At first glance the title, Crazy Salad, recalls Penny Candy, a collection of written-for-magazine essays by Jean Kerr. Even the first essay, "A Few Words about Breasts," salted as it is with self-depreciating remarks, makes me laugh in spite of myself…. With "Breasts" the tendency is to see Nora Ephron as the Seventies' sophisticated sister of Jean Kerr—after all Nora does write for Esquire, not McCalls! Here the comparison ends, for though Nora may write about breasts, the Pillsbury Bake-off, and FDS, her intent is not purely to milk wit out of every line, but rather to expose the truth despite consequences. And she says so, too. Like all feminists, though, she asks to be taken seriously, but unlike most self-declared women activists she does not belabor the truth about woman and in fact at times belittles certain aspects of the Feminist Movement. It is her balanced perspective (neither too gamey nor too wise), her pointed style that make the book irresistible reading. It is like a "crazy salad that fine women eat" (Yeats)….
Another factor which makes the book compelling (perhaps only for a woman and for men who pretend interest) is that Ms. Ephron unashamedly likes to talk, and smartly, like Paul Klee's "Ventriloquist" (the cover painting), on all subjects dealing with women and Woman…. Part of the charm in this collection is found in the parentheses: "(I didn't say that I wanted my class and the college to see what happened to me, but that of course was part of it, too.)" Most feminists would not admit that underlying their desire to deal candidly with the truth behind "the feminine mystique" is a deeper truth—that they are, in fact, part of the myth and live it daily (though frustrated) most of their unliberated lives. Most feminists may be chameleons but they'd never admit it to their liberated sisters. Nora does and I for one like her honesty.
Barbara Hoffman, "Non-Fiction: 'Crazy Salad'," in Best Sellers (copyright © 1975 Helen Dwight Reid Educational Foundation), Vol. 35, No. 6, September, 1975, p. 171.
This is a free excerpt of 343 words. There are 347 words (approx.
1 page at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Ephron, Nora 1941–: Critical Essay by Barbara Hoffman Access Pass.
