“It’s what happen at home that you try to protect, as best you can, for as long as you can.” ––Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014, by Alice Munro, pg. 303 “We childless ones, whether through bravery or cowardice, constitute a kind of existential vanguard, forced by our own choices to face the naked question […]
“The bargain she was bound to was to go on living as she had been doing. The bargain was already in force. To accept what had happened and be clear about what would happen. Days and years and feelings much the same, except that the children would grow up, and there might be one or […]
“It seemed only proper that the antics of her former self should not be connected with her present self––let alone with the real self that she expected would take over once she got out of this town and away from all the people who thought they knew her. It was the whole twist of consequence […]
California’s recent drought has been scary. Even in Northern California, where the water situation is considerably better than down south, people are realizing that the future of California’s water situation will look much different than its past. Though many improvements will be large, publicly-funded infrastructure projects, individuals can also take action to lessen the effects […]
“What is it about an infant’s crying that makes it so powerful, able to break down the order you depend on, inside and outside of yourself? It is like a storm––insistent, theatrical, yet in a way pure and uncontrived. It is reproachful rather than supplicating––it comes out of a rage that can’t be dealt with, […]
“What’s with all the sentimentality about nature anyway, and the kowtowing to it, as though adhering to the ‘natural’ had some sort of ethical force? It’s not like nature is such a friend to womankind, not like nature doesn’t just blithely kill women off on a random basis during childbirth or anything. No one who faces […]
“I think the future of something we may no longer call feminism must include a deeper inquiry into men,” writes Rebecca Solnit in the closing pages of Men Explain Things to Me. “Feminism sought and seeks to change the whole human world; many men are on board with the project, but how it benefits men, […]
“I argued that you don’t know if your actions are futile; that you don’t have the memory of the future; that the future is indeed dark, which is the best thing it could be; and that, in the end, we always act in the dark. The effects of your actions may unfold in ways you […]
Three years ago, my father pointed me toward a frightfully thick book called Cryptonomicon that permanently rearranged my relationship with modern fiction. Since that first taste, Neal Stephenson has challenged me in every way an author can (including nearly boring me to death). Stephenson looms larger in my literary pantheon––and weighs more heavily on my […]
“When are we going to begin writing our own fucking narrative?” ––Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson, pg. 822