Sunday, February 16Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

Babitz, Brats, and Bacchanalia

This winter marked three years since the death of Eve Babitz, and for me, consisted of my nose being buried in Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A. Whilst the cold winter air and dreary green monotony of the English countryside lay just beyond the window of my childhood bedroom, my mind and my soul were preoccupied with the blistering heat of 1970s L.A.

Eve Babitz, the ultimate ‘It Girl’ of 70s L.A. and inspiration to L.A. Woman by the doors, did not receive much attention for her literary work within the active years of her career.  Yet, the past fifteen years have seen a resurgence in the popularity of her work; this may be due to the persistence of journalist Lili Anolik. After a freak accident in 1997 left third degree burns over half of Babitz’ body, the libertine life-of-the-party turned into a withdrawn and reactionary recluse practically overnight. Lili Anolik, however, eventually became one of the very few people trusted by Babitz and subsequently released a biography entitled ‘Hollywood’s Eve’, a play on the title of Babitz’s own work ‘Eve’s Hollywood’, depicting the life and legacy of Babitz, guiding her into the pop culture zeitgeist where she always belonged.

Slow Days, Fast Company is not the only work of Babitz’ that I’ve read but is arguably her best. Written in a desperate attempt to get a narcissistic and elusive lover to read her work, it details ten anecdotes from Babitz’ life. From vineyard getaways, drunken nights spent dancing with mysterious men, and three-day benders in the Chateau Marmont, Eve Babitz depicts a life of revelry and freedom in almost bacchanalian proportions. Glitz and glamour are laced in every other page, heartbreak and nihilism in the ones between. But, above all else, there is one thing Babitz is concerned with: fun.

Unlike her contemporary Joan Didion, known for her precision and mastery of literary skill, Babitz was free in every sense of the word. And, as a result, sometimes sloppy. She throws so many names at you throughout the course of the book that by the end I couldn’t remember if Mary was the cocaine sniffing socialite or the agoraphobic wife to one of LA’s wealthiest lawyers (after a quick skim, I can confirm that the latter was called Nikki: Mary was, indeed, one of Babitz’s bender buddies). Ultimately, though, it adds to her charm. Encountering name after name and story after story is somewhat reminiscent of wandering through the rooms of a house party in which you were a plus one, losing your friend and the only tie to your ordinary life along the way.  You can’t help but get lost in the revelry.  

It pains me that Eve Babitz is not an even bigger name than she already is, and I’m convinced that the masses would be as captivated by her works as I have been. After all, with Charli xcx’s dominance over both the music billboards and our lives last summer, with her groundbreaking album brat and all its reiterations, its apparent that we’re making a cultural shift from the idealization of the clean girl to something more authentic and messier. With Babitz, fun is to be found in the messiness of life. I think that the coup against the clean girl is something we’re all craving more with each passing day, and to me Babitz is part of the answer to that problem. She is, perhaps, one of the most artistically relevant authors for our generation even fifty years after her works were written.

Photo by Doyoun Seo on Unsplash