Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
Vintage (2014), Edition: Reprint, 192 pages
Description
"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, bedbugs, 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 can be read in a single sitting, but there are enough bracing emotional insights in these pages to fill a much longer novel. "--… (more)
Media reviews
Offill’s brief book eschews obvious grandeur. It does not broadcast its accomplishments for the cosmos but tracks the personal and domestic and local, a harrowed inner space. It concentrates its mass acutely, pressing down with exquisite and painful precision, like a pencil tip on the white of
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the nail. Show Less
Dept. of Speculation is a riposte to the notion that domestic fiction is humdrum and unambitious. From the point of view of an unnamed American woman, it gives us the hurrahs and boos of daily life, of marriage and of parenthood, with exceptional originality, intensity and sweetness.
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Dept. of
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Dept. of
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Speculation is a shattered novel that stabs and sparkles at the same time. It is the kind of book that you will be quoting over and over to friends who don't quite understand, until they give in and read it too. Show Less
Offill is a smart writer with a canny sense of pacing; just when you want to abandon the fragmented puzzle pieces of the novel, she reveals a moment of breathtaking tenderness ... especially engaging when it describes new motherhood ... For better or worse, this is not so much a book about their
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marriage; it is a book about the wife’s marriage. It would be interesting to read the other story to this marriage, to know more of the husband, the father — but Offill still makes it seem as if the wife’s version of the marriage is story enough and, perhaps, the only story that matters. Show Less
From deep within the interiors of a fictional marriage, Offill has crafted an account of matrimony and motherhood that breaks free of the all-too-limiting traditional stories of wives and mothers. There is complexity to the central partnership; Offill folds cynicism into genuine moments of love. It
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may be difficult to truly know what happens between two people, but Offill gets alarmingly close. Show Less
Jenny Offill's novel Dept. of Speculation, which weighs in at 192 pages soaking wet and includes a fair amount of white space, is extremely short for a novel. It's an unusual book not only in terms of its size, but also its form. Make no mistake, this is an experimental novel. By which I mean that
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the narrative isn't a series of flowing scenes that keep you reassuringly grounded in plot, but a collection of vignettes, observations and quirky details that are sometimes pulled from real life.... Offill has successfully met the challenge she seems to have given herself: write only what needs to be written, and nothing more. No excess, no flab. And do it in a series of bulletins, fortune-cookie commentary, mordant observations, lyrical phrasing. And through these often disparate and disconnected means, tell the story of the fragile nature of anyone's domestic life. Show Less
If Rainer Maria Rilke had written a novel about marriage, it might look something like this: a series of paragraphs, seldom exceeding more than a dozen lines, sometimes without much apparent connection to the text on either side.
Popping prose and touching vignettes of marriage and motherhood fill Offill’s (Last Things) slim second book of fiction. Clever, subtle, and rife with strokes of beauty, this book is both readable in a single sitting and far ranging in the emotions it raises.... Offill has equal parts cleverness
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and erudition, but it’s her language and eye for detail that make this a must-read. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
What did you do today, you'd say when you got home from work, and I'd try my best to craft an anecdote for you out of nothing.
In Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill leaves plot behind in favor of brief, beautifully written vignettes in a woman's life. The unnamed protagonist begins the book as a
How has she become one of those people who wears yoga pants all day? She used to make fun of those people. With their happiness maps and gratitude journals and their bags made out of recycled tire treads. But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.
Dept. of Speculation is a short novel, almost a novella, but it feels like a much larger book. The woman is prickly and often irritated and I like characters like that. The writing is wonderful; vivid without being ornate; there isn't a superfluous word in the thing.
In Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill leaves plot behind in favor of brief, beautifully written vignettes in a woman's life. The unnamed protagonist begins the book as a
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young woman, ambitious and determined to be an "art monster," living entirely for her writing. Along the way, she gets married and has a child, entanglements that complicate and enrich her life. And that's the book, really. Her thoughts and experiences as she lives her life; not the milestones, but what it feels like to stand behind an elderly woman at the drug store, to care for a cranky infant who will not sleep, to work, resentfully, toward forgiveness. How has she become one of those people who wears yoga pants all day? She used to make fun of those people. With their happiness maps and gratitude journals and their bags made out of recycled tire treads. But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.
