The Dud Avocado (New York Review Books Classics)

This delightful confection about a young girl, Sally Jay Gorce, in Paris has the kind of timeless voice that one can imagine sounding piquant and fresh in just about any decade of the last century, right up until today. Sally Jay has a closetful of designer clothes that she bought on sale but always seems to find herself wearing the wrong thing…like a cocktail dress in the daytime or a rumpled, layered schoolgirl look while trying to intimidate a consular officer at the U.S. Embassy. I can sympathize. Wearing the right thing is a learned skill, but what I could tell her is that people <em>always</em> wearing the correct attire either never go anywhere or change their clothes <em>a lot</em>.Sally Jay is on a learning tour of Europe but she doesn’t really <em>like</em> travel, which is why she’s settled in Paris. She didn’t like Paris, either, when she first got there, but after a few days was having a pretty good time, so she stayed. She met folks she knew from back home, one especially, a man who directed plays at the American Theatre in town. He was a bit of a mystery and hard-to-get because he always seemed to have a different girl in the wings. This was plenty enough for Sally Jay to pursue him--when she could find him.What is so pleasing about this voice is its bare-faced honesty. Sally Jay has dreams of luxury but most of her plans turn out rather differently. What at first seems like a sophisticated local boyfriend turns out to be a rather officious and salacious old bore. Her trip to “the south of France” in May suffers several weeks of unending rain. Her hair, dyed blonde for more pop, turns greenish in the sun. Her “big break” in the movies does turn out to be so—but only for another of her party.She has fun anyway, and so do we. Listening to her complain is much more fun than imagining she got all she wanted out of excursions. She has a heart, we know, because it is so tender. When the film director she’d met down south invites her to dine when she gets back to Paris, they talk about avocados: how the hard center seed can just be put in water and it sends out shoots and roots wherever it is. Sally Jay never had much success with avocados…her center perhaps was not hard enough.This book is about 250 pages but it reads like a novel one-third its length. Sally Jay has so much momentum, it takes nothing to follow her tale with real curiosity. When will she learn an important lesson and how will she react? The story is fascinating because Dundy could have ended it much earlier than she does, but she keeps us on to give us significance and meaning and true joy and romance. At one point tears sprang from my eyes quite suddenly: she must have groomed us closer emotionally than I was aware. We buy into the myth of Sally Jay, and don’t want to see her fail. And the last two words of the book are as cryptic and inappropriate and school-girlish as Sally Jay herself.Best of all, the <strong><a href="http://www.nyrb.com/">New York Review Books</a> (@nyrb)</strong> 2007 edition has an Afterword by Elaine Dundy all these years later which explains to some extent the origins of the character of Sally Jay Gorce and the public's reaction to her over the years. Originally published in 1958, it has gone through countless reprints and still sells successfully today. It is a pleasure to hear how natural it was for Dundy to create the character. It was not a tortured creation scene, and it is not a tortured read. Treat yourself.I read this book along with the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1542507-the-dud-avocado-by-elaine-dundy#comment_id_137174970">nyrb Classics Group</a>, so click on the link if you want to follow the discussion. It’s a terrific summer read.

Too many books are weak lemonade; a few, straight bourbon with no chaser. Elaine Dundy's "The Dud Volcano" is a bottle of chilled Champagne: invigorating, light, irresistibly sippible. Its picaresque heroine, Sally Jay Gorce, is no prude, though certainly no whore. She's a hoot: a fully realized character whose narrative voice immediately grabbed my attention and never let go until the very last (hilarious) word. I've no idea if Paris in the 1950s was anything as the book describes, but Ms. Dundy makes me believe that it was."The Dud Avocado" may not be a great book, but it's a very good one: a bubbly comedy of manners when one's mind is ready to escape to a different place and era close enough to our own to be both recognizable and adventurous. And with Sally as your guide, the excursion is never, ever dull.

Dud Avocado is a slice of life novel when those with money could have their grand adventures of living life moment by moment with no concern for their futures. I never had the sense that they learned from their misadventures. There was no real coming of age. I found none of the characters to be like able or even sympathetic. They all seemed rather narcissistic. I am sure the story represents a part if society that did exist, but what meaning did it have? What good did it contribute? Living life for life's sake can have merit, but I prefer my characters to evolve at least a little. They story simply propels the characters from place to place but has no in-depth indication about what motivates them. I found the characters and the story to be very flat. The reviews that led me to read this story said this is one of the best books ever written. Really? Maybe it was revolutionary for its time and because it was written by a woman. Was it surprising for readers to realize there were sexually active young women living in Europe?

Such a fun & thoughtful book. I really really loved it. A classic.

Out in a new edition, another generation will get to know Sally Jane Gorce, an adventurous Midwesterner who says she is in mourning for her life, bored by Americans, and begs her well-off Uncle Roger to save her life by sending her to Europe. He says he will if she finishes college.The September after graduation she's in Paris, trying not to look like a tourist, smoking French cigarettes and drinking Pernod. During her stay Miss Gorce manages to create a scandal that her uncle later refers to as second only to the hydrogen bomb. Highly praised by no less than Groucho Marx and other "Big Personalities" of the 1950's, Sally Jane Gorce has been called the predecessor of Bridget Jones.The author wrote the book after failing to become a successful actress during the time of "The Angry Young Men," actors who were coming into their own in 1950's London (Richard Burton, Peter O Toole, Laurence Oliver, and many others). It is in this environment she meets Kenneth Tynan, a renown drama critic whom she marries. Settled and looking for an artistic outlet, a story comes to her, and she writes her first novel, "The Dud Avocado" (the unfortunate title chosen by Tynan).Her book was an immediate hit, and has been praised by many prominent writers and critics through the years. It has never been out of print in England. Her unexpected success ruffled her husband, however, who warned her that if she wrote another novel he would divorce her, and they did in 1964.

Very funny book with an unexpected ending. Towards the end of the book I considered putting this one down in favor of reading something else, but my curiosity encouraged me to keep reading. I'm glad I did because the ending was really great! Don't let the middle part, which is less exciting, prevent you from reading on.

Elaine Dundy is now one of my favourite writers.

love love love.

A whirlwind tour of Paris in the 1950s through the ever optimistic Sally Jay Gorce. I absolutely loved this book!If you are looking for an escape from the routine and tightly controlled perimeters of your everyday, then dive straight into this fun romp. It will inspire you to live more freely and you can tumble around with no plans, getting in trouble, meet the most wonderful people, experience the whole spectrum of life and somehow come out at the end at the start of a new adventure!I do recommend getting this edition, when I glimpse the cover on my bookshelf, it brings back that sense of adventure and joy from the life I shared with Sally.**Added Bonus Tip: Read before going to Paris, dye your hair pink, grab your gladrags, leave your plans at the door and create your own adventure!

Reminiscent of Fitzgerald or Hemingway in terms of prose and as well as thematically, Elaine Dundy’s 1956 novel transports us to a young American girl’s wild European adventures. The relatable, although perhaps not always very likeable protagonist, Sally Jay, is a woman who might not always know exactly what she wants but goes about pursuing her dreams and desires anyway, usually on a whim. A reminder that adventure (and misadventure as it were) are only a plane ticket or a flirtation away and that the best things in life exist outside of one’s comfort zones.

Habe es sehr genossen dieses Buch zu lesen.Wuerde es jedem nahe legen es auch zu lesen.Spass, Humor und Leichtigkeit sind wichtige Teile des Lebens.