Rating: 
Summary: Savoir Faire
Review: Who could resist a book that connects lounging around in bed all day with "spiritual and intellectual wisdom"? Isabella Rossellini's Some of Me is a perfectly wonderful memoir of, well, some of her memories, experiences, interests, and lies. Rossellini assures the reader at the beginning of the book that she lies, and it's a disarming admission which sits interestingly with the candid and transparent prose style she has mastered. Rossellini's memoir details her relationship with her parents, Scorcese, Lynch, and her children, as well as her private passions and interests. For all her discretion, the narrative feels candid, and humorously ironic in a manner that is disarmingly personal because it feels so intimately addressed to the reader.Rossellini tells of her conversations with "ghosts," a way of tying herself to her past that tweaks the conceit of the lie to provide a quite poignant meditation on loss when it is gracefully and passionately accepted. Her wrangle with Lancome over their decision that she was too old to represent them deals with loss in a more vigorously defiant way, and yet with a certain savoir-faire: Rossellini warns us that this section will be boring, her way of distancing herself from her own disappointment, perhaps, but also something of a lie. But what's so intriguing about this book is the way in which Rossellini relies on memory's imprecision to move from topic to topic. From a discussion of her mother's advice that to live a happy life one requires "good health and a short memory," Rossellini moves to her forgetfulness, her mother's obsession with cleaning and to her own feelings about various cleaning implements, and then to the manifestation of her philosophy of living provided in the arrangements of objects in her home. These associative and nostalgic rambles are often poignant, and seldom lose a sense of coherence. Rather, they show how artless really excellent and thoughtful prose may seem. And then there are the pictures: again, an artless miscellany that offers everything from hand-drawn cleaning instruments to objets trouves, art objects given to her by Lynch and others, and a collection of personal snaps as well as fashion photographs. Rossellini loves things for their simplicity, beauty, and richness. If you do too, enjoy this book.
| 
