Culture and couture
Judith Thurman's collection of essays Cleopatra’s Nose can be the most pleasurable or painful reading experience imaginable, depending on the subject
By Sarah M Seltzer
Published: October 23rd, 2007 | 11:30am
New Yorker essays, those pillars of erudite brilliance, can be the most pleasurable or painful reading experience imaginable, depending on their subject. If an essay delves into a topic that the reader is curious about, then perusing its pages is like being part of a sparkling conversation between a group of well-versed friends. But if the topic seems mundane at first, the über-classy writing may fail to suck us in, allowing the cartoons to tempt us away.
Judith Thurman's collection of her essays for the famed magazine, packaged together as Cleopatra's Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire
The complement to Thurman's exploration of literary ladies are essays about women who have political power, from Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV, Cleopatra, Marie Antoinette, to contemporary political queens: Teresa Heinz Kerry and Jackie Onassis. Again, Thurman gives these women a more thorough, detail-heavy treatment, looking at their significance not only as being proximate to power, but also as cultural arbiters and symbols in and of themselves. In this way, the collection resembles those young adult anthologies about famous women — those books meant to counter biased textbooks — except the prose is grown up, witty, and challenging.
It's too bad that in Cleopatra's Nose, such fantastic profiles in literary and social prominence are so overwhelmed by the plethora of pieces on fashion. While fashion is far from irrelevant, Thurman's interest in haute couture can feel alienating for readers whose idea of a splurge is a trip to the Gap. There's not always enough juice in Thurman's profiles of the industry's boldface names to captivate a fashion ignoramus. But the real issue lies less in the costly subject matter than in the approach of the essays that dissect it. While she discourses on Armani, Schiaparelli and Blass, Thurman's asides about smoking Gauloises in Paris and shoe shopping can leave the impression that she exults too much in her own status symbols; she's less interested in being our guide than she is in tipping us off to her worldly pedigree.
Ultimately, the problem with Thurman's collection is the problem with magazines like The New Yorker and Harper's to begin with; while the writing and research may be the best around, at times the content feels too directly-aimed at readers in a certain milieu. Still, there's nothing inherently snobby about picking up Cleopatra's Nose; after all, it's the closest most readers will ever get to discussing Flaubert while dressed in Chanel.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Cleopatra's Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire
By Judith Thurman
448 pages
List Price: $27.50
Issue #44
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