another embittered lefty from the back streets of New York.

[jserraglio]

When you've been an English teacher you pretty quickly learn to assess the writing quality of somebody - even if that's only about 3,000 words. If it takes longer than that then you're probably in the wrong job!! ... I realized [Streisand] was in reality just another embittered lefty from the back streets of New York.

You give a failing grade to a book you haven't read and then use it to grind your pet political axe? Bad grading on that assignment, Teach.

[jserraglio]

“I’m a Streisand freak and make no bones about it . . . For me, the Streisand voice is one of the natural wonders of the age, an instrument of infinite diversity and timbral resource . . . No phrase is left solely to its own devices . . . Much of the Affekt of intimacy—indeed, the sensation of eavesdropping on a private moment . . . is a direct result of our inability to anticipate her intentions.” —Glenn Gould

Barbra Streisand's Mother of All Memoirs https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023 ... oir-review

[Belle]

Yes, she's a real star isn't she!!?? Decent too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

[jserraglio]

Yes, she's a real star isn't she!!?? Decent too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Back to the topic, please, Ms. Belle. Have you read the book yet?

Maybe you still dismiss it because of the author’s political views? Meanwhile, can you please explain why so many of your fellow travelers are functionally semi-literate?