Jason Dessen is living a good life. He has a decent job, a wife he loves, and a son in a little brownstone in Chicago. Sure there’s choices that he made in the past, choices that he wonders about, but for the most part he is happy. “As long as I’m with you, I know exactly who I am.” One day, coming home from a bar he’s almost hit by a car. And then he’s kidnapped. He doesn’t know why or where, he’s knocked out […]
A useful little guide
This book arose from a letter to a friend. The friend had asked Adichie how to raise a feminist daughter and this book is Adichie’s answer. As books go it is fairly short, but I suppose that for a letter it is quite long. If you have read Adichie before (and if you haven’t you really should) her voice is strong and flowing in this letter and I enjoyed reading it. I wanted to buy ten copies and just throw them at anybody who’s expecting. […]
You get born, and you nurse on lies, and you get weaned on lies, and you learn fancier lies in school
“Young folk […] they don’t know what to do with themselves.” A young man in the 1870’s drops out of Harvard and finds his way to Butcher’s crossing. He finds a reputable man who offers him a job managing the finances of the buffalo trade, but it’s not enough for Will Andrews. He tracks down a man named Miller who knows of a secret spot where there’s an untouched buffalo herd, ripe for the killing. All he needs is a little money. Andrews has that […]
Every woman adores a Fascist
I found this beautiful version of Ariel at Hebden Bridge, a little town just beneath the hill where Plath is buried at Heptonstall. Later I would later hike up there and see the two churches, the old one, burned down or deteriorated by time, and the new one that seemed dull to me compared to the expanse of a forgotten church. I didn’t know she was buried there so I walked right past her with her book in my bag. In the dullest of conclusion […]
Are you my mummy?
“It’s our very capacity for self-consciousness that makes us self-destructive.” The name Bechdel is for me synonymous with the Bechdel test. I was, of course, vaguely aware that the phrase originated from a person named Bechdel who did something with comic strips or drawing on the internet, but other than that it was just a feminist test that was popular for a while, but has since gone somewhat out of fashion. <sidenote> The Bechdel test has been criticized for being insufficient, that it’s too easy. […]
Life
A musician’s instrument is broken. He walks to the shop to buy a new one, but each one he tries sounds wrong. He travels across the country to buy another one, but when he comes home it still does not sound right. So he decides to die. Chicken with plums takes place in the eight days were he is waiting to die. He stays in bed thinking over his life, as his children, wife and family visit him to try to talk to him. Nothing […]
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