Weather

didn't really like this sadly. I enjoyed her other book Dept. of Speculation which is why I thought I would enjoy this book too but yeah nah.

I really wanted to like it — so many of my friends have — but it just didn't work for me. The writing is tight, terse yet rich and really quite enjoyable, the kind I would normally devour... but the story itself felt flat. Affectless. Is that a thing now? It reminded me of [b:lost Children Archive 40245130 Lost Children Archive Valeria Luiselli https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1547386427l/40245130.SY75.jpg 62525285]: an ever-so-detached first-person narrator moving through the world but without really being part of it. A complete lack of connection. The whole book is bleakness, resignation. Not the fog of medication or apathy — her observations are too sharp at every level — just ... I don't know. I don't get it. A kind of going-through-the-motions thing, with exquisite awareness yet no spirit.

Such a great book to start the year with! This is a complex story told through vignettes, short snippets of thoughts and observations about the minutiae of everyday life that all add up to a commentary on some much bigger themes: the climate crisis, the US healthcare system, the state of US politics, the inherent difficulties that accompany family dynamics. Jenny Offill's writing is witty and insightful, often funny, and really beautiful. I will be picking up more from her ASAP.

Not for me.

Weather features Lizzie, a librarian who fell into her job at her university through the recommendation of her former mentor, Sylvia. I was gratified to see that Lizzie admits she doesn't have the usual credentials to be a librarian (a Master's degree in Library/Information Science). The author, Jenny Offill, must be acquainted with some librarians to have thought it important to include this detail. One of the pleasures of this book, for me, is the many anecdotes Lizzie includes in her narrative about the library patrons she encounters at her work. People are quirky and have odd interests and obsessions which come out when they need help at the library. So, the librarian aspects of this book were an invitation to me to come in and feel at home with Lizzie (even though I did wonder how many job candidates with LIS degrees she beat out for her job, and on what basis).

Lizzie's mentor, Sylvia, hosts a climate change podcast called Hell or High Water, and she hires Lizzie to answer the correspondence the podcast generates. It is through this side job that Lizzie becomes a bit obsessed with climate change and preparing for disaster. Or, at least, that's what I've read in other people's reviews. The climate change aspect of this book didn't stand out for me enough that I would call it a major theme. I would characterize it as more of a background for some of the other crises going on in Lizzie's life: her brother's descent into a deep depression and the strain that causes in her marriage. Either way, Lizzie is witness to disorienting crisis and is distressed by her inability to do much about it.

The book is written in short, 2-3 sentence paragraphs that are separated from each other by an extra line so they sit on the page like little packages. Sometimes the paragraphs flow from one to the next with obvious connection, but sometimes they don't seem connected to each other at all. Still, each one is a pleasure to read. Jenny Offill gives Lizzie a wry humor that I really liked. The style makes this an easy book to pick up and put down again, but it also makes it a little harder to remember everything that happens in the book as part of a whole.

Effectively captures the anxiety of day-to-day life, and then manages to layer climate anxiety on top of that. Best read in small chunks.

(M)y brother tells me a story about his NA meeting. A woman stood up and started ranting about antidepressants. What upset her most was that people were not disposing of them properly. They tested worms in the city sewers and found they contained high concentrations of Paxil and Prozac. When birds ate these worms, they stayed closer to home, made more elaborate nests, but appeared unmotivated to mate. “But were they happier?” I ask him. “Did they get more done in a given day?”

Weather is the story of a Lizzie Benson, married, with a young son, working in a library, though not a certified librarian, and her life in the world just before America's most recent election and just after. Lizzie goes to work part-time for her friend who runs a podcast about end time living.

Weather is told through hundreds of little shared conversations, jokes, aphorisms, and historical incidents. It's bleak—Lizzie's brother is an addict and she is his main source of support—but it's also wildly funny.

A conversation between Lizzie and her brother:

Afterward, we walk in the park. He's met someone maybe. But he doesn't think it's going to work out. She's too different from him. It takes me a while to figure out they haven't even been on a date yet. “You don't want to date someone like you, do you?” I ask him. Henry laughs. “God, no.”

A few days later, I yelled at him for losing his new lunch box, and he turned to me and said, Are you sure you're my mother? Sometimes you don't seem like a good enough person.

“Many of us subscribe to the same sentiment as our colleague Sherwood Rowland. He remarked to his wife one night after coming home: “The work is going well, but it looks like it might be the end of the world.”

Listened to about half an hour, but decided to stop. Too free form, like a stream of thoughts, but in a too fragmented way, that makes it hard to take in as audio.

I really really liked this one. The wit and tone and the structure really worked for me.

Like tasty bits of candy. You know you should eat them slowly, savor each little piece, but instead you devour the whole thing.

Was I frontloading a ton of books at once when I read this? Yes. Is it still not super memorable? Also yes. I remember liking it but my girl asked me what I thought of the moon passage in the first third and I relistened to the first third and deadass missed it twice so the prose must not have been that brazy. Anyways it was fun and sort of fucked up, which I was looking for.

I was not going to read Weather as I dnf'd [b:Dept. of Speculation 17402288 Dept. of Speculation Jenny Offill https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1367929545l/17402288.SX50.jpg 24237023] and because reviewers with reading preferences similar to mine seemed to really dislike this novel. Weather showed up on the CampTOB list, and it was short. I was determined just to take it down like a bitter pill. Incredibly, I enjoyed the hell out of it. How lovely it was to read about a main character who is over 40 and under 60. Thank you. There are so few literary novels that feature a woman my age. What a nice change. I was, at first, completely put off by how Lizzie was observing life but not really participating in it. Avoidance seemed to be her m.o.but then I got it. She's going through life as one meditates (which is why meditation comes up over and over again in the story). A thought arises, she acknowledged its existence and then it passed. She did not subscribe an emotion or judgment on the thought. It just WAS. The thought was like a balloon scrolling across her mental sky or....like the weather. It just was. And then it is passed. Clever. “You are to some disinterested bystander/ Exert yourself.” (Epictetus) For me, this would have been meaningless if Lizzie did not wake up a bit, and she does by the end. Does she have it all figured out? Heck no. Who does? But she lands on what is important to her, what gives her life meaning. I found this satisfying. Had it gone on any longer, I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much.