UK Literary Luvvies #3 Logistical reasons mean the only recommendations I have are Greek cleaning products

[mindlessness]

The correct tag is Mail on Sunday not in Sunday. The Mail Plus tag is also wrong

I love that her posts are always so bad and I love that you keep us updated on them soph!

 

[Goujon]

Of bleeping course. How predictable, LLs are in west Cork

 

[handunderchin]

So smug and pleased with herself but that hair?! It is baffling

 

[Cloak]

I saw Daisy Buchanan’s Pity Party was on audiobook on Spotify so started listening… i don’t know if it’s just because I’m listening to it rather than reading it, but it seems almost juvenile in its storytelling and language?

Maybe that’s her shtick though, fluffy chick lit. I don’t really know what I was expecting but it doesn’t seem very good or funny. Anyone else read anything by her?

Also Lauren Bravo keeps coming up on Amazon as suggested for me. I don’t know who she is or what she’s like, anyone got any opinions?

 

[Goujon]

I saw Daisy Buchanan’s Pity Party was on audiobook on Spotify so started listening… i don’t know if it’s just because I’m listening to it rather than reading it, but it seems almost juvenile in its storytelling and language?

Maybe that’s her shtick though, fluffy chick lit. I don’t really know what I was expecting but it doesn’t seem very good or funny. Anyone else read anything by her?

There are some quotes from one of Daisy's books further up the thread - they look like they were lifted straight from Literotica.

 

[sheleg]

Elizabeth makes me cringe so much. She reminds me of the desperate, try-hard middle-class girls I met at uni.

 

[griddlebonnet]

‘I felt I had no right to grieve’: what happens if your sorrow doesn’t seem appropriate?

When the author Daisy Buchanan lost a series of friends, she felt bereft – yet also that her feelings were misplaced. Here, she explores the notion of ‘disenfranchised grief’ – and learns how to let her sorrow in

www.theguardian.com

Is Daisy Buchanan talking about John the partner of Ella Risbridger here?

 

[Goujon]

‘I felt I had no right to grieve’: what happens if your sorrow doesn’t seem appropriate?

When the author Daisy Buchanan lost a series of friends, she felt bereft – yet also that her feelings were misplaced. Here, she explores the notion of ‘disenfranchised grief’ – and learns how to let her sorrow in

www.theguardian.com

Is Daisy Buchanan talking about John the partner of Ella Risbridger here?

Yes, it sounds too much like him for it not to be him.

 

[frillylilly]

There is something about that piece that is so off, but I’m struggling to articulate it

 

[queenamber]

That piece is basically "How can I make this tragedy about ME?"

 

[Goujon]

There is something about that piece that is so off, but I’m struggling to articulate it

Whats off about it is "my two friends are dead, how terrible is this for me".

Thats another piece of writing that poor man John has had written about him
---

That piece is basically "How can I make this tragedy about ME?"

Snap!

 

[esk]

It sounds like she's blaming the rest of the friend group for making her feel unwelcome and ruining her friendship with him.

 

[Leonard]

It sounds like she's blaming the rest of the friend group for making her feel unwelcome and ruining her friendship with him.

Yeah that was my take. It’s ostensibly about “disenfranchised grief” (which she has completely misunderstood and isn’t really applicable to what she’s talking about). But fundamentally it’s a dig at her former friends for letting her find out about it on twitter. I think she’d benefit from therapy - there’s a lot going on it that article…

 

[maytoseptember]

It sounds like she's blaming the rest of the friend group for making her feel unwelcome and ruining her friendship with him.

It does a bit. But equally I can understand some of the people in that crowd behaving that way.

 

[esk]

It does a bit. But equally I can understand some of the people in that crowd behaving that way.

Oh, for sure - the resentment might be completely justified.

 

[youguyzzz]

Oh yuck. That article really is in poor taste, she could have at least changed people's names so they don't read this and go, wow, while my best friend was dying I really should have involved a bad writer who uses a pretentious Great Gatsby pseudonym a bit more.

 

[Wednesday Break My Heart]

I followed John back in those days (R.I.P.) and a few years after he died, someone wrote something or spoke about him on a podcast and said that his family took him home to die in private and completely shunned his London friend gang including his best friends and his (ex??) girlfriend who had done a lot of his caring. I remember donating to fundraising they had done for a charity. It was a bit unclear if they were broken up or if it was because his family took him away. He seemed to still be writing and tweeting right up until the last bit of his illness.

He made some bizarre blog posts at that time about wanting to become a priest which I always thought was maybe his illness taking its final hold.

if Daisy is making this all about her, I’m not surprised but the bigger picture of what was happening left no room even for his closest friends, let alone her. That was the impression I had anyway and I’m sure it’s horrible for his friends to read this in the G now and see her centering her own guilt.

 

[BucketsOfTea]

There is something about that piece that is so off, but I’m struggling to articulate it

The photos used to illustrate it add to the odd sense, don't they? It feels like she's angrily looking out of the page at us.

 

[smartalec]

The very first thing I thought was this tweet!

God I wish this kind of first person female essay would die a death: a series of thoughts to work through with a therapist, and definitely not broadcast.

The thing about being a secondary level of bereaved is you really should not be using a national newspaper to play the martyr in. No wonder she got shunned - sounds like she can't bear not being the centre of attention.

 

[maytoseptember]

I followed John back in those days (R.I.P.) and a few years after he died, someone wrote something or spoke about him on a podcast and said that his family took him home to die in private and completely shunned his London friend gang including his best friends and his (ex??) girlfriend who had done a lot of his caring. I remember donating to fundraising they had done for a charity. It was a bit unclear if they were broken up or if it was because his family took him away. He seemed to still be writing and tweeting right up until the last bit of his illness.

He made some bizarre blog posts at that time about wanting to become a priest which I always thought was maybe his illness taking its final hold.

IIRC he had serious complications after a bone marrow transplant (graft vs host disease?) and needed round the clock care. I don’t think he could walk, but he wasn’t sick enough to stay in hospital. He was moved to some sort of neuro rehab unit/care facility in order to get the nursing care he needed.

So in that sense it would have made sense for his family to choose somewhere close to them.

Either way I can’t blame the family for taking him home, knowing that the prognosis was tit. I’m sure his “set” probably were upset to have him taken away from their London bubble, but if he was my son I would have done the same thing.