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(More customer reviews)If this book were a vehicle, it would be a gangsta-customized SUV: flashy and big on frills, yet cumbersome and pompous. It would have a small engine, and its suspension would be stiff, as Amy Fine Collins remains throughout this overlong, underpowered memoir. Those familiar with her pieces in Vanity Fair may enjoy Collins as a competent if sometimes unintentionally amusing writer. But after fifty pages of this tale, I couldn't believe something so precious and narcissistic had been published by Simon & Schuster. Yet, as I plowed on, the many solecisms, misspellings, and other misuses of language that got past its editors began to make me lose confidence in Simon & Schuster itself.
Indeed, the writing quality of The God of Driving suggests that what Collins really needs is a Deity of Diction or a Saint of Syntax. There are misspellings and typos: "supercede"; "prize open" instead of "pry open" (a door), and misuses of such words as "comprise," "intriguing," and "ethnic." Just as annoying, given the choice of a simple, direct word or a genteelism, Collins generally goes for bloat: "diminutive" rather than "small"; "resided" instead of "lived"; "purchased" rather than "bought," etc.
It's also hard not to groan at her "art history lite" similes: a seat belt "snaked itself around my chest like one of Laocoön's attacking serpents"; "Like an Olympian arrow launched from Diana's bow, he shot onto Park Avenue"; a Maserati engine "rippled beneath our stunned gazes like the abdominal muscles of a Roman god." Then there are Collins's inaccurate classical references--Terence, not Seneca, wrote "Nothing human is alien to me"--and her dubious pronouncements on academic matters: art history is a "field that deals in ideas more than things," I was surprised to learn. Overall, the writing tone is effete and bloodless, the dialogue arch and unrealistic.
Some of these problems would be forgivable if Collins herself weren't so insufferable. Her conceitedness can be breathtaking...almost comic: "What were [Attila and I] doing together--and what would have happened to him if he had never met me?"; "Normally the kind of person who's invisible to me...[Attila] wanted to prove to me that he wasn't at the bottom of the food chain." (With her frequent name-dropping of celebrities, designers, and opulent car brands, it's clear that Collins herself is the one with something to prove.)
Coming as all this does from a middle-class Tennessean who married up to New York WASP money, one expects to hear a bit of self-deprecation when Collins touches on class-related matters. Yet she takes herself seriously. She's led what she calls a "cerebral" life, writing about divas, decorators, and glitterati for Vanity Fair. It's no surprise that Collins finds Bentleys--ride of choice of hip-hop moguls and Mafiosi--so alluring.
As her recitation of luxe goods reaches its apogee ("Into the secret compartments of the Vanson jacket I zipped my cell phone and a tube of MAC Viva Glam lipstick"), one wonders what Collins is trying to achieve...aside from evoking the envy of aspiring nouveaux riches.
As a quasi-romance, this book has little to offer. The Amy-Attila relationship never rises above infatuation, as the author's coy overtures are rebuffed by the smug, elusive Turk. Though there are a few moments of genuine, adult tenderness, Collins comes off as rather girlish for a woman pushing fifty...longing breathily for a dominant-yet-caring father-figure in Attila.
As a self-help text, will this inspire many auto-phobes to take driving lessons? It's unlikely. Like its author, the book is thin on substance and big on superficial externalities...mediocrity decked out in lavish accoutrements. Could a sequel be in the cards? Nisht fur dich gedacht!
Click Here to see more reviews about: The God of Driving: How I Overcame Fear and Put Myself in the Driver's Seat (with the Help of a Good and Mysterious Man)
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