“This is hardly science, but only a fairy tale, a critic wrote, shortly after the book on the earth’s systemic interconnectedness…” – Angela Woodward, ‘Natural Wonders’
The Trump administration started disappearing naturalized citizens this week. The President then got on Kirkland Signature Twitter, aka Truth Social (shoutout to Miles Gray of The Daily Zeitgeist for that one), to say there were “many more arrests to come.” I linked on Wednesday, but Samer Kalaf at Defector had a good article about it. Another pull quote: “While it may not feel like it, the Zionist movement is in a period of desperation. Polling shows that American support for Israel is at its lowest mark in 25 years. As it turns out, massacring thousands of Palestinian children and their families does not appeal to the broader public. Desperation invites danger, however.”
I read a novel this week where the main character does science wrong, in a pretty fascinating, feminist-rebellious way, and I sincerely enjoyed it. It did feel weird, though, to read while RFK Jr. is charge of the nation’s medicine and Donald Trump is President. Making your own reality reads, uh, slightly differently in the Trump era. I hate it here, for the record. At least books are still good.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
A book that you could totally syllabus together with The Broken Earth Trilogy, even though they are wildly different. A book that’s less than one-tenth the length of the entire trilogy, how’s that for different? A book that interrogates the history of the planet in surprising ways, and a book that has that same kind of not-quite surrealism that makes something like The Houseboat Veronica by Josh Bell so interesting. I’m talking, of course, about Natural Wonders by Angela Woodward.
The novel is structured as a series of lectures for one of those big, one- or two hundred-person lecture hall 101 science classes. I believe it’s Prehistory Of Man, although many student groups have been protesting to get the course named to something gender-neutral, and repeatedly been called childish by administrators. Giving the lectures is Jenny, the either grieving or liberated or unsure widow of Jonathan, the original prof. Jenny was a typist at the university, Jonathan a professor 30 years her senior. Their marriage just sort of happened, and then Jonathan had a sudden heart attack one day, and now Jenny is going through his very sloppy notes, trying to teach the class. What follows is a sort of lyric, fairy tale-esque interrogation of the gender politics of how science and history get taught.
Jenny is not some airheaded typist who cannot grasp the masculine realities of science, or whatever the Ben Shapiros of the world would allege. Rather, Jenny’s interpretation of these half-heartedly kept but all-important lecture notes is an interrogation of the misguided self-assurance of some scientists throughout history. The novel doesn’t read angry or self-righteous, though. It’s more observational. It kind of reminded me—have you ever heard of those, like, ancient sculptures of naked women, which for a long time a bunch of men anthropologist theorized were fertility goddesses or even ancient porn, but then a woman anthropologist looked down at her own breasts and belly and said, “yo what if these are self-portraits?” Here’s a smarter article about this topic. Natural Wonders is a lot like that. This novel is first and foremost a lyric fairy tale, an accounting of a woman widowed before middle age figuring things out. Beyond that, though, it’s an argument for diversity of thought in universities and intellectual spaces. No, not diversity of thought like the way most Substackers view it. I mean the kinds of realizations and knowledge pursuits that are only possible when the academy isn’t just an extension of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Of all the not-quite-full-surrealist, not-quite-straightforward novels I’ve read, this one feels like one I will return to a lot.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? Two podcast this week: we were blessed to have Sandra Marchetti as a returning guest on The Line Break this week (Apple | Spotty | SoundCloud). Order Sandra’s new book, Diorama, here. Over on The Lazy & Entitled Podcast, I was thrilled to talk to the homie Cristian Ramirez about life as a labor compliance officer (Apple | Spotty | SoundCloud). If you’d rather listen to music, I enjoyed this way more than I thought possible.
Loved this look at the phrase “Ball Don’t Lie” by Alex Prewitt in Defector. A pull quote, since Defector is subscription-based (but worth it!): “‘In a world where everyone’s feeding you narratives and has got some bullshit story…there’s a truth that basketball emits,” [filmmaker Brin] Hill said. “There’s no way to hide when there’s only 10 people on the court. There’s no way to lie. The ball’s always going to expose the truth about you. It’s the idea that this is the gavel of basketball.’”
After reading Toi Derricotte last week, I wanted to read some of her poems. This one—“From ‘The Telly Cycle,’” published in Rattle—seems a good place to start, for reasons that should be obvious from the first line.
“The Weakness” by Toi Derricotte in Poets dot org.
“My dad & sardines” by Toi Derricotte in Poetry Foundation.
Kelsey McKinney at Defector with a perfect article about how there should be consequences for filming a Tesla ad on the White House Lawn. A pull quote, since Defector is subscription-based (but worth it!): “Last week, I saw a Tesla in my neighborhood with a half-dozen bumper stickers slapped across the front window, making it undriveable. This is good. The owner of that car purchased something, but purchasing something is not an identity. It is a bad investment. Get rid of your Tesla, or continue to be mocked…This whole White House stunt is a life raft, because it is so unbelievably over for Tesla. The stock is falling. The public sentiment is against them. They’ve lost. Do not for one minute let them make you believe that they haven’t. No amount of advertisements by the president can overrule a quiet and constant fear that your car could be egged or plastered with bumper stickers or hit with a baseball bat at any time…We cannot allow this kind of behavior to exist without consequences. We must be brave and so, so, so annoying.”
What’re you still doing here? Don’t you know that Micah and Brendan have a show?
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. I bet your customers try to bend reality all the time, and I bet they listen about as well as a tenured professor nearing retirement. May you have unfailing access to your inner strength.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris