Monday Miscellany: MARGARET, where was your editor??

Notes from the week of July 22 - 28

Jul 29, 2024

Hello and happy Monday!

This morning I woke up to a dark bedroom, curtains pulled back to reveal a steady drizzle outside. The cats were snoozing and the house was quiet aside from the gentle static of the rain, so I put a pot of coffee on, took a leisurely shower, and settled in to write to you about the week that was. Let’s get into it.

Currently reading

Where do I even begin with The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood? It focuses on three main characters, Tony, Roz, and Charis, whose mutual friend Zenia has recently died. They are all not-so-secretly relieved, because from the way they talk about her it’s clear that she wasn’t really a friend at all, but an intimidating and toxic presence, a manipulative figure who apparently did some things to each of them in the past that kind of ruined their lives. But hold on ladies, because she might not actually be dead?? WHAT A JUICY PREMISE.

And Atwood is such a smart, capable writer, so ahead of her time when it comes to feminist thinking and representation, so in control of her sentences and phrasings. I mean, does this not put you in the exact mindset of someone being caught up in a whirlwind relationship with a slightly sus yet irresistible person?

This friendship with Zenia has been very sudden. She feels as if she’s being dragged along on a rope, behind a speeding motorboat, with the waves sloshing over her and her ears full of applause; or as if she’s racketing downhill on a bicycle, with no hands and no brakes either. She’s out of control; at the same time, she’s unusually alert, as if the small hairs on her arms and on the back of her neck are standing straight up. These are perilous waters. But why? They’re only talking. (148)

Are you not immediately transported by these short descriptions?

A refugee from the land of middle age, stranded in the country of the young. (84)
She’s out in the blue, she’s blowing away with the wind. She’s lost. (167)

Atwood is also funny, in a perfectly dry, affectless way:

Roz is waiting for the Testicle Society, herself. The Ball Costume Ball. She used to love masquerade parties; maybe it would perk her up some to come as a scrotum. That, or the Ovarian Cysts; for that, she’d make the effort. (101)

And yet! I felt personally victimized by this book.

It goes on for FIVE HUNDRED TWENTY pages, and it takes almost half that amount before we start getting any of the actual tea about Zenia beyond vague allusions. SO much time is devoted to the full backstory of each of the three surviving friends, and it’s all fine and interesting enough, but MARGARET, where was your editor?? We get it, everyone has had their own version of a shitty life, and we can see the effects of their childhood experiences on the people they’ve become. But is it all necessary? Could we not have done a similar thing in the space of a tight three hundo—or hey, I’ll be generous—three fifty? Could we not have shortened that build-up just a little? Anticipation is great, but when it drags on too long, I start thinking about jumping ship.

In conclusion: not my favorite of the Atwoods. The setup is interesting, but I have minor annoyances with every character, the suspense is overdone, the tone is fairly dismal on the whole, and the damn thing is too long.

A legally-required heads-up: if you purchase a book through the bookshop.org affiliate links in this post, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. ♥︎

Currently listening

This week I felt very adrift, musically—I poked around Spotify and tried out several newly released albums and EPs, and while none of them were bad by any means, none of them really hit me in an “I MUST TELL THE PEOPLE” type of way. That said, I do intend to listen to each of these another time or two and give them a chance to grow on me. If and when they do, I’m sure you’ll see them pop up in a future newsletter.

For now, though, the general vibes:

Hot Sun Cool Shroud by Wilco (2024) exists on the classic Wilco spectrum of “chill and jammy” at one end and “distorted and loud” at the other, with a song or two falling somewhere in the middle.

I Want to Disappear by The Story So Far (2024) is new, but also feels very familiar, a perfect extension of my recent Blink-182 moment. There’s a little bit of Matchbook Romance, The Starting Line, Yellowcard, etc. in there too.

All Again by Queen of Jeans (2024) feels in line with a lot of the woman-fronted moody indie rock I’ve been loving lately, and I’m bookmarking it to put on in the coffee shop during my next shift there. I think I’ll probably find some favorites on this album after a few more play-throughs.

And another thing

Are you as amped as I am for an Emerald Fennell adaptation of Wuthering Heights? I will admit that I still haven’t ever read this particular classic, but I do have a new Modern Library Torchbearers edition on my shelf (with an introduction by Silvia Moreno-Garcia!) that I am now even more excited to prioritize.
I always get really pumped for the Olympics, but then I end up not seeing much of them, if any, because we don’t have cable and I never know how to watch on streaming. If you’re in the same boat, here’s a guide from the New York Times.
This little article from Chewy is all about cats’ sleeping patterns and how to help shift their schedule if, hypothetically, they’re always bothering you in the wee hours and lowkey ruining your life.
Vulture made a track-by-track reading list to go with Brat by Charli XCX. Do I need to say anything else about this??

Haiku round-up

My work schedule featured an extra shift this week, and it somehow simultaneously energized me (brain) and wiped me out (body). But there was also a good amount of rest time, and I took a few baths, and celebrated a friend’s birthday, and laughed abundantly, and had some really fulfilling conversations with people I love, so all in all I can’t complain.