Jen > Recent Status Updates

Uh oh. Hang on, let me get my pearls. I feel a clutch coming on.

I don’t know what it says about me that the characters are whiffing a bit repugnant - nope with a human frailty cover - where is the damn Corona already (yes, yes effing Scotland or the trash), and I can already see we’re going to forget the existence and cause of as well as the cure for scurvy for the eleventieth time. We are having record scratch-moments of elevated and juvenile story lines. Acid trip.

I like the bit about his students not being interested in history, wondering why we just kept warring and ignoring the signs and the mindless acquisition and not taking action. Were we stupid or something? Why yes, yes we were - you couldn’t tell us anything. And I like the bit about intellectualism is *always* fraught and under fire. The Wittgenstein quotes. Cozy read for being a dystopic aftermath.

I don’t know how to feel about Vita and Harold, but their son Nigel who compiled and narrates this biography is clear-eyed and funny. Of an overwrought and silly excerpt from Behind the Mask he says: “It’s a wildly romantic and foolish book.” I’m only reading this because Sissinghurst made me drunk with admiration of their horticultural achievement. And up with sex positivity.

Well only now I notice and should have before - where are the citations? p126 a quote is attributed to 20th C scientist Karl Lorenz but it must be referring to Konrad bc it’s about psychology. Quote cannot be found and Karl Lorenz was a WWII German general. Said quote refers to something said in 2 pubs, one a dissertation, about someone else. Ugh.

Note on the layout of this book: maps and callouts and quotes never repeat copy from main content and reader can safely pay attention to all text. Every line is worth reading attentively. Masterfully designed book. English pubs, however, leave a tiny bit to be desired with readability. Am I a reading-peeve-irascible middle-aged woman or an 20-10 sighted 18-year old? The former, thanks.

See notes re: medical history for review - “What was wrong with Darwin?” - Down House was in passable if rough shape and the dining room invited a conversation about paint ingredients, moisture, mold and one’s respiratory health. Stephen Kent MD paper in HekInt 2023.

197: 4&5 Sparrow - sweet; Ghoul - started then skipped. Mother’s Day - textured and good. Alma reminds me of the main character in The Correspondent but sympathetic. Debi unlikable with interesting concluding self-rescue. Provocative read costarring alcoholism and trauma.

3 Love Letter: Yes, I was afraid of that.

Can barely move or breathe reading this book, hanging off the end of the bed, shooing away interruptions. It’s scandalous and terrifying, too mature than I realized when Bill Nighy from Ill-Advised read the first chapter in his posh accent and I was hooked. It’s *so good*. Should have known he’d only rec bangers. What a card.

Look at this amazing creature - quick let’s kill it. :/ Chuck, *must* you ride the tortoises? The “precious nonsense” of travel and to “no sooner discover what is most interesting in any locality” only to immediately be “hurried from it” - Jesus can I relate right now. We are both headed home soon with an eagerness, his bag filled with dead things and mine with new books.

Bought at Down House in Kent, England 14 May 2026

Also I see immediately why Saunders is a big deal - impeccable prose.

2: The Mom of Bold Action - one of those pieces of fiction that narrates part of your thought human experience *so well* it makes your heart sing to read it and you think “not only me!” Nothing ever is, but I love that feeling. Another wrecker.

1: Libration Day: bananas. Kind of like American Gods except coherent but same sense of WTAF that leaves you groundless, disoriented and happy about it.

“I ask a question I’d been practicing for a moment like this: ‘Doctor, will I ever play the guitar again?’ The doctor shakes his head. Pablo and Elena bite the insides of their cheeks.” Slay.

So good: a trip around interest, disgust, indifference, concern, empathy, fatigue and indifference with our edgy protagonist, exactly how you feel about yourself - sometimes in the course of a single day - during building burnout.

“I don’t know what happened or where it came from, but a crack has opened. My real opinions and feelings have no place here. That can’t happen again.” LOL

“Then I think about the nonsense that worries ordinary people, no matter how much they think they’re the smartest sheep in the flock—being ugly, smelling bad at the end of the day, having a dirty house. The market generates needs, and it’s my job to translate them into the language of ordinary mortals.” The tone of ennui and boredom - laughing with recognition at our collective dissatisfaction already.

“…I took pride in not seeing life romantically.” Oh, okay, I see. In the story A for Alone about the Modesto Manifesto, the Billy Graham-Mike Pence thing of never be alone with a woman who is not your wife or mother. 10/10 story, which was unexpected.

Every time I read a Curtis Sittenfeld, the things she leaves unsaid make me nod in recognition and promptly think “Does that mean what I think it means; is the implication clear or is this mad libs for the reader’s projection?” I love it, and also note that some people pointedly don’t.

“…or perhaps it’s a story about how precious it is to deeply adore two people in the world, even if neither of them is your spouse, and to share part of every day with them. Isn’t this, after all, two more people than anyone is guaranteed?”

“Meanwhile, as the end of the century approached, a cult of suffering emerged. Circulation wars between newspapers promoting various explorers and expeditions dramatized stiff-upper-lip accounts in which [readers] could agonize along with their heroes almost in real time.” Yes. That’s exactly what this book is. Here for it.

Scurvy, polar bears, killing, and hubris. I’m exasperated at so many things - while safe and comfy in my bed surrounded by globally traded goods - and worried for these patent idiots. No definitely don’t *wear* those furs from all the bears you’ve killed; Arctic overwintering isn’t cold or anything. FFS.

Not too often that I laugh out loud with surprise while reading - maybe a chuckle, a titter, but not a full laugh.