December 23, 2008

Crumbs

On “slummy mummy” writing: “[these] writers know these idiosyncrasies aren’t really faults but bargaining chips… The domestic preoccupation seems so much worse because the women are complaining about domesticity without moving beyond it.” Via Maud Newton, Laura Miller on rereading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe: “Narnia is a mongrel thing, and so is Christmas. As is often the case, this mongrelizing is the source of its strength.” Could Curtis Sittenfeld’s fictional reassessment of Laura Bush have been all too misleading? Macleans covers Rebecca Rosenblum’s marriage to Robert Downey Jr. The Edible Woman is Seen Reading (aside: last time I read this book, I thought it was dated and politically irrelevant, however brilliant. An essential literary artifact. And then it was sometime last year when I was restless, and everybody told me I should have a baby, and I started feeling a bit like a cake. And now I am having a baby, and of course I’m thrilled about it, but I’ve realized I was wrong about The Edible Woman).