Page 8 - Boca ViewPointe - December '21
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Page 8, Viewpointe December 2021
Book Review
Two Women Altering Their For the progression of the teacher, first as a trainee, then with
a mentor who will review her classes with shorthand bullet
Life Courses comments like W.W.W. (What Went Well) and E.B.I. (Even
Better If) the interfering bureaucracy, and Daily Bulletin
Lucy Kellaway. How I Changed My Job, My Home, My issues whimsically by the administration that can disrupt
Husband & My Hair. Re-educated. London: Penguin plans for the day. Yet she loves it, and while the dropout rate
UK, 2021. is high, there is fundamentally something very beautiful and
Liara Roux. Whore of New York, A Confession. London: satisfying about the impact that we teachers can have upon
Repeater Books, 2021. our students. Ms. Kellaway also has the advantage of having
“You pays yer money, you takes yer choice.” Avuncular established a company called Teach Now which supports the
advice from mid-Twentieth century derived from Punch recruitment and training of new hires.
cartoon from mid-Nineteenth century. At the core of Liara’s story is her relationship with the
“There’s nothing like a dame.” Oscar Hammerstein 1950’s love of her young life, “fictionalized” Anna, not identified
“I’m going to peel you now, my good Peer! You won’t in the Acknowledgements. The thrust of the memoir, almost
escape by either begging or howling. (Takes an onion and a novel, the permutations of their Lesbian relationship that
peels off layer after layer)” Peeling the onion to discover/ Lucy Kellaway describes her mid-career transformation mirrors the pressure of straight relationships: infidelity,
uncover one’s true self. Ibsen’s Peer Gynt 1860’s following what she thought was the breakdown of her financial disputes, arguments deriving from jealousy and
marriage, and the emotional upheaval caused by the passing the like. Anna, a successful techie, who invited her to San
By Dr. Ronald J. Meyers of her father as she decides to repurpose herself, sell her house Francisco, is a failure as her lover (the sex is unbearably
in Highbury, move to a smaller Framehouse in Hackney, and painful), and a termagant as a wife, driving her to go on
Two women rush stop dyeing her hair. The decision about home and career “tours” and then frivolously spending her money on cheap
headlong into new self-chosen were the easy part. But she now has to accommodate to hamburger meals and expensive comic book collections.
situations, Lucy Kellaway the different realities of her romanticized career. Here she Despite spoiling herself on the advice of Therapists and
a London “Boomer” and uncovers along with her readers the numbing challenges of Couples Counselor in outlets like Yoga and Pilates, Liara
Liara Roux a “Millennial” low status teaching compared to travel/research, chatting with opts for divorce and moves back to New York; though
New Yorker, both intellectual, colleagues, leisurely coffee breaks, interviewing prominent Anna follows her apace and Liara allows her to crash her
rebellious, self-confident people and the prestige of being a columnist journalist. digs. She bonds with her mother, and is still young enough
feminists probe their life The life of a British school teacher is far from fun to turn her life around.
altering course in their and games where strict supervision is accorded no less to The structure of education and the organization of
respective memoirs. Though teachers than to their students. The bone-chilling rigidity the sex trade industry have been focus of society since
born generations apart, their lives intersect in the second she suggests is all associated less with educating and more time immemorial. Both women offer profound insights
decade of the present century, as they describe in a penetrating, with maintaining discipline; the repression and regimentation into today’s scene, the circumstances and results of their
enlightening, at times funny, and self-aware narratives the remnants of the Victorian age. Required dress code, assigned career transformations.
exigencies of their life altering experiences. After achieving seating, abundant even excessive use of detention weapon,
a thirty year successful career as a journalist and columnist at teaching from the book, in this case the Power Point, and Dr. Ronald J. Meyers, a resident of La Paz, is Emeritus
the prestigious Financial Times, as well as a twenty five year obsession with tests for students and evaluations for teachers. Professor of English. rmeyers@esu.edu.
marriage, with four children, apparently experiencing a kind of
illumination or burnout, in 2016, at age 57 undertakes to redefine
herself, rejecting her past, home, husband in favor of the career
enjoyed by her Mum as a classroom teacher.
Liara Roux, a nerdy, troubled teenager reflects the values
of Generation Me. After a precocious youth as Girl Scout,
art student, Christian and regular church goer, as well as sex
driven bi-sexual teen, who claimed her first kiss with a boy in
kindergarten, she is in rebellion against the strict conservatism
of her parents, her Bible thumping father who thumps her as
well, and her distant mother. She has significant health issues
with continual migraine headaches and diagnosed with bi-
polar issues. She argues that many teenagers driven by the Servicing PETS of Boca Raton
emotional and financial demands get involved with older men for over 20 years
and then move into the sex trade. “Caring is our Specialty”
Liara did a spell at intellectually prestigious Sarah Lawrence
College, and writes familiarly of such avant-garde philosophers Complete medical, Surgical and Dental
like Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Noam Chomsky. She Facility SPA Bath & Grooming
is no doubt familiar with the Greek philosopher Epimenides
associated with the Liar’s Paradox; who authored the conundrum
that “All Cretans are liars,” but being a Cretan himself, can this
statement be accepted as truthful? Can or should you believe a Norbert Graber, R. Ph.
liar when he/she says that she’s lying, or indeed when she says and Lynn Graber, R. Ph.
she’s writing a memoir and telling the truth? When Ms. Roux
confesses and self-characterizes herself as a “compulsive” liar
who has “lied about everything.” She puts forward that she
undertook the life of a prostitute for the pleasure and the money:
to give and receive pleasure. She contends that prostitution is a
variation on courtship. And yet she pedantically refuses to use
the word “whore” in the text, but only sex worker. Beyond the
salacious title, the work is more of sociological study based on
research and personal experience–likely exaggerated.
The notion that the life of a sex worker is all fun and games,
parties every night, Michelin starred meals, all expense paid
trips to the exotic capitals of the world and men who can’t wait
to pour money like champagne on her and a payoff on the high
end of $80,000 a month’s earning seems a tad exaggerated.
What about the down-side, she plays down waiting for calls,
dealing with clients “vain, vulgar, idiots,” and the mentally
disturbed or plain cheap men, and the vagaries of ageing.
She impulsively gives up her college career in New York and FREE
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