Dept. of Speculation

"But my absolute favourite book of this kind, and perhaps my favourite book of all, is Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation – a fraught, wise and very, very funny account of marital discord and creative crisis. It’s served in short, sometimes sentence-length segments, some directly reported and sometimes elliptical or koan-esque. Those who enjoyed her recent bestselling novel, Weather , will know what to expect, but in my opinion this earlier book is the original and best, and I must have read it dozens of times. I own it in hard copy, well-thumbed, and also as an ebook on my phone so I can carry it with me anywhere. I often return to it during periods of insomnia. If you haven’t already read it, I can’t recommend it enough. McEwan, expanding on his enthusiasm for the shorter form, noted that “to sit with a novella is analogous to watching a play or a longish movie…both operating within the same useful constraints of economy.” Similarly, reading a script can also be a highly enjoyable manner in which to pass an hour or two; the perfectly-formed play is an immersive joy – plus stage directions exercise the imagination in unusual ways. Recently, after meeting her at a writer’s retreat, I began working my way through the back catalogue of the wonderful US playwright Annie Baker, beginning with her Pulitzer-winning drama set in a cinema auditorium The Flick . Baker is the master of the awkward silence, during which unspoken feelings can be tasted on the air – her characters being all the more appealing and realistic for their inability to express themselves. Though I am yet to see a live performance, reading the script offered a different medium in which to appreciate her skill."

"It’s quite a hard book to summarise, because it’s so much about those myriad moments that make up a life, or relationship, or anything. Firstly, it’s really funny. People don’t talk directly enough about how funny Jenny Offill is. It’s essentially about a test of marriage, a kind of imperfect love story. Right? It’s both very sad and very funny. You have these moments between the fragments to take a break, just to laugh, or absorb it. She takes the ordinariness of life and she makes it mean something. I think she proves why every moment of life can have significance, and how the quiet moments of existence contribute to our sense of self. Last year, when her new book Weather came out, there was a picture of the fragments of Weather , how she’d rearrange them. Seeing that patchwork was amazing, because you can forget when a product is complete that so much work goes into the order of these things. Even just choosing the right ones… there will be so many rejected fragments. It affirmed the level of precision with which she works in order to create these novels. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter She’s said that the gaps are moments for the reader to have an imagination. She doesn’t want to fill in the gaps. Because in doing so you eliminate or pin the story down. By fragmenting you allow the reader to immerse themselves in, be part of the world in a more intense way. The absences give the created world a greater imaginative potential. I don’t know. I think that the fact that little scratch was published and accepted and treated as a novel speaks to a healthy publishing culture. Certainly there’s more space for it and, I think, more commercial viability, which is the key sign that people are open to it. There’s still a lot of pushback. There’s still a strange treatment of experimental writing. And, you know, when I see people talking about my book, it’s the first thing they do, right? They say, ‘okay, guys, this looks weird, but don’t worry, you’re going to be able to get into it.’ There’s an apology at the beginning. I find that strange. ‘Experimental’ has taken on this negative association. It’s something that we have to forgive, that you can get something from despite it. I think that kind of negates the whole purpose of this type of writing, which is to help immerse the reader further in the story. It serves a purpose. It’s there to do something beyond looking funny. It’s meant to open up new possibilities. I find it sad that it is often seen as a boundary. We are still very obsessed with keeping that boundary, putting the signpost up. I think we need to work on that. Maybe? I think some readers fear they are being pushed away, or that it’s coded for a certain level of education, rather than for a general reader—which I don’t think is true. But I think what you were saying earlier about being scared of not approaching the text ‘right’—those kind of insecurities, it’s not that formal or informal education helps you read better, but that maybe it gives you a level of self-trust. Sometimes we need an ego to trust ourselves as a reader. But it’s too complicated to make generalisations. Some think ‘experimental’ fiction is elitist, like it’s trying to shut out a certain reader. But all I can say for myself is that I’m writing for all readers. And I hope little scratch will show some readers who might feel hesitant over formally inventive writing, that shaking up the page can sometimes be a more natural way to read. It might bring you closer, rather than push you away."