Word: readerly
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...gladly take Ms. Mendelson's side; dust mites of the world, beware. Mendelson's 884-page reference book Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, published by Scribner last November, is in its eighth printing. There are 180,000 copies of it loose in the world, and readers, mostly women, are torn. Many find it a handy, even revolutionary guide to household tasks our mothers never taught us, while others see it as antifeminist, barefoot-in-the-kitchen propaganda, gleefully pointing out that Mendelson recommends cleaning the kitchen floor on one's hands and knees. (Yet among...
...dear, oh dear. By the time Bridget has landed in a Thai prison (don't ask) more than halfway through Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Viking; 338 pages; $24.95), the reader is beyond caring. Hapless is one thing--as the tremendous popularity of Bridget Jones's Diary showed, hapless can be endearing. But hapless with no sign of a learning curve, in a sequel that has none of the novelty of the original yet is much longer--now that will try the patience of even a Bridget...
...Bridget seems to be living her own private Groundhog Day, unable to learn from her mistakes, move forward or pull herself together the tiniest bit. The plot--and is there ever a plot--is driven by her on-again, off-again romance with Mark Darcy. The fact that the reader is so much smarter and more observant than Bridget is, this time round, irritating rather than suspenseful...
...Sontag. Ergo, a long story that looks like a historical romance, a celebration of a 19th century woman who, in contemporary parlance, had it all--devoted husband (a Polish count, no less), passionate younger lover and glittering career--must be hedged about with postmodern ironies, runic clues to the reader not to mistake surface for substance. Mustn...
...couple on their first movie date, unsure about armrest positioning. Using micro-details of space and time and addressing her audience in the second person, the Medinger created palpable sexual tension among audience members, released only somewhat by laughter at strategic intervals. The mood changed considerably when another reader from M.I.T. softly read a "work in progress" poem about a stern father who kills himself, teaching his obedient daughter to "fight back when somebody hits you." Although she read with less force and theatricality than some of the other poets, this eerily autobiographical poem stood on its own. Her small...