Dept. of Speculation is a short novel, almost a novella, but it feels like a much larger book. The woman is prickly and often irritated and I like characters like that. The writing is wonderful; vivid without being ornate; there isn't a superfluous word in the thing.
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LibraryThing member maritimer
The reader finishes the book.
The book about the wife, the husband, the daughter, the girl, the sister, the sister's husband, the philosopher, and the puppy who is later the dog. And Lia. Blessed be Lia. She is named.
The wife thinks ALOT. The husband ascends, then crashes to earth, Komarov-like: a
Rilke says stuff. Buddha says stuff. They say stuff in italics.
The reader finishes the book. It takes longer than advertised. The reader does not get it. The reader scratches the head with the fingers. And whinges. Yes, he whinges. He cannot help himself.
We cannot help ourselves.
The book about the wife, the husband, the daughter, the girl, the sister, the sister's husband, the philosopher, and the puppy who is later the dog. And Lia. Blessed be Lia. She is named.
The wife thinks ALOT. The husband ascends, then crashes to earth, Komarov-like: a
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heel. The daughter plays. But not the piano. They move to the country. Rilke says stuff. Buddha says stuff. They say stuff in italics.
The reader finishes the book. It takes longer than advertised. The reader does not get it. The reader scratches the head with the fingers. And whinges. Yes, he whinges. He cannot help himself.
We cannot help ourselves.
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LibraryThing member froxgirl
Quirkiest little book! Short chapters. Can be read in a night. Author is a stone genius. Marriage is seemingly falling apart despite best husband ever. Um, well, maybe not best. They retreat to the Little Theatre of Hurt Feelings. They have a daughter. You read and love this book. You stare at the
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author's picture and she looks pretty skeptical. Her genius is revealed in 46 chapters of all big and small observations that make you wish you'd written them. You didn't. You can't now, it's too late, it would be too derivative. But you can read it. And I'm going to buy it. And you dare not miss it. Show Less
LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce
This book is beautifully written, but I was not charmed overall. People are starving and dying and being terrorized in the real world, and this character just whines about her poor, unfortunate middle class white life. I know troubles come to all, and the world is not about a competition of
Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. I assume everyone here on a site devoted to books agrees with that, but the overexamined life is not lived. The wife character, wherever she is, whoever she is with, whatever she is doing does not live. She just thinks about it so is never satisfied. Her husband cheated on her. A middle clas white man living a middle class life cheats on his wife. Hold the presses. Had she been able to live instead of just thinking about living would that have kept him from straying. No. He cheated because he cheated. That's really not her problem, though she seems to think it is. With less rumnation and a more embodied involvement in life I think Ofill could write a book I'd want to read.
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sorrows, but it just seems this woman needs some direction so that she can feel the joy inherent in her life. Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. I assume everyone here on a site devoted to books agrees with that, but the overexamined life is not lived. The wife character, wherever she is, whoever she is with, whatever she is doing does not live. She just thinks about it so is never satisfied. Her husband cheated on her. A middle clas white man living a middle class life cheats on his wife. Hold the presses. Had she been able to live instead of just thinking about living would that have kept him from straying. No. He cheated because he cheated. That's really not her problem, though she seems to think it is. With less rumnation and a more embodied involvement in life I think Ofill could write a book I'd want to read.
