I mean, she is phenomenal—and somehow underrated?! (Def. under-read.) Just absolutely lacerating and insightful. Makes a lot of contemporary fiction feel like weak sauce.
Happy to know I've been sharing a cultural wavelength with you - I'm currently reading both Wharton and dabbling in Agatha Christie books. I'll be adding The Mother’s Recompense and The Affair at Styles to my list, among others you've mentioned. I also agree we should all be reading Wharton all the time - at the moment I'm reading her collection of short stories, Ghosts.
I recently finished When We Cease... and found it has really stayed on my mind. To describe that math in a translatable way is so impressive! I'm in New Mexico and so the nuclear world is always close by and top of mind for many of us-- people are still developing cancers from the initial explosions, so it's a quite bodily and physical thing. The national Oppenheimer hype has been interesting to watch from here.
Labatut has a new book coming out and I am so stoked to read it—WHEN WE CEASE (for me) elegantly and electrifyingly illuminates the point Ives' is laboring over in her book—that fiction can bring us closer to truth + understanding in uncanny ways that mere facts cannot. I love reading about pure math for this reason. It seems to exist in a space where imagination is necessary to understand it (of course, I don't really understand it, so perhaps that is my ignorance talking, ha. I am intrigued by the Oppenheimer hype b/c it seems not to be hype in its usual flavor, as least from what I've seen ... people (some, at least) appear to be engaging with ethical murk in a way that is unusual for a pop-culture phenomenon. I haven't seen it yet, though.
TLOB forever
I could not do it justice; it is *such* an incredible book. Thank you for recommending it!!!
We SHOULD be reading Wharton all the time, agree
I mean, she is phenomenal—and somehow underrated?! (Def. under-read.) Just absolutely lacerating and insightful. Makes a lot of contemporary fiction feel like weak sauce.
Kismet! The Line of Beauty is on my shelf…thank you. I think I read 10 different page 1s last night fussing over my next read.
Oh, I hope you enjoy it!
Happy to know I've been sharing a cultural wavelength with you - I'm currently reading both Wharton and dabbling in Agatha Christie books. I'll be adding The Mother’s Recompense and The Affair at Styles to my list, among others you've mentioned. I also agree we should all be reading Wharton all the time - at the moment I'm reading her collection of short stories, Ghosts.
I love Ghosts! I read it last year and found it pleasantly chilling. Ghost dogs!
I recently finished When We Cease... and found it has really stayed on my mind. To describe that math in a translatable way is so impressive! I'm in New Mexico and so the nuclear world is always close by and top of mind for many of us-- people are still developing cancers from the initial explosions, so it's a quite bodily and physical thing. The national Oppenheimer hype has been interesting to watch from here.
Labatut has a new book coming out and I am so stoked to read it—WHEN WE CEASE (for me) elegantly and electrifyingly illuminates the point Ives' is laboring over in her book—that fiction can bring us closer to truth + understanding in uncanny ways that mere facts cannot. I love reading about pure math for this reason. It seems to exist in a space where imagination is necessary to understand it (of course, I don't really understand it, so perhaps that is my ignorance talking, ha. I am intrigued by the Oppenheimer hype b/c it seems not to be hype in its usual flavor, as least from what I've seen ... people (some, at least) appear to be engaging with ethical murk in a way that is unusual for a pop-culture phenomenon. I haven't seen it yet, though.