The Paris Wife

"To marry was to say you believed in the future and in the past too––that history and tradition and hope could stay knit together to hold you up."

Both Ways is the Only Way That I Want It

Just finished reading Maile Meloy's "Both Ways is the Only Way that I Want It."  I don't know if this ever happens to other people:  I really enjoy Meloy's books, but I kind of forgot about her.  It wasn't until I stumbled across her recent short story in The New Yorker that I thought to google her, realized that she had a new book, and went to the library to pick it up.

I liked, but did not love, Both Ways is the Only Way That I Want It.  It's a collection of short stories, primarily about relationships, marriage, and infidelity.

My favorite short story of the collection was "Two Step," mostly for the way that the story unfolds.  Still, there was this one dialogue that made me pause, because the character echoed something I once heard at a dinner party and found incredibly depressing:  "Who was it who said that marriage is a long struggle for moral advantage?"

Apparently, the answer is Marge Simpson.  This makes me feel better.

p.s.  The book's title is taken from a poem by A.R. Ammons, which I adore:

One can't
Have it 

both ways
and both 

ways is
the only 

way I
want it.

The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing

When he says, "I love you, honey," you realize that he never calls you by your name.

On Work

Finished Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End.  It's his first novel, and it centers around a series of workplace dramas.  I've been thinking a lot about work, purpose, and happiness lately.

It's funny: happiness ends up depending on such a random mix of factors.  But, given how many hours we spend working, it's not surprising that how happy you are will partially depend on how satisfied you are by your work.

The following passage is taken from the novel and is a conversation between a partner at an advertising firm and her subordinate:

   He was silent.  "You've worked hard."
   "Yes," she agreed.  She had finished putting on her shoes and was now sitting perpendicular to the table with her hands holding her knees.  "Too hard?"
   There was a note of vulnerability in the question that he wasn't expecting.  But it was also clear, the way she was looking at him, that she wanted him to answer truthfully.  "I don't know," he said.  "What's too hard?"
   "All these other people have so much going on in their lives.  Their nights, their weekends.  Vacations, activities.  I've never been able to do that."
   "Which is why you're a partner."
   "But what am I missing?  What have I missed?"
   "Have you been happy doing it?"
   "Happy?"
   "Content.  Has it been worthwhile?  The work?"
   "Yes," she said.  "Maybe.  I suppose."
   "Then you may be better off than they are.  Many of them would prefer not to be here, and yet this is where they spend most of their time.  Percentagewise, maybe you're the happiest."

Clumsy Heroines

A few months ago, I picked up Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and Other Concerns).  Although I didn't find it quite as funny as Bossypants, I thought Kaling was spot-on with her description of stereotypes in rom-coms: 

"When a beautiful actress is cast in a movie, executives rack their brains to find some kind of flaw in the character she plays that will still allow her to be palatable. She can’t be overweight or not perfect-looking, because who would pay to see that? A female who is not one hundred per cent perfect-looking in every way? You might as well film a dead squid decaying on a beach somewhere for two hours.  

So they make her a Klutz. 

The hundred-per-cent-perfect-looking female is perfect in every way except that she constantly bonks her head on things. She trips and falls and spills soup on her affable date (Josh Lucas. Is that his name? I know it’s two first names. Josh George? Brad Mike? Fred Tom? Yes, it’s Fred Tom). The Klutz clangs into stop signs while riding her bike and knocks over giant displays of fine china in department stores. Despite being five feet nine and weighing a hundred and ten pounds, she is basically like a drunk buffalo who has never been a part of human society. But Fred Tom loves her anyway."

I don't think this is limited to rom-coms, though:  I've seen the same trope in chick lit novels.  It's a much longer story as to why I'm reading it, but every time the heroine of Fifty Shades of Grey falls, trips, or somehow injures herself, I can't help but rolling my eyes.  (I also felt this way about Bella in the Twilight series).  Granted, Fifty Shades is making me want to roll my eyes for a whole long list of other reasons.


(You can find the full Kaling piece here.)  

On Optimism

Apparently, I have now become one of those women who, upon reaching "a certain age", turns to self-help books.  

This is a bit of a joke, of course: while I've always eschewed that section of the book store, I recently picked up Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman, a professor at my alma mater.  I thought that one of the more interesting chapters discussed the biological argument for optimism:

In his acute, speculative book Optimism: The Biology of Hope Lionel Tiger argues that the human species has been selected by evolution because of its optimistic illusions about reality.  How else could a species have evolved that plants seeds in April and holds on through drought and famine until October, that stands up alone before charging mastodons and waves small sticks, that commences to build cathedrals that will take several lifetimes to complete?  The capacity to act on the hope that reality will turn out better than it usually does is behind such courageous, or foolhardy, behavior.

Kindred Spirits

I had lunch with a friend from London today:  it was the perfect antidote to the grey, gloomy weather that's pervaded New York of late, a lunch full of laughter and good conversation.  We were teasing one another about our respective OCD-like tendencies, when he brought up the subject of 'kindred spirits.'  It's been years since I've thought of the phrase, but it's been etched in my memory ever since reading Anne of Green Gables as a young child.  

It's impossible to describe what makes someone a kindred spirit.  The dictionary describes it as "a person who shares beliefs, attitudes, feelings, or features with another," but it's more than that.  Perhaps it's easiest to just say that you know one when you see one.  Still, on the eve of my third decade, I consider myself lucky to have so many kindred spirits in my life:

"Miss Barry was a kindred spirit, after all," Anne confided to Marilla. "You wouldn't think so to look at her, but she is. You don't find it right out at first, as in Matthew's case, but after a while you come to see it. Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."