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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ghosts, January 27, 2002
"I have always wished the present to resemble memory: because the present can be flat at times, and bald as a road. But memory is never like that. It makes hills of feeling in collapsed hours, a scene of enclosure made all precious by its frame." It is the Narrator (never identified) who makes the comment above in Lydia Millet's, "My Happy Life," a woman who has had almost no real happiness in her life and who always recovers from whatever blows and misfortunes life deals her without any ill feelings or rancor. She is resilient to a fault..always looking on the bright side, always making excuses for those who mistreat her. We all know this woman. She's the one who cleans our hotel rooms or offices. She's the one with the bad haircut and out-of-style coat whose smile we do not return on the street. She's the one we hope never to become. But Millet makes her a heroine with a profound sense of insight and razor sharp introspection...a kind of life experience idiot savant. And in the end....we, at the very least, admire her and maybe even secretly want to be her. The Narrator takes us to her bosom early on when she says: "so now I seem alone...But I am not alone...I have You." And that she does through 150 pages of heart-wrenching bad luck and unspeakable misfortune. But nonetheless, the tone of the novel is sweet with the fragrance of a life fondly remembered. Our Narrator is "Everywoman" and by extension Everyman: exploited, abandoned, discarded, imprisoned, rejected, made invisible by age. Millet seems to be saying: Look at this woman, Look at this Life, Look how she recovers and perserveres... Don't complain to me about your petty upsets and daily trials and tribulations! Here is how it is in the extreme...in a place where you can't fathom from where your next kind word or small affirmation will come; much less your next meal. Along the way Millet composes some breathtaking phrases and descriptions: "So I was not alone. With me were the absent people. And all of them were not bodies but only the forms of all their sorrow and longing. By and by I felt what I had always known, that myself I was neither a city nor a rock, but only particles and figments. And like all people I was quite imaginary when I was alone. And alone we were all of us ghosts." "My Happy Life" is anything but. And Lydia Millet has managed to write a fictional biography which is on the one hand scary, pitiful and pathetic while on the other, one of extraordinary beauty and unexpected humor and elegance.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A story of innocence never lost through age or time, January 7, 2006
'My Happy Life' is about a life that has been anything but happy, but our nameless protagonist doesn't see it that way. When a State Hospital for the mentally ill is shut down, our nameless protagonist is left behind, forgotten, in a locked isolation cell. She begins to write her story on the wall, talking to you as if you were there with her, and her story will stab at your heart even if it is a black shriveled heart. It will bleed for her, trust me. Left as a newborn in a shoebox near an orphanage, she has never known anything other than state homes and the occasional foster home. Our protagonist comes across as being mentally slow, which may explain her ability to retain her innocence through constant physical and emotional abuse, even turning such abuse into what she feels is a caring connection with others. She simply does not see the bad in anybody. From state homes to being kept at the mercy of an abuser, who gets her pregnant and then runs off with her baby, our protagonist somehow survives ever mean and vile dish that is handed to her, seeing only nourishment on silver platters. The tale of her life is sad, poignant, beautiful, upsetting, dramatic, and tender. Millet's prose is stylish, rich, and smacks of true poetic talent. She pulls you into her characters life so quickly and completely that you will not be able to put the book down once you start. Don't worry, its only 150 pages, but the impact it will leave on your is far greater than the thickness of the book. This is my first Lydia Millet book, and I am definitely buying more of her work. I consider 'My Happy Life' a must read, something for you to think about when you believe your life has gone all wrong because your DVD player broke and your Mercedes has a flat. Truly, a ten star book. Enjoy!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a visceral portraiture, March 3, 2002
If you have enjoyed previous books by Lydia Millet, jettison your preconceptions. With "My Happy Life," she is now writing like someone who sold her soul to the devil and still came out on top in the bargain. The novel is narrated by a haunting, isolated figure who seems to have stepped into, or perhaps out of a Francis Bacon painting, and somehow stakes an indisputably valid claim to uncharted regions of the psyche. This visceral portraiture simultaneously emphasizes a brutal and beautiful new reality. Like a Bacon masterpiece, Millet presents a mesmerizing, shocking supra-real view of humanity. The work defies categorization by establishing a new one against which others must now be measured. The book will stand as a significant contribution to literature.
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