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Yay, yay for Sally Jay! Aug 21, 2003 (21 of 24 found this helpful)
The narrator of this story, Sally Jay, seems to have a lot in common with that other literary single-girl (pre-Bushnell days) Holly Golightly. She manages to combine innocence and world-weariness, rolling with her situation, no matter how chaotic it becomes. If anything, Sally Jay is Holly's older, slightly tougher sister. A young woman who has been running away all her life, gets the chance to run away to Paris thanks to an avuncular uncle, and lives a pink-haired bohemian existence, trying to experience life to the full - affairs with older men, hanging out with artists, nights at the Ritz followed by dingy student cafes. In the odd beginning chapter (it feels like you have missed an introductory chapter, and it takes awhile before you feel like you know what is going on) she meets a boy/man she has always had a crush on, and her chaotic life becomes even messier. One of her descriptions of him - `I didn't know anyone he'd actually been wrong about - except of course me, but then as we know I am totally incomprehensible to everyone including myself' is shown by the end to be sadly true.
This is a well-written book - cleverly hiding its sinister elements in the light and deft descriptions Sally Jay gives of her life. You feel that sometimes she is trying to kid herself and the reader that really, everything's going to be all right. This is a genuinely entertaining read that still manages to encompass some big themes - the search for happiness and acceptance; making priorities in life; disillusionment and what it can do to temperament. Sally Jay is sure to stay with this reader for a long time.
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A hilarious 1958 book about Americans in Bohemian Paris Sep 12, 1998 (8 of 8 found this helpful)
Elaine Dundy's book will have you laughing out loud at protagonist Sally Jay Gorce's Parisian misadventures. From the first page, Sally Jay's intelligent, somewhat addled but wildly sarcastic voice entices the reader as she relates her exploits as a young American actress in Paris, complete with stories of drunken carousing, falling in and out of love, dancing in gay bars, dining with aristocrats, coldly sizing up her spoiled Ivy League expatriate friends, and losing her passport along with her temper, among other madcap doings. Just goes to show that, 40 years ago, (who knew?) Americans in Paris were drinking, smoking, sleeping around, staying out all night and hankering for new experiences. This well-written, very entertaining book will be a real eye-opener for readers who think that America in the 1950s was populated exclusively with straight-laced, Ozzie-and-Harriet types.
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A funny, witty book with a rare spirit Oct 2, 1997 (10 of 11 found this helpful)
It isn't often that you can read something which qualifies as both a modern feminist classic and makes you laugh out loud. I loved the descriptions of early 20-th century Paris, could sympathise with the heroine's cads and catastrophes. This is a book to read if you want to walk on the bohemian side. For anyone who's ever walked around in evening dress the morning after.
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a gift Jan 4, 2002 (10 of 12 found this helpful)
Years ago, I came across this book at Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford and absolutly devoured it. I let my mother borrow it, an aunt, several friends and then lost my copy in the mix of it all. Since I was then living in NYC, it was impossible to come by a copy so I ended up buying about 10 copies and giving them as gifts to friends over the years. Dundy's prose isn't remarkable, but her youthful expression, her ways of seeing the artistic world surrounding her, the blissful madness of a young twenty-year-old alone in Paris all make this a tresure. Find a copy. Share it.
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What Once was Dazzling is Now Lackluster Jan 14, 2009 (9 of 11 found this helpful)
The Dud Avocado was published more than 50 years ago to much acclaim, and then apparently, it vanished from view. Over the years it was re-published only to fade again. The Preface by Terry Teachout explains all this, and by the way, this is the most tepid introduction to a book. Reading it makes you not want to read the book. Question to author, why on earth would you permit such a Preface in YOUR book?
Fifty years ago the adventures of Sally Jay Gorce, the heroine, would have dazzled the reader. After all, this was pre-Women's Lib, pre-birth control pill and everything else that revolutionized women's place in society in the 1970's. Here was a daring young woman--only 18 years old--living in Paris on her own, and experimenting with Life in an uninhibited way. Of course this included taking lovers, in fact starting with a married Italian diplomat who also had a mistress. No social mores bounded her. Whatever she wanted she got, whatever she chose to dress (pre-hippie era) she wore. All this in an era so repressed that TVs in America would not show married couples sharing a bed.
To a repressive society of 1950's America, this heroine was unique. She embodied the spirit and guts to do things that most women would not even verbalize. No wonder this book was so successful. It was a herald of things to come, though no one knew the extent of those changing values. When Society's values changed and women were able to live free unrepressed lives, to younger generations, the adventures of the Dud Avocado's heroine would not have struck that same chord.
Ms.Teachout warns us in the Preface that if we do not find this book hilarious, then we have no sense of humor. It is not hilarious by today's standards. It is poignant in places and filled with insights. But funny? Not really.
The heroine is reminiscent of Holly Golightly (Breakfast at Tiffany's) or even in today's terms, Bridget Jones. But in today's terms, this book offers nothing new. It is a "been there, done that" experience that is very dated, and dare I say, boring?
In the last chapter, the author herself tries to analyze why this book keeps getting re-published. It is a mystery to me. It belongs on some College List of must-read books about an era before Feminism, but it lacks what is appealing for a generation 50+ years later.