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LibraryThing member browner56
Just shy of her thirtieth birthday, a woman decides she will never be married and concentrates instead on her work as a writer, an editor, and a teacher. Then she meets a man in sort of a friend-of-friend way and a love affair quickly blossoms. The couple soon does marry and they have a daughter,
I enjoyed reading this quirky, inventive novel, but I did not quite love it. Offill’s prose does give the reader an empathetic portrait of the wide range of emotions that define a marriage, from the heights of the deep affection two people feel for one another to the depths of the alienation and loneliness that accompany a betrayal of trust. The author’s choice of telling this story in the form of journal-style entries from the wife’s perspective was effective in conveying the increasingly tenuous grasp she has on the events going on around her. However, this device also proved to be somewhat limiting in terms of developing the other characters; for instance, we are told that the husband is a kind man, but there is absolutely no evidence of that kindness in the book. Still, Dept. of Speculation is a moving reflection on just how hard sustaining relationships can be and I will look forward to reading more work from this talented writer.
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who becomes the center of the woman’s world. All appears to be well as they pursue artistic careers and raise their child from a colicky baby into a precocious young girl. However, life does not stay perfect and the husband begins to look for—and finds—something the wife can no longer give him. The woman is devastated and wonders how she can go on; the man is torn in two directions and does not know how to fix things. Despite submitting to extensive therapy sessions—or The Little Theater of Hurt Feelings, as she calls them—the prognosis for the relationship looks bleak. Can the couple possibly find their way back to how they once felt at the beginning?I enjoyed reading this quirky, inventive novel, but I did not quite love it. Offill’s prose does give the reader an empathetic portrait of the wide range of emotions that define a marriage, from the heights of the deep affection two people feel for one another to the depths of the alienation and loneliness that accompany a betrayal of trust. The author’s choice of telling this story in the form of journal-style entries from the wife’s perspective was effective in conveying the increasingly tenuous grasp she has on the events going on around her. However, this device also proved to be somewhat limiting in terms of developing the other characters; for instance, we are told that the husband is a kind man, but there is absolutely no evidence of that kindness in the book. Still, Dept. of Speculation is a moving reflection on just how hard sustaining relationships can be and I will look forward to reading more work from this talented writer.
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LibraryThing member mjlivi
A short, angry, hilarious portrait of a marriage, foundering on the rocks of parenthood, frustrated creativity and stagnation. There are wonderful moments on every page - witticisms, fascinating tangents and brutal descriptions of anxiety or fear.
On parenting a newborn:
There is a story about a
On inidelity:
He sent the girl a love letter over the radio. Later, the wife sees his playlist from that night. It is from the night before she went out of town. The night before it first happened. She listens to the songs he played one by one, ticking each of them off the list.
It's the kind of book you gulp down in one sitting and then take your time over a second pass, underlining or sticky-noting all the great snippets.
Both this and Station Eleven have turned up on a bunch of end of year best-of lists - it's easy to see why.
On parenting a newborn:
There is a story about a
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prisoner at Alcatraz who spent his nights in solitary confinment dropping a button on the floor then trying to find it in the dark. Each night, in this manner, he passed the hours until dawn. I do not have a button. In all other respects, my nights are the same.On inidelity:
He sent the girl a love letter over the radio. Later, the wife sees his playlist from that night. It is from the night before she went out of town. The night before it first happened. She listens to the songs he played one by one, ticking each of them off the list.
It's the kind of book you gulp down in one sitting and then take your time over a second pass, underlining or sticky-noting all the great snippets.
Both this and Station Eleven have turned up on a bunch of end of year best-of lists - it's easy to see why.
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LibraryThing member greeniezona
Lee recommended that I read this book ages ago. And dutifully I added it to my to-read list and moved on. An age later, I finally picked up a copy. And put it on my to-read shelf and moved on. Another age had to pass until I was staring at my shelves to make a TBR pile for the Libraries Matter
ONCE I STARTED READING I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN.
I don't know how its fragmented structure was so effective, but it was. Aren't our lives made up of fragments? Small memories, that interesting article you read, an anecdote about a saint you learned about in school that comes back to you all of the sudden with shocking relevance.
And it is definitely the writing with this book, not the plot. The plot is every American marriage with a few standard specifics thrown in: bed bugs, a child who breaks both wrists, a husband who has an affair, a wife wondering why she traded in her chance for art, for greatness, for single-minded pursuit of her muse for the above.
