Dept. of Speculation - Jenny Offill (2014)

In titling this post, I instinctively wrote "2018" as the year of publication. Once again, The New York Times Book Review podcast alerted me to this author, in a discussion of Weather, her newest volume. They had occasion to reference Dept. of Speculation, her previous book, and praised it effusively. I put a hold on it at the library. It took a while to get it, because of the waiting list, and then a 60+ day closure. Then it took me too long to read it (it could be read in a day, or two; it took me a week, or two, or three, or four). 

But this book came out six years ago, in the comparatively innocent days of 2014. And I slept way, way too long on Jenny Offill. Unquestionably, this goes on the Best Books list. The first thing I did after finishing Dept. of Speculation was to place a hold on Weather.

Offill, it must be well-known, writes in a very unique, totally original style. It is prose, but it reads like poetry, and sometimes comedy. Also tragedy. The paragraphs are short, sometimes just a sentence or two. The pages are small. There is a limited third-person narrator. 

The plot concerns a young couple--a wife in her mid-30's, a husband a few years older--that has just had a baby in Brooklyn. The novel covers roughly the first six years of the baby's life. It is hardly at all about the baby, later the little girl, except how she annoys them and how they love her:

"Is she a good baby? People would ask me.

Well, no, I'd say." (30)

Certain details emerge. The Husband plays the piano and writes musical scores for film and television. The Wife is a college professor, not writing a follow-up novel; instead she attempts to ghostwrite a memoir by a man who was almost an astronaut, who wants to tell the story of Voyager 2. At a certain point, their apartment is infested with bedbugs. And then the Husband has an affair. And the Wife goes mad, and struggles to find meaning in her life.

There are no easy, simple, neat answers in this book. Only questions. There is no sense that everything is going to be okay in the end. While there is great darkness and cynicism in this work, there are also moments of inspiration that border on the divine (generally, quotes without context from Rilke, or Kafka, and others):

"What Rilke said: I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone." (148)

"What Kafka said: I write to close my eyes." (156)

"Studies show that 110% of men who leave their wives for other women report that their wives are crazy.

Darwin theorized that there was something left over after sexual attractiveness had served its purpose and compelled us to mate. This he called 'beauty' and thought it might be what drives the human animal to make art." (103) 

There is hardly a wasted word in this book. There must already be many Jenny Offill imitators filling up the slush piles. Please read it if you haven't.

Grade: A