Jenny Offill
Paperback | Pages: 180 pages Rating: 3.75 | 34654 Users | 5111 Reviews
Point Out Of Books Dept. of Speculation
| Title | : | Dept. of Speculation |
| Author | : | Jenny Offill |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 180 pages |
| Published | : | October 7th 2014 by Vintage (first published January 28th 2014) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Contemporary. Literary Fiction |
Chronicle During Books Dept. of Speculation
Dept. of Speculation is a portrait of a marriage. It is also a beguiling rumination on the mysteries of intimacy, trust, faith, knowledge, and the condition of universal shipwreck that unites us all.Jenny Offill's heroine, referred to in these pages as simply "the wife," once exchanged love letters with her husband postmarked Dept. of Speculation, their code name for all the uncertainty that inheres in life and in the strangely fluid confines of a long relationship. As they confront an array of common catastrophes - a colicky baby, a faltering marriage, stalled ambitions - the wife analyzes her predicament, invoking everything from Keats and Kafka to the thought experiments of the Stoics to the lessons of doomed Russian cosmonauts. She muses on the consuming, capacious experience of maternal love, and the near total destruction of the self that ensues from it as she confronts the friction between domestic life and the seductions and demands of art.
With cool precision, in language that shimmers with rage and wit and fierce longing, Jenny Offill has crafted an exquisitely suspenseful love story that has the velocity of a train hurtling through the night at top speed. Exceptionally lean and compact, Dept. of Speculation is a novel to be devoured in a single sitting, though its bracing emotional insights and piercing meditations on despair and love will linger long after the last page.
Specify Books Toward Dept. of Speculation
| Original Title: | Dept. of Speculation |
| ISBN: | 0345806875 (ISBN13: 9780345806871) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Nominee (2015), International Dublin Literary Award Nominee for Shortlist (2016), Rathbones Folio Prize Nominee (2015) |
Rating Out Of Books Dept. of Speculation
Ratings: 3.75 From 34654 Users | 5111 ReviewsAssess Out Of Books Dept. of Speculation
Essentially, Offill carries out a kind of emotional autopsy on a young woman trying to divide her energies between bringing up a young child and keeping a husband happy without sacrificing her commitment to succeeding as a writer. The original format of this novel its written as a kind of literary scrapbook of musings, quotes and insights - reminded me at times of Fellinis brilliant film about the fount of inspiration, 8 ½. Like the film director in Fellinis film, Offills writer is bereft of1 star - I really hated it.DNF'd at 10% (a whopping 15 minutes of reading, maybe). Turns out it is a collection of random gibberish. Here are two excerpts that speak for themselves:To live in a city is to be forever flinching. The Buddhists say there are 121 states of consciousness. Of these, only three involve misery or suffering. Most of us spend our time moving back and forth between these three. Blue jays spend every Friday with the devil, the old lady at the park told me. You need to get
My rating oscillates between 3 and 4 stars. Thin slices of married life as viewed through a microscope, agitated cells of a wife's emotional life swirling on the page. A mix of memories and inner thoughts, striking moments and philosophical quotes, the whole should have risen as a symphony yet it didn't quite do that in the end for me. The book felt a little bit rushed and disjointed and coming apart at the seams. Jenny Offill jumped ahead through the years a little abruptly at times and I often
The subject of this book is the same as Elena Ferrante's The Days of Abandonment - the husband strays - yet the writing couldn't have been handled more differently. To write like Ferrante you need a grasp of literature.To write like Offill you need an American education and access to the internet. Ferrante wears her education lightly - there are little, if any references to great writers.Offill doesn't let you forget who she's in touch with.Offill talks a lot about art.Ferrante asks you to judge
6 stars.I'm doing my inarticulate book-clutching thing.
the writing is excellent, but the story (marriage/baby/infidelity/unpleasantness) just makes me wanna open myself with a sword
Well this book broke me into pieces. I just felt super connected to the main character and even though I am not married and I don't have any children I was still able to put myself in that characters shoes. The author did a great job at this. This was a fast, short, easy read that was super interesting and made you think and feel greatly!
0 Comments:
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.