Customer Reviews

Vamps & Tramps: New Essays

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In other words, below average but not a complete waste of time. When I read Camille Paglia's first book, I felt a sense of intellectual and sexual liberation and excitement, as if she were speaking to a part of myself that had lain undiscovered and unexpressed. This book is a huge disappointment: a lame collection of celebrity-worshipping essays, followed by an entire section dedicated to cartoons and media references to her name. I was embarrassed for her after reading this book. Camille Paglia is a woman of formidable intellect, but for all she decries white-tower academia, she is and will always be a product of its privilege and exclusivity. She obviously longs to be a Keith Richards-esque outsider and continuously points out how her various employers have censored and blacklisted her, and I think her books (except for the first, which is a minor masterpiece) are an effort to enforce that image. However, being pro-pornography and pro-abortion aren't exactly revolutionary stages to take, no matter how much our Puritan culture would like people to believe that; rather, they seem a relapse into a very solipsistic, male-oriented world that Paglia is very much a part of--a Testosterone Valhalla in which all that is non-corporeal can be visualized and fetishized (a futile undertaking, if ever there was one!) I am still hopeful that Camille Paglia's next work will put this one to shame.

Camille Paglia's image is a blessing and a curse. Like Chris Rock, she can get away with telling the truth about our repressed, hypersensitive culture. Unfortunately, her audience expects her to say shocking things, therefore her broadsides have lost some of their impact. Her enemies, the Mackinnons and Dworkins, won the culture wars long ago. Their beliefs are now written into law, taught in college and inscribed in police procedure manuals. Critics like Paglia are a recognized but ineffectual voice, easily dismissed by the establishment. For these reasons, Ms. Paglia's essays and journalistic pieces may be slightly disappointing. The interviews and transcripts, however, are the real pleasure; they recreate the "dissident feminist" at her fearless, truth-telling best.

Quite simply, Paglia is one of the best literary/cultural critics of the past two decades. Her prose is jargon-free and perpetually potent; her subject range reveals perhaps the singlemost interdisciplinary mind of our generation. Unfortunately, her political "incorrectness" gives those unwilling to be challenged by her insights an excuse not to read her. The mere mention of her name in academic or women's studies circles is enough to insure condemnation of the offender--merely adding substance to her critique of the present state of these two institutions. She is both a shibboleth and a pariah. (I was publicly spanked for invoking her name at a national symposium; then later congratulated privately by several younger women.)

Paglia has many personae. "Vamps and Tramps" may be a suitable introduction for some but it is actually more appropriate for the initiated Paglia-ite. "Vamps" is the "rap-music," "performance-artist" Paglia; "Sex, Art, and Decadence" is the frequently provocative and compelling popular essayist; "Sexual Personae" is the prolix, Nietzschean original thinker; her study of Hitchcock's "The Birds" is the disciplined yet passionate and provocative scholar. Any of these latter three volumes would be preferable as a starter for the reader wishing to discover why Camille can credibly claim the top position among current literary scholars and cultural critics.

One of the most controversial figures in contemporary society is explosive critic, art historian, pop philosopher, and author Camille Paglia. Her newest collection of essays, VAMPS AND TRAMPS, includes sharpened swords drawn and abruptly driven into the current direction of gay activism, feminist thought, and academia. Her criticism is fierce, at once educated and adolescent, she is a rebel thinker whose mind seems in constant overdrive. She's philsophy with cajones. In addition this book contains her thoughts on all aspects of sex and sexuality, AIDS, prostitution, abortion, rape, and homosexuality. VAMPS AND TRAMPS also contains a blistering essay on Susan Sontag, an examination of Lady Di's popularity, Foucault body-of-work slams, and much more. Never boring, this book of breathless vitality is volcanic. It also contains book reviews, interviews, cartoons, and even her 'Spy' advice column, all executed in her signature bloodthirsty style.

I used to venerate Camille Paglia until I read this book. In it, she shows symptoms of what I call "Ayn Rand's syndrome," in which people believe their own press and imagine themselves as omniscient.

In some of the essays, her old self shines through. In others, she makes fatuous, pseudoscientific pronouncements on such subjects as AIDS and the origin of homosexuality. If she is a biologist, Al Gore invented the Internet.

There was a time when I disliked The Paglia. Those days have long gone. Of all of her books this is by far the most intriguing and funny.

There will be people, of lesser minds The Paglia would argue, who don't understand this book. They will call her conservative, they will shriek when you mention her name. They do not understand what she is saying. When you really read this book you will see that The Paglia is a brilliant writer able to communicate her ideas without the esoteric language many of her academic counterparts use. You will see that she is not conservative at all. It is just that there is a point when the far, far left is closer to the right than to the mild left, make no mistake The Paglia is on the left.

I don't agree with everything The Paglia is. In some ways and in some of the essays, she is a crackpot. That said, she is not demanding that you agree with her, she is demanding that you think.

