Bingo: White
The Buddhists say that wisdom may be attained by reaching the three marks. The first is an understanding of the absence of self. The second is an understanding of the impermanence of all things. The third is an understanding of the unsatisfactory nature of ordinary experience.”
It took me 90 minutes to read Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation and I can only give the briefest of synopses: it is a story about a marriage that comes together then falls apart due to an affair then comes together again in a way I found bleak. The above quote captures the book’s themes better than anything I can come up with.
The book is written in fragments. Passing thoughts, quotes, philosophical musings, interior dialogue, all pass by quickly in endless separate short paragraphs. I think it is supposed to feel like being inside the wife’s head, with scraps floating by in the hope of capturing a deep whole. Only that’s not the way I felt about the book. It didn’t feel pretentious exactly, but it felt like a first draft built on impulses and ostensibly meaningful musings. I don’t need my books to be tightly plotted and I have nothing against fragmented flow. But this book moves by quickly without a lot of depth, although it is obvious the author is trying desperately to mine it.
I am going to forget this book as soon as I pick up my next one. There is nothing objectionable, really, but it leaves the lightest of impressions.