Pollitt Beyond Parody

In the Sunday Times Book Review, Toni Bentley, author of The Surrender, a panegyric to anal sex, reviews Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories, the latest offering from Katha Pollitt. Bentley succinctly summarizes Pollitt's argument:

Have you heard the latest? "Men are rats." This directly from the desk of Katha Pollitt, a longtime feminist columnist at The Nation.

Learning to Drive charts Pollitt's relationship with an unfaithful boyfriend, offers her thoughts on plastic surgery, and bemoans the yuppification of the Upper West Side. In one of many beyond parody passages, Bentley recounts Pollitt's attempt to crack into her boyfriends email account:

She relishes the moment when he will betray his new girlfriend (he marries her, fingers—his and ours—crossed) and attempts to read his e-mail by guessing his password: " 'marxism,' 'marx,' 'karlmarx,' … 'belgium,' 'chocolate,' 'godiva,' 'naked,' 'breast,' 'cunnilingus,' 'fellatio.'"

One can only wonder why she didn't try "theworkerscontrolthemeansofproduction."

When Pollitt sees her ex and his new beau crossing Riverside Drive, she imagines running them both down, retiring as a prison librarian and "becoming a lesbian." To this, Bentley objects. Sort of:

It's not that I'm against killing unfaithful men—especially one like Pollitt's, who "walks out the door after seven years with a wooden spoon, a spatula, a whisk." It's the loss of self-respect that bothers me. Isn't there a better way for women to show their superiority?

Elsewhere in the Sunday Times, the typically combative (and always irritating) Deborah Soloman plays slow-pitch softball with Pollitt ("one of the country's most eloquent feminists" whose new book is occasionally "hilarious"), though grills the author about betraying women by being a crappy driver. First question: "Why would you choose to advertise your lifelong fear of driving when it reinforces old stereotypes about female ineptitude and ditziness?"

Whole interview here.

The LA Times reviews Pollitt here.