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Chargement... Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoirpar Wednesday Martin
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. What kept me reading this book is the unbelievability of how the aristocracy struggle to give their lives meaning, since they don’t have to labor for any of life’s necessities or to serve others, except through their charitable allowances. ( ) Oh sure, it's titillating to read about the schoolyard-worthy shenanigans these rich ladies get up to. But my God, it's hard to dredge up any sympathy. Tens of thousands of dollars on a handbag that requires visits to multiple Asian countries to obtain (and an ugly handbag to boot). A blowout, manicure, and pedicure as you go into labor so you'll look your best in the photos? Martin is one of the tribe, despite her protestations, and she falls halfway between making fun of and gloating over her and her cohorts' lives. The book's big failing, however, is that it never asks why. Why is Park Avenue society like this? How has it changed from twenty years ago (or not changed)? How are these women different from their mothers? What effect does this have on their children? Martin is content to show but never dive deeper. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
"Like an urban Dian Fossey, Wednesday Martin decodes the primate social behaviors of Upper East Side mothers in a brilliantly original and witty memoir about her adventures assimilating into that most secretive and elite tribe. After marrying a man from the Upper East Side and moving to the neighborhood, Wednesday Martin struggled to fit in. Drawing on her background in anthropology and primatology, she tried looking at her new world through that lens, and suddenly things fell into place. She understood the other mothers' snobbiness at school drop-off when she compared them to olive baboons. Her obsessional quest for a Hermes Birkin handbag made sense when she realized other females wielded them to establish dominance in their troop. And so she analyzed tribal migration patterns; display rituals; physical adornment, mutilation, and mating practices; extra-pair copulation; and more. Her conclusions are smart, thought-provoking, and hilariously unexpected. Every city has its Upper East Side, and in Wednesday's memoir, readers everywhere will recognize the strange cultural codes of powerful social hierarchies and the compelling desire to climb them. They will also see that Upper East Side mothers want the same things for their children that all mothers want--safety, happiness, and success--and not even sky-high penthouses and chauffeured SUVs can protect this ecologically released tribe from the universal experiences of anxiety and loss. When Wednesday's life turns upside down, she learns how deep the bonds of female friendship really are. Intelligent, funny, and heartfelt, Primates of Park Avenue lifts a veil on a secret, elite world within a world--the exotic, fascinating, and strangely familiar culture of privileged Manhattan motherhood"-- Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)974.7History and Geography North America Northeastern U.S. New YorkClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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