Last Week's New Yorker Review: đ„ The Weekend Special (August 4)
The Weekend Special
Pieces are given up to three Knapps (for fiction), Downeys (for essays), or Fords (for random picks). As with restaurant stars, even one Knapp, Downey, or Ford indicates a generally positive review.
đ„ Fiction
âThe Bridge Stood Fastâ by Anne Enright. One Knapp. house, hospital, hoor. A really odd one, which Iâm quite possibly underrating due to my slight bafflement. Feels less like Enright had a story to tell and more like she had four or five things she wanted to touch on â healthy father-daughter relationships, the unknowable when it comes to trauma and family, how you might see your children differently after you lose your parents, the cloistered lives of certain Irish people, probably something about Catholicism â and gently nudged her story in those directions, while allowing it to meander as much as it pleased. This results in a discursive narrative that drops more threads than it develops, and when combined with Enrightâs distinctive voice, which tends toward odd poetic phrases and fragmented sentences, a haziness settles in. (Apparently weâre supposed to note Ivorâs gradual disillusionment with SeĂĄn. I mostly missed the âgradualâ part and figured he quickly grew to hate the guy. Also, perhaps itâs an Irish thing to not discuss your parentsâ character in great depth with your partner, but the total lack of initial understanding of SeĂĄnâs nature on Ivorâs part seems unlikely.) What the story certainly is not is didactic or bland, and Iâm perfectly happy to follow along as the characters discuss a property dispute that has little to do with anything, as far as I can tell. But Enright does cultivate a sense that all these strands are part of one braid, as, after all, they represent specific and carefully selected details from a two-year span of time; a reader canât help but wonder if there is an oblique intention at play â and this ends up confusing the business of the story, which the reader, amidst Enrightâs sidelong approach, may lose track of. But Iâm stamping this âsee for yourselfâ â itâs emotionally astute, very fine technically, and someone more versed in the time or situation may grasp depths that eluded me.
đ„ Weekend Essay
âNotes on Bed Restâ by Anna Russell. Two Downeys. I hope I donât come across as dismissive when I say that Russell has managed to combine the mommy blog with the Moshfegh hibernation narrative. Finds glory in the pain of banality âa woman is given questionable advice that says she must do as little as possible, in what would be a stunning allegory for feminist alienation if it werenât entirely literal; she follows the advice somewhat haphazardly (she would prefer to, but not too much), and everything works out in a manner both happy and entirely statistically predictable. Our society provides no help and seeks to shame those who donât do everything for themselves; this is, in fact, so inherent that even a system stocked mostly by good, capable, conscientious people â as obstetrics seems to be â will recreate these patterns, landing on a solution which is nothing more than a shrug (get as much bed rest as you can, or maybe donât) plus the insistence that the mother bear personal responsibility (ââYouâd never forgive yourself if something happenedââ). Russell goes on a bit too long; the last few sections bend toward a bloggy, beat-by-beat literalness; the ending, in particular, pushes far too hard for resolution. What makes the rest of the piece so strong is that the (sometimes nauseatingly) visceral detail is counterbalanced by rhetoric (Woolf, close-reads of forums), yet all of it clearly comes from Russellâs nervous, unquiet intelligence, thereby communicating the pain of her self-imposed stasis more acutely than any description. Talk about a pregnant pause.
đ„ Random Pick
âLetter from Londonâ by Mollie Panter-Downes. (Dec 14, 1940). No Fords. debate, damage, dirt. Doesnât give a sense of the headspace of the public and doesnât have the inside scoop; itâs just Panter-Downesâ take on the public perception of the goings-on with the war â mostly concerning minutiae like the proportions of âBritainâs aerial attack on Italyâ. The last section, though, on the defeatist gossip perpetuated by one Joseph Kennedy, are a reminder of how malignant a force he was. (The truly extreme antisemitism certainly didnât help.) Somewhat relatedly, I recently played a short game (technically a âmodâ; I donât understand these things) in which one simulates an imagined Robert Kennedy presidency in 1969; I found it extremely well-written and remarkably ambitious; unlike a lot of alternate history narratives, it makes a specific, cogent point without shoving your nose in it.
đ„ Something Extra
Hereâs a great hypothetical to talk about over dinner. Mine is in the comments.
Sunday Song: