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Jenny Offill

Jenny Offill Biography

Novelist

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“We applied our muzzy intellects to a theory of light. That all are born radiating light but that this light diminished slowly (if one was lucky) or abruptly (if one was not). The most charismatic people - the poets, the mystics, the explorers - were that way because they had somehow managed to keep a bit of this light that was meant to have dimmed. But the shocking thing, the unbearable thing it seemed, was that the natural order was for this light to vanish. It hung on sometimes through the twenties, a glint here or there in the thirties, and then almost always the eyes went dark.”

Age
Book:Dept. of Speculation
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“She has noticed though that he seems to love her again. A little at least. He is always touching her now, brushing the hair back from her face. “Thank you,” he says one night as they are sitting in the yard. He says it was as if they were all trapped under a car and in a burst of inexplicable strength, she moved it. He kisses her and there is something there, a flicker maybe, but then she hears the bug zapper going. Zzzft. Zzzft. Zzzft. “You shouldn’t have driven us off of the cliff,” she says.”

Marriage Quote
Book:Dept. of Speculation
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“What it means to be a good person, a moral person, is calculated differently in times of crisis than in ordinary circumstances,” she says. She pulls up a slide of people having a picnic by a lake. Blue skies, green trees, white people. “Suppose you go with some friends to the park to have a picnic. This act is, of course, morally neutral, but if you witness a group of children drowning in the lake and you continue to eat and chat, you have become monstrous.”

MoralityEthicsAmbiguityPicnicsCulpability
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“Venäjän, Syyrian ja Yhdysvaltain johtajat kiistelevät siitä, kuka saa parhaiten kiinni rikollisia. YK:n pääsihteeri päättää panna johtajat testiin. Hän päästää kaniinin metsään ja kehottaa miehiä pyydystämään sen. Amerikkalaisten tiimi lähtee metsään. He sijoittavat eläinilmiantajia eri puolille metsää. He kuulustelevat kaikkia kasvi- ja kivikuntaan kuuluvia todistajia. Kolmen kuukauden tiiviin tutkinnan jälkeen he ilmoittavat, että kaniineja ei ole olemassa. On Syyrian tiimin vuoro mennä metsään. Kun kahdessa viikossa ei löydy yhtään johtolankaa, syyrialaiset polttavat metsän ja kaiken sen mukana, myös kaniinin. Se oli vaarallinen kapinallinen, he kirjoittavat raporttiinsa. Venäjän tiimi lähtee metsään viimeisenä. He ilmestyvät kahden tunnin kuluttua mukanaan pahoin piesty karhu. Karhu mylvii: "Hyvä on! Myönnetään! Olen kaniini! Olen kaniini!"”

HuumoriSyyriaVenäjäYhdysvallatVitsitYhteiskunnat
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“My best friend came to visit from far away. She took two planes and a train to get to Brooklyn. We met at a bar near my apartment and drank in a hurry as the babysitter's meter ticked. In the past, we'd talked about books and other people, but now we talked only of our respective babies, hers sweet-faced and docile, mine at war with the world. We applied our muzzy intellects to a theory of light. That all are born radiating light but that this light diminished slowly (if one was lucky) or abruptly (if one was not). The most charismatic people—the poets, the mystics, the explorers—were that way because they had somehow managed to keep a bit of this light that was meant to have dimmed. But the shocking thing, the unbearable thing it seemed, was that the natural order was for this light to vanish. It hung on sometimes through the twenties, a glint here or there in the thirties, and then almost always the eyes went dark.”

LifeLightFriendshipConversationAgingCharisma
Book:Dept. of Speculation
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“There is a husband who requires mileage receipts, another who wants sex at three a.m. One who forbids short haircuts, another who refuses to feed the pets. I would never put up with that, all the other wives think. Never. But my agent has a theory. She says every marriage is jerry-rigged. Even the ones that look reasonable from the outside are held together with chewing gum and wire and string.”

MarriageTrustSpouses
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