Word: readerly
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...Daniel Burke Chicago I'm a Japanese writer. I was born in Japan and I live mainly in Japan. I think in Japanese and I write in Japanese. And, still, I look at things globally. For instance, my characters like tofu a lot. Let's say that a Norwegian reader reads that and thinks, "That guy likes tofu." But I don't know if he knows what tofu is! Still, he can understand what [the character] feels...
...occasionally bring a jarring register to the domain of fiction, but even these jagged edges are spellbinding because they are so intelligent, constantly forcing us to look under the skin of things. There are all kinds of terrors lurking within the heart of the book - these are for the reader to discover - but the one that is most palpable is the undeniable fact that this book is touched, like Rilke's "terrible angel," by the terror of greatness...
Sittenfeld's audacious gamble is that she can make the reader understand why someone as civilized as Alice would fall for this force of nature and stay with him despite grave misgivings about his public persona. And it is Sittenfeld's triumph that we do. Charlie is a puerile, self-absorbed innocent but not unkind. (Alice would never tolerate that.) He is an excellent father and a faithful husband; the pure pleasure of his company overwhelms Alice's need to punish herself for her lethal mistake. He is clever and insightful--his emotional intelligence beggars his intellect--and blithely uninformed...
Sittenfeld's audacious gamble is that she can make the reader understand why someone as civilized as Alice would fall for this force of nature and stay with him despite grave misgivings about his public persona. And it is Sittenfeld's triumph that we do. Charlie is a puerile, self-absorbed innocent but not unkind. (Alice would never tolerate that.) He is an excellent father and a faithful husband; the pure pleasure of his company overwhelms Alice's need to punish herself for her lethal mistake. He is clever and insightful - his emotional intelligence beggars his intellect - and blithely uninformed...
Curtis Sittenfeld: Soon after George W. Bush was elected I read a few articles about Laura Bush that made her seem different from what I would have expected. I learned that she's a big reader, and that she would invite people who had political opinions different from her husband's to events at the governor's mansion and then events at the White House. And then I read a biography of her in 2004 by Ann Gerhart called The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush. That reinforced the sense I had that...