Most notably, this book filled me with an incandescent rage at the cheating husband, the gutless weenie he cheated with, all of society that enables this bullshit, etc. A rage that bubbled over and spilled on all sorts of other things.A rage that was barely (not really) satisfied by the reconciliation at the end of the novel. But this is life, right? Messy, and fractured, and compromised.
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Readathon, and I grabbed it.ONCE I STARTED READING I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN.
I don't know how its fragmented structure was so effective, but it was. Aren't our lives made up of fragments? Small memories, that interesting article you read, an anecdote about a saint you learned about in school that comes back to you all of the sudden with shocking relevance.
And it is definitely the writing with this book, not the plot. The plot is every American marriage with a few standard specifics thrown in: bed bugs, a child who breaks both wrists, a husband who has an affair, a wife wondering why she traded in her chance for art, for greatness, for single-minded pursuit of her muse for the above.
Most notably, this book filled me with an incandescent rage at the cheating husband, the gutless weenie he cheated with, all of society that enables this bullshit, etc. A rage that bubbled over and spilled on all sorts of other things.
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LibraryThing member Othemts
This work is an experimental novel about a writer in Brooklyn, her marriage, and parenthood. It's written in a series of short chapters and vignettes. Sometimes it feels like the narrator is going on about little things, but then sometimes there is a sentence or two that pithly captures a truth
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about the human condition. No one in the story has a name - just the wife, the husband, and the daughter. The child grows and changes, the husband commits adultery, they move to the country. Everything is kept at a distance only to be periodically punctured by pain and regret. I appreciate what Offill is trying to do, but on the other hand this book didn't really resonate with me. Show Less
LibraryThing member Smiler69
“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.”
"This is another way in which he is an admirable person. If he notices something is broken, he will try to fix it. He
Some say it took them a while to get used to the writing style of this short novel and they were put off at first. I, on the contrary was rather charmed by it, though having avoided any reviews up till after I was done reading/listening to it, I didn't have much of an idea of what I was getting into, and I wasn't really sure until I was a good third of the way into it (make that an hour into the audiobook) what I was listening to really. Were these essays? Was it fiction or non? Was it a collection of stream of consciousness snippets? Was it free-form poetry? I was intrigued. Eventually, a pattern emerged. In all fairness, I saw this emergence quite early on, but it was all so disjointed, like squares of a quilt coming together... you knew the pieces were all meant to form a whole, and the more of them were shown to you, the more the pattern started to emerge, and each piece was quite lovely on it's own. But then things were revealed and it became kind of sad, yet true—I mean: real.
Then I read the NY Times review, and perhaps it's more elegantly worded, but then Roxane Gay is a professional and I'm not:
"Jenny Offill’s second novel, “Dept. of Speculation,” charts the course of a marriage through curious, often shimmering fragments of prose. A writer lives in Brooklyn. A writer lives in Brooklyn and falls in love. A writer in Brooklyn marries and has a child. A married writer in Brooklyn lives, and then there are bedbugs." ... "Seemingly significant information is doled out in inscrutable doses. Each fragment is satisfying or not, and exists unto itself but also, clearly, as part of something bigger. “Dept. of Speculation” moves quickly, but it is also joyously demanding because you will want to keep trying to understand the why of each fragment and how it fits with the others."
Shimmering fragments of prose. Yes. Each fragment existing unto itself. Yes. But also, clearly, as part of something bigger. Yes. It moves quickly, yes. Perforce, because it's such a brief work of what must be fiction. Is it though? It has such immediacy, if feels like we are invading this woman's—this woman we will only ever know as "the wife"—private life, yet she has invited us in, because this is her novel, she tells us she is a writer after all, she tells us this is her second novel, and since this is her story, she must want to share the breakdown of her marriage with us. Does it break down though? You'll have to read it for yourself.
I'm not usually a fan of authors reading their own material. There is often a reason why professional narrators are hired to record audio versions of books, but Jenny Offill does a great job with this reading. She knows her material well and she delivers it very convincingly.
