getting exactly what you asked for
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Dear friend —
Sometimes you Netflix and chill to give yourself a break from worrying about all the things you haven’t done with your life — then end up binge watching a show that wracks you with anxiety about all the things you haven’t done with your life.
The show in question: The Chair. The anxiety-provoking bit: Episode 4, in which David Duchovny appears as a version of himself. David’s been invited to serve as a guest lecturer at a college’s English department desperate to up its enrollments by bringing in some Hollywood star power. In the show, he’s not only a famous actor but also a writer who majored in English at Princeton, got a master’s in literature from Yale, and authored bestselling books.
What fun fiction, I thought, until I googled David — and found out he does indeed have degrees from Princeton and Yale — and has published four books! It’s like he decided a literary career wasn’t challenging enough so he tacked on a successful acting career on top of it for funsies.
What are we doing with our lives, friends? Instead of writing more books we are watching Netflix — and reading brilliant books other people have written, I guess.
Animal by Lisa Taddeo (Simon & Schuster, 2021)
This may be a controversial opinion, but most novels, especially bestsellers, are pretty meh. Their problem: Predictability. By this I don’t mean that I can tell exactly what will happen plot-wise at the get go, but rather that as I read I can see too clearly how the book’s been put together — heart-wrenching sad event here, obligatory unexpected twist there. The vast majority of books sound the same. Reading these, I feel like I’m looking over a rote literary exercise. Look, ma, I put the inciting incident here, then rode it up to the climax rising action here, then bam, climax! And now I’m coasting down — no hands, no hands!
So what makes a novel good? For me, it’s the voice — a tone that’s haunting, wild and strange, unreplicable. And Animal’s got that voice. The protagonist Joan leaves New York for Los Angeles in search of a woman she’s unexplainably obsessed with — all the while narrating her dark story in a tone that’s hypnotic yet blunt, flat yet violent. The entire book is like a poetic simmering, about to boil over.
Or maybe what makes a novel good, for me, is self-loathing — the intense, crippling kind that makes you roil with contempt for everyone around you too. Joan brims with contempt — for the lover who’s killed himself over her, for the neighbor whose expensive watch she plans to steal, for Topanga Canyon with its empty hippie charm, and most of all for herself, this aimless creature that slavers after all who reject her and punishes all who don’t. Read it if you’ve ever faked an orgasm then seethed with disgust for the man who didn’t make you come — and didn’t care.
Buy Animal from Bookshop
The Dangerous Age by Karin Michaelis (First published in 1910 in Denmark)
“To be bored alone is bad; to be bored in the society of one other person is much worse.” So declares Elsie, the 42-year-old narrator who leaves behind a loveless marriage and an affair with a younger man besides. Why? She wants her own place out in the country to be “quite alone and all to myself” — save two servants and a gardener.
This slim novel is like Walden, but from the point of view of a woman entering middle age in a culture that prizes women only for their youth and beauty. Ah, the freedom of escaping society and all its expectations! The beginning of the book feels like the beginning of the pandemic (at least for me) when suddenly we had no one to see or compare ourselves to, nothing to do or worry we weren’t doing. Of course, solitude changes shape as months become years, and Elsie’s wants too start changing shape. Loneliness creeps in, as does desire —
First published in Denmark back in 1910, The Dangerous Age is more than 100 years old — you can download it free on Project Gutenberg — but still a timely investigation of womanhood, of the push-pull between a longing for solitude and a desire for connection. Read it to experience the triumphs and tortures of getting exactly what you asked for.
Buy The Dangerous Age from Bookshop
How to Behave in a Crowd by Camille Bordas (Tim Duggan Books, 2018)
Quite often, you read a short story in The New Yorker and wonder, why do I even subscribe to this thing when the editors clearly have terrible taste in fiction? Then once in a blue moon, you like a story so much you pick up the author’s novel and get seduced by a quirky coming-of-age tale —
Eleven-year-old Isidore is the youngest of six kids who, unlike his precocious Ph.D.-amassing siblings, has failed to skip any grades. He actually has hobbies outside of studying — like running away from home for funsies, then returning before anyone notices. But turning up in random places unexpectedly has its consequences. Affairs are discovered! Secrets laid bare! Dissertation conclusions revealed!
This is an exciting book for bibliophiles because it’s about a family that revels in its nerdy academic pursuits. Learning is fun! Reading is hot! Read it if, as post-pandemic life opens up, you increasingly find yourself wondering: Why go to a party when I can stay at home curled up with a really, really good novel?
Buy How to Behave in a Crowd from Bookshop
Once a month, I share book recommendations. Shape it by recommending a read!
Happy reading —
Love,
Siel
Three links you might love:
I have managed to publish something new: Tweets! How this happened: I joined a gigantic Twitter-based book club called #TolstoyTogether at the beginning of the pandemic and read War and Peace with a lot of other people on the internet. The event is now a book called Tolstoy Together: 85 Days of War and Peace with Yiyun Li — just out from A Public Space. Get it to read my tweets. An online reading happens tonight, Aug. 31 — and an encore reading of War and Peace begins Sep. 15.
Here’s that Camille Bordas story, “Offside Constantly,” that I loved in The New Yorker. Did I mention that she’s French and has written multiple novels, some in French, some in English? These overachieving writers are really getting to me even when I love them —
And lastly, here’s The Chair. I didn’t love everything about the show but I love Sandra Oh, my fave Korean-American actor. And David is pretty funny.
Also watched The Chair. It's a little over the top, but Sandra Oh makes it worthwhile. Thanks for the book recommendations, including Wayward, which I just picked up at Book Catapult, along with Cake Time!