Weather

So good. I might have written it if I ever allowed anyone but Victoria to see my true self. Funny and full, pregnant really, of existential angst of a librarian, New Yorker, mother, trying to understand or at least simply navigate the quickly spiraling world.

This is a very short novel told in a series of short, seemingly disjointed segments that end up giving the novel more mood and atmosphere than plot. Offill writes gorgeously and those sentences, which feel so immediate, are finely crafted. Lizzie is a librarian living in New York. Her brother is a recovering addict who is in a relationship and expecting a baby. Her mentor has a podcast and wants to hire Lizzie to answer her mail, which deals largely with concerns about a collapsing world. Lizzie ponders global warming and how best to react to the changes in climate.

But a synopsis of what happens very much fails to explain what is so compelling about this book. As Lizzie negotiates her way through her daily life, she thinks about the show more people she knows and about what to do if everything falls apart, taking advice from doomsday preppers and scientists. It was an odd feeling reading about the end of the world while staying inside because of the pandemic. The segments about surviving were both applicable and distant from the current situation, although global warming is still occurring and the risk grows greater even as we're distracted by more immediate perils. And despite the focus on the state of the earth, this isn't a heavy-handed or hopeless novel at all. show less

Laugh out loud funny in many places, the shock of recognition in others, well, maybe funny in those places as well. Like slipping into someone's stream of consciousness. Written in staccato paragraphs, each one a separate thought or event. Would like to reread, there's so much there in so few pages.

I read for the writing and this is my book. As someone has written "each paragraph is a polished gem and each sentence" a perfect facet of that gem. I thought [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] was one of my favorites and this funny, quirky, anxious tale joins the bandwagon.
[b:Weather|37506228|Weather|Jenny Offill|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1566942482l/37506228._SY75_.jpg|59116540] is comforting even though the main character, Lizzie, is worried about environmental collapse and her brother is hovering at breakdown and her marriage is going through a show more rough bit, she is comforted by the survival techniques she reads about at the library where she works as a feral librarian (meanng not degreed). She relates hilariious moments with patrons. I looked forward to the style and tidbitty factoids offered and liked Lizzie, identified with her concerns even if I'm not a youngish mother working fulltime and trying to help a disintegrating brother in the midst of a divorce. show less

A librarian in New York worries about the effects of climate change while taking care of her brother, who wrestles with sobriety and suicidal impulses. Throughout her day to day routine at work, commuting, and with her husband and son, Lizzie confronts big questions: Will anywhere be safe? Is it too late?

Weather shares the same trim size and writing style as Offill's Dept. of Speculation; in a blurb on the back cover, Sheila Heti describes Offill's style as "near-pointillist" and Ben Lerner writes that through her eloquence and silence, she registers "the emotional and political weather of our present."

Quotes

I've noticed that Margot listen's differently than I do. She pays attention, but leaves her own stories out of it. (15)

Young show more person worry: What if nothing I do matters?
Old person worry: What if everything I do does? (21-22)

First, they came for the coral, but I did not say anything because I was not a coral... (41)

...it's a myth that people panic in emergencies. Eighty percent just freeze. The brain refuses to take in what is happening. This is called the incredulity response. (55)

Survival instructors have a saying: Get organized or die. (74)

She gave us a formula: suffering = pain + resistance. (121)

I keep wondering how we might channel all of this dread into action. (137)

...in times of emergency the brain can get stuck on a loop, trying to find a similar situation for comparison.
This is why you must make a plan before disaster strikes....Without a plan, people quickly lose their bearings. (171) show less

I have slightly mixed feelings about this book. Objectively, it's excellent. The plot is fairly straightforward: a Brooklyn woman works in a library, helps answer listener letters for a former mentor's podcast, is caught up in her family's problems, and becomes gradually more obsessed with disaster preparation.

It's a short novel. 200pp doesn't do justice to that as it's physically small and there's quite a bit of white space. That's not merely an aesthetic choice; it accentuates the staccato, slightly choppy style. Overall, the feeling is of a novel that's been stripped down to its basic elements and polished. There's no excess to it, no fat. Each sentence is carefully written without an unnecessary word. As a piece of writing, it's show more really superbly done--despite the spareness, it's not at all flat and is often very funny.

So what are my qualms? I understand the point of this style of novel, but I don't feel it in my heart. It also suffers from the burden of overpraise, which is really an unfair thing to do to a book. But it would also be unfair for me to hold it against Offill that critics have called her (and Rachel Cusk) the future of fiction. show less

By absolute coincidence this came into the library just as Covid-19 became a real, present, overwhelming truth in our lives in New York. One day there were 8 cases, days later there are 21,000 cases. 21,000. It is incomprehensible, cataclysmic. Last week I was a block from 30 Rock and there were only 2 other humans visible on the street. But in the middle of what feels like a bad movie, we go on. Its what we do. Life is filled with personal mundane crap and it doesn't stop even when annihilation seems to be right around the corner. And this, this is what Weather is about.

The coming end of the world in Weather is from climate change, or really from the end of climate and the election of an anti-intellectual authoritarian president who show more decries all efforts to save the planet. Lizzie, her husband and son live in Little Pakistan. These are good people in every sense. They are thoughtful, they help their neighbors and their extended families however they can. They think about the crisis, but they also think about relatives who are lonely or have addiction issues, about the livelihood of the car service guy and the man who owns the bodega, and the people who seek guidance at the library where Lizzie works.

Offill is really funny and wise. Her Brooklyn lens is brutal and hilarious and dead on. In one of my favorite lines as she is running out of antidepressants and has nothing but Ambien to help her decompress at the same time she is helping her brother who is an addict who may be falling off the wagon with the combined stress of a newborn and the impending apocalypse Lizzie thinks "I remind myself (as I often do) never to become so addicted to drugs or alcohol that I'm not allowed to use them,"

This is a slim book, a speedy read - it really could be a single sitting book if you have say 4 hours to spend. (It took me 10 days because I was dealing with a pandemic that closed the doors on the program I run, we went online, at the same time I had a son to get out of Serbia and a sister to get out of Morocco as borders were shutting down without warning. I strongly recommend this one, though for those with anxiety, this may not be the moment you want to jump in.) Hopefully this pandemic will be ebbing by late summer, and this will be the perfect read. show less