I didn't think I'd like this book, because what I did know of it is that it dealt with marriage and motherhood, two topic of which I don't know much and which, I'm sorry to say, don't interest me much either, since I've been denied the opportunity to experience them for myself. But Jenny Offill invites us in and gives us the opportunity to share her experience, and I feel I've learned something along the way.
"This is another way in which he is an admirable person. If he notices something is broken, he will try to fix it. He
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won’t just think about how unbearable it is that things keep breaking, that you can never fucking outrun entropy."Some say it took them a while to get used to the writing style of this short novel and they were put off at first. I, on the contrary was rather charmed by it, though having avoided any reviews up till after I was done reading/listening to it, I didn't have much of an idea of what I was getting into, and I wasn't really sure until I was a good third of the way into it (make that an hour into the audiobook) what I was listening to really. Were these essays? Was it fiction or non? Was it a collection of stream of consciousness snippets? Was it free-form poetry? I was intrigued. Eventually, a pattern emerged. In all fairness, I saw this emergence quite early on, but it was all so disjointed, like squares of a quilt coming together... you knew the pieces were all meant to form a whole, and the more of them were shown to you, the more the pattern started to emerge, and each piece was quite lovely on it's own. But then things were revealed and it became kind of sad, yet true—I mean: real.
Then I read the NY Times review, and perhaps it's more elegantly worded, but then Roxane Gay is a professional and I'm not:
"Jenny Offill’s second novel, “Dept. of Speculation,” charts the course of a marriage through curious, often shimmering fragments of prose. A writer lives in Brooklyn. A writer lives in Brooklyn and falls in love. A writer in Brooklyn marries and has a child. A married writer in Brooklyn lives, and then there are bedbugs." ... "Seemingly significant information is doled out in inscrutable doses. Each fragment is satisfying or not, and exists unto itself but also, clearly, as part of something bigger. “Dept. of Speculation” moves quickly, but it is also joyously demanding because you will want to keep trying to understand the why of each fragment and how it fits with the others."
Shimmering fragments of prose. Yes. Each fragment existing unto itself. Yes. But also, clearly, as part of something bigger. Yes. It moves quickly, yes. Perforce, because it's such a brief work of what must be fiction. Is it though? It has such immediacy, if feels like we are invading this woman's—this woman we will only ever know as "the wife"—private life, yet she has invited us in, because this is her novel, she tells us she is a writer after all, she tells us this is her second novel, and since this is her story, she must want to share the breakdown of her marriage with us. Does it break down though? You'll have to read it for yourself.
I'm not usually a fan of authors reading their own material. There is often a reason why professional narrators are hired to record audio versions of books, but Jenny Offill does a great job with this reading. She knows her material well and she delivers it very convincingly.
I didn't think I'd like this book, because what I did know of it is that it dealt with marriage and motherhood, two topic of which I don't know much and which, I'm sorry to say, don't interest me much either, since I've been denied the opportunity to experience them for myself. But Jenny Offill invites us in and gives us the opportunity to share her experience, and I feel I've learned something along the way.
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LibraryThing member melissarochelle
Read from January 11 to 12, 2015
I wanted to highlight nearly every sentence in this short novella about a woman who's marriage is disintegrating. This isn't a straightforward story, it's told through glimpses into the wife's life -- how she met her husband, the early days of motherhood, random
I was reminded of The Lover's Dictionary -- a favorite of mine from a few years ago. Both tell stories of love and loss in nontraditional ways.
I wanted to highlight nearly every sentence in this short novella about a woman who's marriage is disintegrating. This isn't a straightforward story, it's told through glimpses into the wife's life -- how she met her husband, the early days of motherhood, random
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thoughts from philosophers and poets, conversations with friends. It can easily be read in one sitting and maybe even read a second time. I was reminded of The Lover's Dictionary -- a favorite of mine from a few years ago. Both tell stories of love and loss in nontraditional ways.
