When We Cease to Understand the World moved from sixth to third, and scrambled my brain. All around, the world spun, flowers bloomed, and miseries swapped places with joy.
It’s so important that we not romanticize new motherhood. It’s hard enough to be a new parent without the added guilt that you aren’t doing it right, or the loneliness of thinking no one else has had these feelings.
I think this “strange thing” is what must happen to all of us if we wish to address the environmental crisis. We need to get closer to plants and animals, to remember that we are all living on this planet together.
You can't court acclaim. The third rail has always been the one with juice in it, at least for me, at least so far. The best writing is the most urgent.
Heti’s project seems to be to push the limits of the Female, to upend the necessity of Mother, to suggest whole worlds that might exist beyond the making of other smaller versions of ourselves. But what her book also does is remind us of the limits, both of our bodies and our thoughts.
In Hardwick’s criticism, we encounter an uncondescending intelligence, a humane sensibility, and a forthright independence of mind for which we, in our scatterbrained era, cannot be grateful enough.