218. READ. LOOK. THINK.
Smug, tiresome works, 'IT IS MEANT TO BE FUNNY,' how to take a photo of your girlfriend, now the scintillating research can begin.
READ.
'For all its good intentions, art that tries to minister to its audience by showcasing moral aspirants and paragons or the abject victims of political oppression produces smug, tiresome works that are failures both as art and as agitprop.'
‘IT IS MEANT TO BE FUNNY.’ Long LRB survey of Evelyn Waugh. Decline and Fall was my favourite book for a long time before The Line of Beauty took over. A Handful of Dust I also used to reread many times a year (‘recklessly mixing starch and protein’) until I had children and stopped being able to handle child peril (weak).
Ali Smith on Simone de Beauvoir.
“She has entered an undocumented corporality. Excellent. Now the scintillating research can begin.”
How to get into John le Carré (so worth it). If you can’t access the NYT article, it’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold followed by The Perfect Spy.
I loved this episode of Backlisted podcast about brilliant slim novel The Millstone feat. archive audio of Margaret Drabble being interviewed.
LOOK.
Carter Were cooking substack!
Beautiful jewel box house in Deal.
AITAH for breaking up with my boyfriend over the Barbie movie?
‘It is really about evoking the mood of a moment that you missed, and now you have the resources to recreate it. Fashion has become an amazing way to relive things or to experience things that took place before you were even born.’ Tim Blanks x Cathy Horyn
Now that I've finished my first draft, should I become the type of person to make a small lidded box at Troy Town?
THINK.
How to take a photo of your girlfriend.
'Dating men often requires women to spend inordinate amounts of time trying to interpret the cues of emotionally inarticulate men and then figuring out whether, when and how to deliver those interpretations back to the men in question without spooking them.'
‘We could soon see a Jane Austen-style marriage market.’ There is now no region in England in which a woman on a median income can afford to rent by herself.
Ninety percent of the eight million Ukrainian refugees have been women and children, and many women, married or not, do not plan to go back.
Are these my maternal instincts, or is this just anxiety?
I recently revisited ‘The Mother Dance: How Children Change Your Life’ by Harriet Lerner. Warm, rigorous, feminist analysis and advice for mothers of all ages of children.
'High earners have two options. The first is to stockpile every possible advantage for themselves and their children. The second is to contribute to a common safety net that benefits everyone. While the latter looks highly unlikely in the current political climate, high earners won’t be able to isolate themselves from mounting inequality for much longer.' (c.c. Rishi Sunak not realising his children breathe the same air as everyone else’s.)
Total responsibility transfer.
Every "chronically online" conversation is the same.
Jess
X
PS. Don’t forget I’ve written a novel!!!