People, I’m sorry but I don’t think I will be finishing this biography. Lubow is a horrible biographer. I got through about 1/3 of the book and I can’t take any more of it.
Lubow’s problem is that he is so excited about having met people who knew Diane that he’s entirely incapable of filtering anything that they tell him. He just dumps all of the information his sources gave him, irrespective of how trivial it is.
For instance, there is some woman called Pati who was an acquaintance of Diane’s. There are two interminable pages on why this Pati person ate melons with a spoon and not with a fork. How is this related to Diane’s photography? It’s not. But Lubow is so in thrall to this Pati that no detail about her is too trivial for him to relay. It is very clear that Pati was jealous of Diane’s talent but Lubow fails to take her petty jabs at Arbus with even the tiniest grain of salt. It’s unclear why he doesn’t switch from the subject of Diane’s photography, which obviously bores him, and write a biography of this Pati character instead since he’s so into her.
Whenever Lubow actually begins to discuss Arbus’s work, he slips into meaningless gossip within a couple of paragraphs. There are pages on how Arbus walked to the park with another acquaintance (at least, it’s not the blasted Pati) and watched their kids play. One can only be grateful that they never watched paint dry because I have no doubt that Lubow would happily dedicate a couple of chapters to this fascinating process. (But there is a photo of Pati waiting for her nail polish to dry, just in case you are curious about her nail painting habits.)
The only kind of analysis of Arbus’s art that Lubow is capable of producing is to tell the readers that Diane was in a bad mood because of her period and that influenced her. And how does he know about the period? Right you are, the omnipresent Pati told him.
I don’t believe I need any more information on Pati’s life or any more gossip about which of Diane’s acquaintances had sex with another acquaintance 60 years ago. I’ll just look at the photographs online.
Clarissa's Blog 
Ha. I’ll just tell my girlfriend to avoid your site for a couple of days until this post leaves the front page.
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Oh, she liked the book? Hey, I’m generally a hater of biographies, so my dislike of it doesn’t have to be trusted.
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No, she just got it. Hasn’t read it yet. I just didn’t want her experience to be influenced by the review of someone she trusts.
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Good thinking! I don’t want to spoil anybody’s reading experience.
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You may be surprised to hear from me, but I want to urge you to push ahead a bit further. From what you write, I think you may have stopped only a sixth in, and Arbus has yet to become a photographer. Once she does, there is a great deal of space devoted to how and why she took the pictures she did. You may not like Nancy and Pati, but they were Diane’s two closest women friends, and they both had a great influence on her. The scene of Pati squabbling with Alain about how to eat a melon is there because Diane described it that way–and, as I write, “Her sketch in words is as pointed and composed as one of her photographs.” You may disagree with my criteria for inclusion, but I assure you that the book is filtered obsessively. There is far more left out than I put in. I keep a secondary spotlight on the figures who were closest to Diane–husband Allan, lover Marvin, brother Howard, close friend (and briefly lover) Alex, and a few others–so as not to clog the narrative with the names and anecdotal shreds of too many minor characters.
And, for the record: Alex is the recipient of the letter in which Diane talks about being in a bad mood at the onset of her period. Plus: the description of the melon eating takes up barely one page.
In any case, even if you don’t accept my invitation to plunge back into the book, thanks for taking the initial dip.
Arthur
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Thanks, Arthur. I might give it another try. But in any case, I have a friend who is into photography and I will pass the book on to her because I’m sure she’ll enjoy it a lot more. The best fate for a book is to live a complex life with many owners, I believe.
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