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Roseannearchy: Dispatches From The Nut Farm (2011)

by Roseanne Barr(Favorite Author)

3.34 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1439160074 (ISBN13: 9781439160077)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Gallery Books

review 1: I wish I could have given this book a three-and-a-half star rating but there was no way I was going to give it four, no matter how much I loved parts of it. Roseanne's previous autobiography, "My Lives" (1994) has an average rating of 3.49 and "Roseannearchy" only has a 3.29 but I think this is a much better (or less crazy & bridge-burning) look at herself. She certainly has done a lot of work on herself since her previous book, as evidenced by the foreword by first husband Bill Pentland, who even reads his bit for the audiobook. Her second bio trashed him and most of the producers on her sitcom, so this time she saves most of her resentment for Tom Arnold, though she blames herself as much as him for her craziness during the early '90s, and she is quite amusing when di... morescussing Arnold's quest for fame. Roseanne does need someone to edit her, however, as some of the chapters seem self-indulgent or overreaching. She also apologizes for airing her family's dirty laundry and her poor choices of words in the early '90s, and then proceeds to criticize some of her children's spouses --oops! My favorite chapter details the tedium of growing up in Utah and playing dolls with brainwashed girls, when Roseanne would say "When playing Barbie dolls with the other Mormon girls I would get so bored with the inevitable dating and wedding planning storylines that were the subject of every play date that I would say 'Why don't we play a game where Barbie parachutes behind enemy lines to save the Jews?'" Relegated to playing with a Ken doll, she continues, "I tried to give Ken some balls by having him say, 'Barbie, why don't you and I parachute behind enemy lines and save some Jews from the Nazis before our wedding?' But the Mormon girls would just ignore Ken and emasculate him by telling me to shut up." Her command of language can be quite stunning, as in the previous example whereby Ken, whose primary signifier in popular culture is that he has no genitalia, is further emasculated by the girls who buy into the notion that a woman's greatest feat is landing a man. Everybody loses! Roseanne is particularly adept at pointing out contradiction and irony, especially when describing the left going crazy after Reagan became president. She describes the blooming of a multiracial feminist collect in Denver that soon becomes mired in identity politics. "You haven't lived till you've heard a man with breasts tell you how her decision to keep her penis is a feminist issue." Overall, I was impressed with how extremely well-read she is, and how visionary in her choice of projects post "Roseanne". She feels that what she tried to do with her daytime and late night shows have been aped by cable television and "which proves the old saying, 'Imitation is the sincerest form of show business.'" She also believes that one of the reasons she had so many cosmetic surgeries was to get painkillers, which is pretty awesome. The book often outwears its welcome, and certain chapters feel aimless or unable to live up to their ambition, but the parts that work are quite brilliant and imminently quotable.
review 2: I really like Roseanne Barr. I think she's entertaining and witty. I enjoy her twitter feed, and I don't think all of her ideas are totally out there. That said, this book is terrible. You can only read it in chunks or else your mind starts to revolt from the lack of decent editing (both self-editing from Barr and professional editing). It kind of reads as though you're having a conversation with someone who is utterly stoned. I am going to just pretend I didn't read this book. less

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