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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
Hazzard is interested in power: how it manifests in romantic relationships and in the bureaucratic state. In some of the best stories here, both of these subjects collide. Layered over each other, each theme alternately becomes a metaphor for the other.
But the primary reason I am drawn to Hazzard is stylistic rather than conceptual. There is an overpowering elegance to her writing, somehow both elaborate and cutting. Not many short stories achieve the psychological depth that hers do, and that is thanks to her prose, which deconstructs characters with such piercing, tragic detail.
But the primary reason I am drawn to Hazzard is stylistic rather than conceptual. There is an overpowering elegance to her writing, somehow both elaborate and cutting. Not many short stories achieve the psychological depth that hers do, and that is thanks to her prose, which deconstructs characters with such piercing, tragic detail.
challenging
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I’m getting to be in a faze that’s becoming harder and harder to please me. I live a cold and cerebral life, I’m paid for my work in free time and not in dollars, and there’s plenty of it. Plenty of free time, and most of the time I jump on the opportunity to help someone, and at other times I don’t want to be disturbed, for instance when I’m about to finish reading a novel, or when I’m in the middle of a movie, and I’ve learned to sit back and let time fly, pencil me in for a 3:00 O’Clock, wait a few hours for me to finish up. Then I try the Cardinal rule: treat others as I would have them treat me. But they don't treat me, they treat me not at all; Well, for that matter, we’re living in a vacuum, and it’s full of visual pollution and auditory pollutants, and bureaucratic policies make little sense to me, and I don’t let myself get brainwashed by hyper-reactionary paparazzi stories about what our celebrity Puzo president is doing, and it wouldn’t make a difference thinking about it, and I still choose to like the things that ppl don’t, and don’t like what ppl do, because I don’t like being told what’s what Or being told what to believe or what not to believe, I don’t believe in following the status quo. In a sense, that’s what Shirley Hazzard conveys when I read between the lines… this bit of shuffling papers, filing cabinets and paper clips, what a tub of lard this motor oscillates around.. paper, oh, paper not worth reading, paper not worth printing or signing, so just put that back in the waste bin and send me a phone call.
“But they chose to forget that their whole system of logic could be overturned by the gesture of a woman or a child, or by a single line of poetry. This business of reasoning, she reflected, was all very well, within reason, but if one had nothing to be passionate about one might as well be dead.”
Shirley shares the idiosyncrasies of her characters by the use of language, some of them are linguists, and some stories are set in Italy, particularly one in Milan, but though these people have been well-traveled and well-read, they’ve met with emptiness under the surface of it. Like the meat of thought of mind is a taut coil, with compression and tension the coil tightens, and loose and affable has no meaning at all, but this happiness in lack of meaning, this joy of being unimpeded by the affectation of others, believing what others say and not questioning or interpreting. The questioning makes me sad, bitter, and disdainful of the collective diaspora, because in my search for it I find the dissolution of reasoning like .. like an empty coil, that only I am keeping it moving, and the rest could care less about fraying away at it until terminably, everything is lost, but there was no stability in it, and then no sense in questioning it, because the honest answer was dissolution. Everything disappeared and nothing remained, not even the value we placed on things, means nothing, or the value we placed on our lives, only meant as much as they placed on ours..
“But they chose to forget that their whole system of logic could be overturned by the gesture of a woman or a child, or by a single line of poetry. This business of reasoning, she reflected, was all very well, within reason, but if one had nothing to be passionate about one might as well be dead.”
Shirley shares the idiosyncrasies of her characters by the use of language, some of them are linguists, and some stories are set in Italy, particularly one in Milan, but though these people have been well-traveled and well-read, they’ve met with emptiness under the surface of it. Like the meat of thought of mind is a taut coil, with compression and tension the coil tightens, and loose and affable has no meaning at all, but this happiness in lack of meaning, this joy of being unimpeded by the affectation of others, believing what others say and not questioning or interpreting. The questioning makes me sad, bitter, and disdainful of the collective diaspora, because in my search for it I find the dissolution of reasoning like .. like an empty coil, that only I am keeping it moving, and the rest could care less about fraying away at it until terminably, everything is lost, but there was no stability in it, and then no sense in questioning it, because the honest answer was dissolution. Everything disappeared and nothing remained, not even the value we placed on things, means nothing, or the value we placed on our lives, only meant as much as they placed on ours..
my becoming-a-genius project, part 26!
the background:
i have decided to become a genius.
to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.
we're approaching the third anniversary of my commencement of this project and also i have not undertaken an installment of it in several months, so this is an exciting event.
let's get into it.
view project parts 1-26 here
DAY 1: THE PARTY
starting this whole thing off on a real "men are trash" note.
and ending the first story (which had many witticisms and clever turns of phrase) on a real "cheesy dialogue" note.
rating: 3
DAY 2: A PLACE IN THE COUNTRY
hell is a teenage girl!!!
rating: 3.5
DAY 3: VITTORIO
the guiding philosophy of this story is one i agree with (that women are very beautiful and know everything nearly before it happens).
rating: 3.5
DAY 4: IN ONE'S OWN HOUSE
ignoring everything i'm supposed to be paying attention to in this one to be incredibly disturbed by the idea of being a wealthy widow whose two adult sons and daughter in law STILL LIVE IN HER HOUSE.