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LibraryThing member Bodagirl
It's not so much a novel as a series of a character's thoughts, memories, and observations mixed with quotations that takes the shape of one side a a relationship and marriage. I think one of the more interesting parts of the book is the switch from first to third narration mirroring the
I feel like I could have gotten more out of the book if I was married or at least in a long-term relationship of my own.
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deterioration and the restoration(?) of the relationship.I feel like I could have gotten more out of the book if I was married or at least in a long-term relationship of my own.
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LibraryThing member booksgaloreca
This book is the story of a marriage as told through the eyes of the wife. It found it annoying and disjointed. I felt like I was seeing the world through the eyes of a mentally disturbed individual.
It looks like I am in the minority in my opinion of this book. Maybe it is just not my cup of tea,
It looks like I am in the minority in my opinion of this book. Maybe it is just not my cup of tea,
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but I would not recommend it. Show Less
LibraryThing member shazjhb
Did not enjoy this book
LibraryThing member irishwasherwoman
I'm so torn about this book. It's a small book that provides a very large reading experience, a rather visceral love/hate relationship. I think the best way to describe it is an avant-garde stream of consciousness. It's the story of a marriage told my a nameless wife. Her random thoughts take you
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from courtship, to birth, to identity crisis, to bedbugs, to infidelity, to - I don't know what. Show Less
LibraryThing member sleahey
Readers who might be put off initially (as I was) by the format and apparent serendipity of the opening pages, will have their patience quickly rewarded as the story soon unfolds. Offill's style reminded me of Einstein's Dreams, with the short paragraphs and chapters, and a plot line interspersed
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with aphorisms and various excerpts of scientific and philosophical writing. The account of the challenges and happinesses of a marriage and parenthood ring absolutely true, and once I became engaged in this book I simply couldn't stop. Show Less
LibraryThing member Eesil
Thanks to the publisher for giving me an opportunity to read and review this book through Netgalley. This is a very quick read (easily in one sitting), and well worth it. Offil's writing is very sparse but really conveys the emotions of parenthood and a struggling marriage. It's a bit like reading
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a long haiku (I know -- that sounds contradictory), but it's the sparseness and cleverness of the language that makes it haiku like. Show Less
LibraryThing member dougcornelius
This is a avant garde novel of a marriage that is short, but deep in love and despair. It's told in several dozen short chapters composed of short paragraphs. The narrator refers to herself simply as the Wife. She takes the reader through her life, starting as a young woman who wants to be an "Art
It lacks a strong narrative and comes across as more experimental. You may even think of it as a book written as an assignment, trying to impress a writing teacher.
I found out that the author also writes children's books. It's more akin to those types of books with short, precise bursts of prose.
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Monster," to a wife, to a mother, through the troubles in her marriage.It lacks a strong narrative and comes across as more experimental. You may even think of it as a book written as an assignment, trying to impress a writing teacher.
I found out that the author also writes children's books. It's more akin to those types of books with short, precise bursts of prose.
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LibraryThing member Perednia
Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation would probably be considered too twee or the stuff of fiction from The New Yorker for some readers. It's the story of a New York City marriage, of a wife, of her husband, of their child (none of them are ever named), and how they started out and how they carried
The whole novel is comprised of the short bits of wisdom, whimsy or sangfroid that one underlines or copies into a chapbook. And they make a finely woven, coherent, heartfelt story. It is a combination of technique and heart that works well.
From the snippets, it's clear to see the wife didn't do all the things she imagined she would. As a young woman, she planned to be an art monster, to be creative, to matter.
For years, I kept a Post-it note above my desk. WORK NOT LOVE! was what it said. It seemed a sturdier kind of happiness.
Now she teaches and tries to survive a colicky baby. Her husband, a Midwest transplant who is famously kind, makes soundscapes of the city. He is introduced to her by her friend, who she calls the philosopher and who is an adjunct professor and late night DJ. Offill deftly chronicles what it's like to be at home with a baby who has colic:
After you left for work, I would stare at the door as if it might open again.
My love for her seemed doomed, hopelessly unrequited. There should be songs for this, I thought, but if there were I didn't know them.
