Jen > Recent Status Updates

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.

It’s funny, comforting and delightful that since the beginning, this is how we diary: to vent the petty, self-indulgent, bitter whining. Some of diarisits’ best writing may be in their angry screeds: …”she continued in that ecstasy until noon” referring to a wife’s “brawl and revile”. I am LOL, really. We can dispense with self-consciousness at our bias and navel gazing: that’s the point.

The history education in this book: Michael of Rhodes, Newton, Louis XIV, Pepys. So good.

“Should pity be subdivided?” I have wondered this many times. Penelope is casually shameless to nearly reptilian, and now I wonder if I’ve been wrongheaded and baseline human is indifference.

Yes, this is the point of relatable fiction.

Definitely feeling a bit Hill House and now torn about Penelope, even as her motivation makes sense for the 1950s and any time. Valpy and Chela and Jo Hopper are easier.

“…Penelope could chart Elena’s progress by the expression of her guests. .. Almost all immediately freshened their drinks after talking with her.” LOL

The stoic reporting of just-outside-normal-behavior from a sympathetic protagonist as everyone tilts surreal: it’s giving Shirley Jackson x Ann Patchett. I’m vaguely uncomfortable and like it.

Also I ordered a new notebook and inserts. God damnit, I just realized what has happened. Lochby, Atlas Stationers, Jet Pens, this dude is an enabler.

P 150 bequeathed another band name for the 2026 list: Herring Busses, from the Dutch, “haringbuisen.”

Not picturing them sitting in rows peeking out the deck and smiling with their mouths open, drenched in the spray of speed boats traveling in convoys.

So interesting! I forgot about the Chaucer-Boccaccio link. I am compelled to note here I went back to the TOC as this is Ch 7 now and we’re back in what is now S Europe again. Okay. I realize, this is not “The” history of thinking on paper, this is a very limited history of the thinking on paper by people in a handful of western countries populated by white people. Fine, but be for real.

Michael of Rhodes: not only was he teaching himself algebra, modern notation hadn’t been invented yet - no symbols for =, x, +, - nevermind exponents which he was also doing in words. I’m shook. When I read the original description of his manuscript I thought this dude was neurodivergent; now I’m convinced. I am also struck with sonder: every life highly textured when you look closely.

I wish this wasn’t so well written and weren’t eating me alive, because it’s dark and miserable, and now is not a great time while our country is burning to the ground, and I’m writing this and reading it on an end-stage malignant capitalism platform. We were not informed of the risks and benefits; we did not knowingly consent. This is fine.

Oh. This is probably one of those books you need to go back and reread when you clock the structure. That’s why some of the reviews say she’s meandering - because it’s subtle. I almost missed it - it wasn’t until the religious iconography and the bindweed that it dawned on me. Very proud of myself; I rarely notice hidden metaphor.

John Cummings, the owner of the Whitney Plantation in LA says it well: “…and all of a sudden, you feel very strange. It’s not a feeling of guilt. It’s a feeling of ‘discovered ignorance.’ I don’t know how else to explain it. When you wonder, How could this have happened and I didn’t know about it? How could that happen?”

Links between things I knew and things I didn’t. The vast gaps. Wondrous.

Reading this book while traversing a divorce, and it’s an excellent choice if I do say so myself - a lantern in the darkness. hooks is a luminary and warm, safe house in a cold, bleak winter. So grateful to have finally picked up this book now; the timing is perfect.