Skip to main content

Hateship Courtship Loveship

On "Romantic Comedy," a new novel by Curtis Sittenfeld: 


Early in life, Curtis Sittenfeld began keeping journals; she realized she had thoughts worth recording, and then eventually she discovered she could build a career on these thoughts.


Like her hero, Alice Munro, Sittenfeld sees an iceberg "under the surface." For example, many of us might choose to overlook the implications of a quick text exchange. But Sittenfeld makes the exchange into a kind of symphony. He sent me a dick pic, and I hadn't asked for one. I started to compose a reply, but he resumed writing, even though he must have seen my thought bubble....I deleted my sentence and just wrote, "WOW!" Then....I wrote....."For me? Flattering!!"

In her newest novel, Sittenfeld invents a protagonist who writes for "Saturday Night Live." One strength in the book is the fictional sketches Sittenfeld creates. "I noticed that, on The Voice, the female judge would offer a reasonable opinion, and the male judges would shout at her for talking too much....And the male shouting actually went on much, much longer than anything the female judge had to say...." "I noticed that Pete Davidson was dating women who were much, much more powerful and successful than he would ever be....And the same seemed to be true for Colin Jost...." "I noticed that people liked to make fun of the Indigo Girls. The band had just become a kind of punch line for lazy jokes--although, clearly, these women are ambitious, incisive, resilient, and dedicated to their art...."

It's a shame that Sittenfeld's novel loses steam in its Second and Third Acts, but even then, I like the questions she raises. How do you poop in the home of your one-night stand? What are the exact rules for constructing a COVID quarantine "pod"? What does it mean when George Floyd dies--and, a few weeks later, a young white woman is photographed in a shopping mall, wearing a tee shirt that says, "Good Vibes Only"--?

I'll follow Sittenfeld wherever she goes. I'm giving the new book a B or B-plus.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel  Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in  Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's  Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...
3 comments
Read more

The Death of Bergoglio

  It's frustrating for me to hear Bergoglio described as "the less awful pope"--because awful is still awful. I think I get fixated on ideas of purity, which can be juvenile, but putting that aside, here are some things that Bergoglio could have done and did not. (I'm quoting from a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of the Church.) He could levy the harshest penalty, excommunication, against a dozen or more of the most egregious abuse enabling church officials. (He's done this to no enablers, or predators for that matter.) He could insist that every diocese and religious order turn over every record they have about suspected and known abusers to law enforcement. Francis could order every prelate on the planet to post on his diocesan website the names of every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric. (Imagine how much safer children would be if police, prosecutors, parents and the public knew the identities of these potentially dangerous me...
1 comment
Read more

Raymond Carver: "What's in Alaska?"

Outside, Mary held Jack's arm and walked with her head down. They moved slowly on the sidewalk. He listened to the scuffing sounds her shoes made. He heard the sharp and separate sound of a dog barking and above that a murmuring of very distant traffic.  She raised her head. "When we get home, Jack, I want to be fucked, talked to, diverted. Divert me, Jack. I need to be diverted tonight." She tightened her hold on his arm. He could feel the dampness in that shoe. He unlocked the door and flipped the light. "Come to bed," she said. "I'm coming," he said. He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living-room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom. "Jack!" she yelled. "Jack!" "Jesus Christ, it's me!" he said. "I'm trying to get the light on." He found the lamp, and she sat up in bed. Her eyes were bright. He pulled the stem on the alarm and b...
1 comment
Read more