A good joke should be understood straight off, just like a good aphorism.
Don’t Look at Me Like That – Diana Athill
Meg is not one to plumb her own depths or seek explanations for her behavior. This makes for an intriguing narrative conundrum, because what is narrative but the pursuit of exactly such explanations?
Labatut’s most horrific writing depicts the achievements born from humanity’s weakness. . . . It’s horrifying because it’s true; it’s horrifying because it took immense effort, achievement, and ingenuity to make it so.
Oh, the things that can only be whispered sideways to a knowing colleague, or thought privately in the dungeon of the mind. The human psyche, whether on the clock or off, becomes a room of funhouse mirrors facing external animus and internal self-loathing into infinity. In short: work is a drag.
The book is true: I had a terrible experience in grad school, it made me feel like I had nothing to say, that poetry wasn’t a place where I could say anything.