She was small enough then to still fall asleep on your chest. Sometimes I fed you dinner with a spoon so you wouldn't have to raise your arms and wake her.
Offill writes about different kinds of love with vivid, wistful remembrance in only three paragraphs. Some writers cannot do that in hundreds of pages. She has kept in only the important bits, but sometimes reveals them explicitly and other times obliquely. Taken together, they tell us about these characters without names and their hearts.
She also weaves in quotes and bits from other writers, Fitzgerald, Kafka, Wittgenstein, Buddhist philosophers and this:
Advice for wives circa 1896: (italics) The indiscriminate reading of novels is one of the most injurious habits to which a married woman can be subject. Besides the false views of human nature it will impart ... it produces an indifference to the performance of domestic duties, and contempt for ordinary realities.
The only cliched part of the story is that the husband is unfaithful. Up until the very end, it's not clear if they will stay together or part. But either way, the feeling of dread has been introduced. Whatever happens, this happened, and it cannot be erased.
The narrator is having a hard time holding it together. She wanted to be an artist, a writer, a monster who lived for art and art alone. Even if she had not fallen in love and had a family, it's easy to see that life probably would not have turned out exactly as she planned. It just doesn't work that way. But she deals with words, with art, every day as part of her real life.
There is, at the end, the inference that she may see this reality, this ability to live with other people who mean so much to her and the art that has been as much a reason to live as those she loves. That makes Dept. of Speculation as much a work of art as it does a faithful chronicle of what the small moments of family life are really like.
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on and what happpened when the husband was unfaithful. But it didn't read like the oft-told tale it appears to be from that description.The whole novel is comprised of the short bits of wisdom, whimsy or sangfroid that one underlines or copies into a chapbook. And they make a finely woven, coherent, heartfelt story. It is a combination of technique and heart that works well.
From the snippets, it's clear to see the wife didn't do all the things she imagined she would. As a young woman, she planned to be an art monster, to be creative, to matter.
For years, I kept a Post-it note above my desk. WORK NOT LOVE! was what it said. It seemed a sturdier kind of happiness.
Now she teaches and tries to survive a colicky baby. Her husband, a Midwest transplant who is famously kind, makes soundscapes of the city. He is introduced to her by her friend, who she calls the philosopher and who is an adjunct professor and late night DJ. Offill deftly chronicles what it's like to be at home with a baby who has colic:
After you left for work, I would stare at the door as if it might open again.
My love for her seemed doomed, hopelessly unrequited. There should be songs for this, I thought, but if there were I didn't know them.
She was small enough then to still fall asleep on your chest. Sometimes I fed you dinner with a spoon so you wouldn't have to raise your arms and wake her.
Offill writes about different kinds of love with vivid, wistful remembrance in only three paragraphs. Some writers cannot do that in hundreds of pages. She has kept in only the important bits, but sometimes reveals them explicitly and other times obliquely. Taken together, they tell us about these characters without names and their hearts.
She also weaves in quotes and bits from other writers, Fitzgerald, Kafka, Wittgenstein, Buddhist philosophers and this:
Advice for wives circa 1896: (italics) The indiscriminate reading of novels is one of the most injurious habits to which a married woman can be subject. Besides the false views of human nature it will impart ... it produces an indifference to the performance of domestic duties, and contempt for ordinary realities.
The only cliched part of the story is that the husband is unfaithful. Up until the very end, it's not clear if they will stay together or part. But either way, the feeling of dread has been introduced. Whatever happens, this happened, and it cannot be erased.
The narrator is having a hard time holding it together. She wanted to be an artist, a writer, a monster who lived for art and art alone. Even if she had not fallen in love and had a family, it's easy to see that life probably would not have turned out exactly as she planned. It just doesn't work that way. But she deals with words, with art, every day as part of her real life.
There is, at the end, the inference that she may see this reality, this ability to live with other people who mean so much to her and the art that has been as much a reason to live as those she loves. That makes Dept. of Speculation as much a work of art as it does a faithful chronicle of what the small moments of family life are really like.
