Why Embracing Frivolity Might Be the Most Serious Act of All: A Provocative Take by Jehanne Dubrow
Dubrow’s prose collects as much as it elucidates, and the sheer volume of people she quotes, George Eliot, Susan Sontag, Jericho Brown, Gertrude Stein, Emily Dickinson, Roy Lichtenstein, fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, queer film critic Juan Barquin, and many others, can feel staggering at times. Yet, if the volume feels exhaustive, the individual insights are precise and poised, even as the larger structure becomes an associative romp. I found myself wondering if Dubrow might shrug at a reviewer’s attempt to classify her writing, the point of which seems to be to entice us into chasing her down rabbit holes so that we can see how the book is a subtle assault on the limitations of classification—perhaps, how it, too, can be frivolous.
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