Like your Twitter feed, but more poignant: Dept. of Speculation

Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill

Fast Facts

• Jenny Offill's second book seems to have found its way onto all of the "10 Best Books of 2014" lists: here, and here, and here 
• (Incidentally - I get so excited for these lists, so happy that so many great things have been written, so eager to read everything on all of them, and then so sad because, of course, I can't - they make me feel all of the emotions.)
• At 192 pages (with a lot of weird spacing), you can get through it in just a couple sittings
• Very Brooklyn, featuring: 
• artsy hipsters who don't make that much art
• idealization of a ramshackle house in rural Pennsylvania
• married people
• all-consuming babies, and 
• bedbugs
• Written in short, disjointed paragraphs and fragments, it's a perfect book for the distracted social media age
• Extremely intimate, emotionally fraught - a pleasing read (but not my very favorite)

Basic Premise

Offill's unnamed narrator is a woman reflecting on her life at various points, told through postmodern, disjointed flashes of memory, favorite quotes, and shifts in point of view.  

All boiled down, the story flows simply enough: girl has love affairs, girl gets married, girl faces tragedy, girl battles depression, girl raises daughter, girl reflects on dreams averred, girl experiences infidelity, girl repairs marriage.

This premise (and all those top ten lists) might have been enough to pull me in, but what makes this book really interesting and different, and frankly, addictive, is the length and style.  These particular choices are what must have made the book so fresh, memorable and irresistible to the critics.

Keeping my attention: who needs to check Facebook when your book feels like the newsfeed?

Offill has lured the masses in with a style that is perfect for today's distracted reader.  For good measure, she throws philosophic quotes alongside all the memes, and satisfies the intellectual crowd.  

It's hard to think of Offill's work in terms of paragraphs, though they are mostly short paragraphs, or even in terms of short chapters, though there are nearly fifty of those.  

Mostly, this book feels like it's made up of unfocused word bursts, like being in someone's internet-addled brain during a therapy session. 

It's a good thing that following her stream of consciousness is part of the challenge and fun.  It's clear that most of the author's effort has gone into the presentation of the story and the reader's understanding of the narrator's experiences.  You have to just go with it - that's what makes otherwise bleak subject matter much more enjoyable.

Bottom Line

The format of Offill's narrative choices are what drive the story forward, with little enigmatic breadcrumbs scattered throughout to make you keep pressing on: who is "the philosopher" - will they ever get together?  Why the foreboding and sense of doom?  Will her baby ever stop crying?  How will they get rid of those gross bedbugs?  When the narrator starts to use the third person point of view to separate herself from pain, will "the wife" and "the husband" make it last?

I don't think I would have liked Offill's novella as much if she had just told the story "straight", without the complex novelty of her chosen form.  But all things considered, this is a beautiful book - I would definitely recommend it, even if I don't think it's necessarily worthy of all this "top ten" love.