Tales of L.A. Revealed: A Review of Eve Babitz's 'Slow Days, Fast Company'
Revealing the stories behind the hot, spectacular, and hedonistic 20th Century Los Angeles-based novel by Eve Babitz.
“Women want to be loved like roses. They spend hours perfecting their eyebrows and toes inventing irresistible curls that fall by accident down the back of their necks from otherwise austere hairdos. They want their lover to remember the way they held a glass. They want to haunt.” - Eve Babitz
Sun-kissed rebels in L.A heats, hippie beats at sunset strip, and the cultural revolts of the Watts controversies under the golden skies and Californian palm trees; the sixties forever roars in the land of L.A.
The 1960s Los Angeles swings as one of the transformative decades in America, where the cultural, social, and political movements and reconstructions have shaped L.A as we see it today. As Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn dazzle on screen, as influential poetic artists of Pop Art and folk-rock movements, Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan take the stage, activists battles class segregation, police brutality, racial equality, civil rights, and calls for justice and equality as they march fearlessly through the city's streets.
The 1960s was an unforgettable chapter in LA that etched its mark on the mosaic of American culture and history. Between the remarkable Hollywood stars and the historical events that shaped Los Angeles, the pursuers of hedonism and the American Dream seeps through the boundary. Renowned author Eve Babitz reveals the captivating hedonistic and colorful tales of 60s L.A as she scribbles the intricacies of American life into her own form of words. From her childhood and adult experiences; friendships, relationships, sex, drugs, and parties with Italians and the like, she portrays the hidden sides of Los Angeles through her full-fledged and full-bodied evocation of her Southern California spectacular and seducing novel entitled ‘Slow Days, Fast: Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A.” If you ought to find a book with a hot girl, girlboss, Lana Del Rey, socialite vintage L.A. drugged party girl vibe with the perfect descriptive ambience and setting of Los Angeles in the sixties, this book is perfect for you.
Who is Eve Babitz?
Born on May 13, 1943 in Los Angeles, Eve Babitz was an essayist, memoirist, novelist, groupie, feminist, and the author of ‘Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A.’ One of the most original writers of 20th century Los Angeles, Babitz was an American visual artist and author best known for her semi-fictionalized memoirs and her relationship to the cultural milieu of L.A Alongside Slow Days, Fast Company (1977), she wrote several other notable works which are namely Eve's Hollywood (1974); Sex and Rage (1979); Fiorucci, The Book (1980).
Revealing the Captivating Tales of Los Angeles
𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘁. 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿. 𝗛𝗼𝘁. 𝗦𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲. 𝗛𝗲𝗱𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰.
These are five words I've chosen to describe Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A. by Eve Babitz, a collection of her conversational yet glamorous essays set in the 1960s and 1970s bygone Southern California in pursuit of American ideals. With Virginia Woolf as her only grace, this delicate Californian hedonistic adventure of hers tackles her remarkable experiences, accidental attachments, and unforgettable relationships with such people in such unpredictable places like Chateau Marmont's drugged up socialites, Hollywood’s movie stars, soap opera actors, Italian femme fatales, and lovely leisures at Santa Ana, Orange County, grapevine farm at Central Valley, and of course, her romance fizzle at Palm Springs.
“The idea of an “artistic community” evaporates into the slow days. Inspiration and words like that get hurried along with the fast company; it’s impossible to tell if one’s been inspired, or if it was the cocaine, or what.” - Eve Babitz
Her style of writing was exquisite. It’s vivid, full of life, and descriptive, it makes you feel as if you’re experiencing her stories first hand. It’s seducing and brilliant how she beautifully described two of the characters in the story: Shawn and Mary, which made me fall in love with them as well as the author did. Babitz, although voluptuous, mean, yet kind and popular, was born perfect for Los Angeles. She definitely glows and radiates in L.A as an author and as a lovely result, she did not disappoint to successfully write and deliver a timeless midwestern, (avowedly 'love story' ) book such as this. She seduces you into her multiple creative writing forms-sensible, hot, fun, smart, and alluring to introduce us to the world of L.A, behind its scenes. Think of Joan Didion and Patti Smith, Babitz will complete the Holy Trinity of American sixties’ storytellers. Art makes her alive. She takes her writing as a form of art and as all other lovers of art, Babitz also considers sex as a form of an ethereal art, like rain, in her personal and philosophical sense.
The Pursuit of Hedonism
“Having quit smoking, I knew what she meant. Unless one is in the exact right mood, it's impossible. Smoking has been so glamorous for so long, all those matches, those poses, the lipstick on the tips - the smoke itself curling its casual way through the most nerve-wracking moments. But in another way, smoking, although glamorous, has never been as glamourous as heroin - and dying from cigarettes doesn't have the tragic sunset quality that O.D.ing lends to death. Heroin is the celebrated romantic excess of our time.” - Eve Babitz
Defining Hedonism in general terms and as portrayed in Babitz’s novel, it refers to the pursuit of pleasure, satisfaction, relaxation, and enjoyment as the superior part of life. In “Slow Days, Fast Company” she reveals the ideology of living in the moment-not in the past or future, appeasing oneself in sensual and delirious pleasures of sex, drugs, and alcoholism and showing how Hedonism can be a carefree lifestyle of the time in L.A. Characters such as Shawn, Mary, Gabrielle, and even the narrator itself pursues to find themselves in the world pleasure -seeking activities of romance, art, music, literature, and parties. Hedonism pursuers celebrate the jubilation and exhilaration life offers without conforming into societal norms, laws, and restrictions. However delightful hedonism is, it bears consequences and obstacles to people who constantly seek it. In the later parts of each story, Babitz showed and taught to us readers the downfalls of excessive pleasure-seeking of hedonism and left a remarkable note that we, seekers of satisfaction, must limit ourselves.
Final Personal Thoughts
Eve Babitz is a wonderful writer, one of my favorites. The way she foretold her memoirs in sixties L.A is dreamy, it makes me want to go back in time. It's a hot summer in 2023 and personally speaking, I gladly enjoyed reading every entries in this book whilst listening to the Rivers of London Jazz playlist. Although evocative in nature, this book is a perfect example of how socialites in the late sixties Los Angeles performed their elusive desires and temptations. It is a good and quick read, perfect for reading on your East Side L.A apartelle whilst drinking a typical Côte-Rôtie red wine. She is a romanticist and a passionate writer in her own renaissance era. To end this review, surprisingly, both she and I have the same romantic fantasy:
"One of my first romantic fantasies was that when I grew up and got to have anything I wanted, I was going to have an adorable main companion who drove a 1930's roadster convertible and we'd motor along French Riviera or up to Santa Barbara or down to Laguna." - Eve Babitz