I struggled a little with this book — I felt very, very jealous that I don't get to write one like it. You see, my problem is that I tend to write short, and to think in an abridged, sketched-out sort of way, quickly throwing together a few concepts, or hazarding an idea, but rarely finding the time (or patience) to actually write the complete essay. I've at least gotten to the point of starting to jot down those brief thoughts, in the hopes that I might someday write the essays, but it feels a little like amassing a graveyard of ambitious projects, tbh. So a book like this, where I could just make the biggest version of the claim and pencil in some of the ideas connected to it, without having to color it all in and carefully shade it (why is this all drawing metaphors, no idea, but probably because I'm still thinking about what Brandon Taylor wrote about Elaine de Koonig's preparatory drawings), is, like, the ultimate dream.
(You've probably noticed that these blog posts all suffer from being half-formed ideas that would really benefit from some development and revision. I try not to think about that too much because I'd rather keep writing them, and if I make myself make them better, I'm likely to stop. I'm letting myself write these very quickly, read once for typos or egregious errors, and hit publish. It's scary.)
Anyways. So my feelings about this book are very clouded by my intense desire to be given the opportunity to write such a thing. And also by the fact that the author has a job at Yale and, I suspect, a lot more money than me. This made me especially grumpy about some of the motherhood parts, because I strongly suspect that she can afford much better childcare than I have (currently: none, until September 9th, wtf Ithaca preschools). So let me say the meanest thing I have to say about this book now, while my own biases are right at the forefront of your mind and you're likely to ignore me: it gets a bit repetitive towards the end. She circles back to the same big ideas, seemingly from different directions, but not really. And sometimes, you really do think: you know, this one, maybe it really did need more development...
But overall, it's a wonderful book, and a lot of the, I want to call them sketches but I have ground that metaphor to dust... fragments? Vignettes? Ideas? Are really fascinating, and are, actually, the perfect size — you get the idea without needing more development. As someone who enjoys theater, and has read plenty of plays, especially, I loved reading more about the perspective of someone who creates plays, and has thoughts about what makes them work, and why.
It's a mostly charming and enjoyable book, and one that is great to read little by little, in the snatches of time you can steal from other things.
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