The feverous energy that The Paglia has is illustrated well in this book, as is her usage of the word OKAY?! While reading it, you will jump from your chair, you will yell and move, and say OKAY?! and GET REAL CAMILLE! and when an author can drive you do that, she has potential.

If you love her or if you hate her read the book. Read it if you hate her so that you can effectively critique her and if you love her read the book because it is funny and insightful and so very vitriolic.

Camille Paglia is one-of-a-kind. In a way that's too bad, but in another way, thank Goodness! She's brash, she's obnoxious, she's opinionated, she's full of you-know-what. But she is also extremely intelligent and has an incisive mind that cuts through all the rhetoric and dogma and political correctness to get through to the plain old common sense Truth. The PC branch of Liberalism has branded her as a right-winger, but I think Paglia has been more than vindicated by the 2004 presidential election. She has written time and again that if the PC Leftists did not get into the real world, that people would look to the Right for common sense. And that is exactly what has happened. She is frankly Lesbian but likes men (she says she is [...]). Although she criticizes lesbians as having no humor, Camille herself is hilarious. [...] I laughed all the way through this delightful and refreshing book. Her withering criticisms of Establishment Feminists and the American Academe are lip-smacking good. She may be butch, but she's also bitchy. However, Paglia doesn't just criticize. She also offers what I think are valid and realistic remedies. I give this book four stars. I would have given it five stars, but she contradicts herself several times. For example, at one point she admits that men need a space without women and then in another section she laments that[...] men won't let her into the raunchier [...] milieus. So, she wants exceptions made in her case? Curious, in that the thing she really hates about Establishment Feminism is their always wanting special favors for the poor female "victims of male oppression."

I think Camille and her writing are wonderful. She has the kind of great original American Mind that we have not seen since the days of our Founding Fathers. Whether you agree with her or not, you cannot ignore her. (Gloria Steinem and Susan Sontag tried to and just made big fools of themselves.) Any American who claims to have an intellect MUST read her.

Camille Paglia is really writer as performance artist, but she's a terrific, funny writer. I don't necessarily agree with everything she says. As a person raised in a traditional religious environment, I can't say that I'm too sympathetic to pornography, man-boy love, etc. Still, what really comes through is a vigorous libertarianism, the feeling that beliefs should be able to be expressed. This comes through especially in what she writes about homosexuality. Her piece, "Rebel Love," is probably one of the best things ever written about the subject. While, on one hand, she is very "pro-gay," and believes in all kinds of sexual expression, on the other hand, she hates dogma. So she's not going to buy the "born gay" line if she doesn't believe it. And she's not going to act like there's nothing different about the gay lifestyle when sometimes there is. And she's not going to exaggerate the incidence of homosexuality to make it more acceptable. (She also is not unsympathetic to the Boy Scouts!) In this way, she dovetails with conservatives. But she's not by any means conservative. She's just interested in presenting the truth as far as she understands it. She believes in intellectual honesty. As a person who comes out of a religious background, I appreciate the fact that she does not have a contemptuous attitude towards religion, as some people on the left might. She simply sees the Judeo-Christian perspective as a different one. She may not agree with it, but she has respect for it. I think this is very important. There should be open dialogue, and people should not be intimidated for their beliefs -- on either side of the fence. As I said, I may not agree with everything she says, but she makes you think and entertains you in the process -- and that's more than you can say for most writers.

I admire so much about Paglia. I often laugh-out-loud when reading her work. She would be the first to say that this (laughing, play, fun) is important.

Superficially Paglia sets herself against language-trapped liberals and tradition bound conservatives. As she said, she's an atheist who respects tradition, a liberal who hates political correctness.

The main essay of this book is "No Law in the Arena" and it is here that Paglia's fundamental views can be inferred.

I've always imagined she would have a great time having playful conversation's with Nietzsche. At root, Paglia is a Nietzschean. Her view is that the will-to-power (life, really [[she places a huge emphasis on biology]]) defies rational limits and controls. However, reason -- and the civilization that results from it -- can importantly influence the irrational, mindless biological forces. It does this by, more-or-less, sublimating those forces. Enter beauty, justice etc etc.

Bottom line: I don't agree with her fundamental's but Paglia is a fun thinker. I've read this book several times just for the pleasure of her wit! Buy this!

Camille Paglia is certainly entertaining, but her some of essays border on hysteria. Outside of universities and the press, PC lingo and thought is not as prevelant as imagines. Perhaps she has been spending a little too much time in the ivory towers she so detests.

Paglia criticizes gay men whose "knowledge of science could fit in a thimble" who support the genetic theory of homosexuality. Paglia then offers her own theory of homosexuality, but did she test her theory? No! She simply presents her theory as fact with no supporting evidence, statistics, or experiments. It is clear to me that Paglia has very little understanding of science herself.

The fact is that no one really knows what causes homosexuality, but the only way we will find out is through real scientific experiments, not anecdotal evidence that humanities scholars are so fond of.