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LibraryThing member pgchuis
It is very difficult to describe this book. It tells the story of the protagonist's marriage, the birth of her daughter and a crisis in the marriage, but is written in very short paragraphs, some so elliptical, that I didn't really follow what she meant. The sections relating to her daughter as a
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baby (cried all the time) brought back memories and the paragraph describing her daughter's doctor's kit made me laugh. After that it got very sad indeed and I am not convinced things will end happily. Show Less
LibraryThing member debnance
(To start: There’s something disconcerting about reading a grownup book by an author you considered a children’s picture book author. Where, for example, are the pictures? And she knows (and uses) those words? Who knew?)
Once I got past that, I settled in nicely to this small novel. Our main
I love the way Offill roams all over the place in her writing, almost like little poems, or moments, that link inexplicably in the way our real lives flow and link. More, more, more.
Once I got past that, I settled in nicely to this small novel. Our main
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character, known only as “the wife,” is deep into her marriage and everything has changed and she really wants to understand why. I love the way Offill roams all over the place in her writing, almost like little poems, or moments, that link inexplicably in the way our real lives flow and link. More, more, more.
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LibraryThing member KimHooperWrites
This is a lovely, lovely little book. I was a little caught off guard by the format. The margins are huge. Paragraph breaks are many. It almost reads (and looks) like a really long poem. I devoured it in a couple sittings because I found it hard to put down. Her writing is just gorgeous. In these
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eloquent bits and pieces, you get the story of a marriage and a period of turmoil it endures. This book is surprisingly powerful with its small stature. I can't wait to read more by this author. Show Less
LibraryThing member PrimosParadise
Okay I'm giving this 3 stars but about half a star is based upon brevity. After looking at all these 500 page plus tomes it was refreshing to sit down with a teeny book and read it all in one sitting. That said this book about the life of a marriage told in small vignettes and factoids was
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interestingly developed but once you get past the unique storytelling the story itself is predictable and almost trite. Still it is well told and I have incorporated some of the factoids into my mental wasteland of useless knowledge. Show Less
LibraryThing member ccayne
The writing and style painted a picture but the process is nonlinear. Marriage, identity, growing up are the themes.
LibraryThing member franoscar
Could be spoilers. I don't know. It was cute, I guess, and some of the quotes were good. But I was skeptical of the science. It was too flip, it fit into the story too easily. I didn't find myself profoundly affected.
LibraryThing member bas615
Fantastic. Shattering. The complexities of a marriage have seldom been explored in such depth and with such perceptiveness. While the topic was quite depressing. The writing was compulsively readable. Even though it does not have a traditional narrative structure, I found the story pulling me
The inventiveness of the structure is quite compelling. I am not usually a fan of creative structuring. However, it was quite well utilized here. Our mind does not work linearly and this echoed that. It felt like how I recall past events. Some parts stand out well. Others are hazy and there are external ideas connected to many of these memories.
I find I tend to wind up unintentionally reading several books with similar themes close together. This and Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante cover similar terrain. They are both exceptional works. This was perhaps less angry, but it no less disturbing. They are both well worth reading.
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along. I wanted to know what was going to happen.The inventiveness of the structure is quite compelling. I am not usually a fan of creative structuring. However, it was quite well utilized here. Our mind does not work linearly and this echoed that. It felt like how I recall past events. Some parts stand out well. Others are hazy and there are external ideas connected to many of these memories.
I find I tend to wind up unintentionally reading several books with similar themes close together. This and Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante cover similar terrain. They are both exceptional works. This was perhaps less angry, but it no less disturbing. They are both well worth reading.
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Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Shortlist — 2016)
LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — Fiction — 2014)
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Short List — 2015)
PEN/Faulkner Award (Finalist — 2015)
Writers' Prize (Shortlist — 2015)
Boston Globe Best Book (Fiction — 2014)
San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Fiction — 2014)
The New York Times Best Books of the Year (Fiction — 2014)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — Fiction — 2014)
Language
Original language
English