rating: 3.5
DAY 5: VILLA ADRIANA
lately everything i pick up seems like it's set in italy. at first this was fun because in 2ish weeks i'll be in italy, but now like anything else it's getting old.
rating: 3
DAY 6: CLIFFS OF FALL
well, it's been 3 weeks and i've taken a full whirlwind trip through europe during which i initially (delusionally) thought i'd be keeping up this project, but...
obviously i didn't. but this was a nice way to resume!
rating: 3.5
DAY 7: WEEKEND
birthday story. this one has to be good.
couples are so evil. you can spend your whole life single and then finally give in to a relationship and suddenly you're wickedly sympathetic to anyone who doesn't share your plight.
rating: 3.5
DAY 8: HAROLD
such a bummer to be on a good story streak and then have one that's incontrovertibly meh. it feels inappropriate to be able to obviously tell what a story is trying to do while seeing that it isn't doing it...like someone whose skirt is tucked up in their underwear.
rating: 2.5
DAY 9: THE PICNIC
a sequel story!
to be honest i am blown away with myself for remembering the names of characters in a short story i read a month ago.
rating: 3.5
DAY 10: THE WORST PART OF THE DAY
hope the answer here is "waking up."
in spite of the fact that this story says its title about 11 times (see day 8), none of those times is waking up.
rating: 3
DAY 11: NOTHING IN EXCESS
this is like a satire of corporate life if the satire had to keep excusing itself to explain itself to you.
rating: 2.5
DAY 12: THE FLOWERS OF SORROW
not a sequel story...
rating: 2.5
DAY 13: THE MEETING
well. it appears that this whole section (titled, a bit obviously, PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES) is a set of stories about the same people at the same company.
god help me.
rating: 2.5
DAY 14: SWOBODA'S TRAGEDY
i confess to looking ahead to see how many stories i still have yet to spend in this terrible awful "Organization" and i am demoralized to see the answer is 5.
i'll be tolerating these well into next week.
rating: 2.5
DAY 15: THE STORY OF MISS SADIE GRAINE
this is a story about a person's name who, when referenced in the last story, entered into a coquettish parenthetical about how sadie was a person in and of herself and we might be hearing HER story someday.
sigh. lucky us.
rating: 2.5
DAY 16: OFFICIAL LIFE
i did appreciate this story for agreeing with what i've always said: that it's actually tuesdays (not mondays) that are the worst day of the week.
but not for much else.
rating: 2.5
DAY 17: A SENSE OF MISSION
and so we beat on...boats against the current....
these never do stick the landing either.
rating: 2.5
DAY 18: THE SEPARATION OF DINAH DELBANCO
what joy...the final installment of this section.
rating: 2.5
DAY 19: WOOLLAHRA ROAD
with great relief and gratitude we move our way into the UNCOLLECTED / UNPUBLISHED section, and i hope i'm not soon saying "i see why."
phew.
rating: 3.5
DAY 20: FORGIVING
this story should have been clichéd first and foremost, and maybe it was, but all i know is i felt completely charmed by it.
rating: 4
DAY 21: COMFORT
i really can't believe THESE are the unpublished / uncollected ones. after all we've been through...
rating: 4
DAY 22: OUT OF ITEA
okay...well this has already taught me a new word if nothing else.
oh. never mind. it's a place, not a type of shrub. anyway this was fairly lovely.
rating: 3.5
DAY 23: THE EVERLASTING DELIGHT
that's what they call me. because of my unparalleled conversational skills, obviously.
i love House Talk.
rating: 3.5
DAY 24: THE STATUE AND THE BUST
extremely cool to be a smart and effortlessly charming woman who manages to mildly embarrass some random guy while simultaneously not thinking of him at all...
rating: 3.5
DAY 25: LEAVE IT TO ME
this one felt needlessly confusing. but maybe i'm just irritable.
rating: 3
DAY 26: SIR CECIL'S RIDE
oh men and women and young and old and so on and so forth.
rating: 3
DAY 27: LE NOZZE
i'd love to someday love anything as much as shirley hazzard loves italy.
this one was very romantic, and also not italian. whoops.
rating: 4
DAY 28: THE SACK OF SILENCE
what a nice note to end on: just banter city.
rating: 3.5
OVERALL
so much of this — the stories that feel like small captured moments of everyday life — is perfectly wonderful. unfortunately, bizarrely, inexplicably, a whole central swath of this book was what i can only refer to as the horrible corporate section.
i enjoyed this, for the most part, except when i detested it utterly.
rating: 3
the background:
i have decided to become a genius.
to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.
we're approaching the third anniversary of my commencement of this project and also i have not undertaken an installment of it in several months, so this is an exciting event.
let's get into it.
view project parts 1-26 here
DAY 1: THE PARTY
starting this whole thing off on a real "men are trash" note.
and ending the first story (which had many witticisms and clever turns of phrase) on a real "cheesy dialogue" note.
rating: 3
DAY 2: A PLACE IN THE COUNTRY
hell is a teenage girl!!!
rating: 3.5
DAY 3: VITTORIO
the guiding philosophy of this story is one i agree with (that women are very beautiful and know everything nearly before it happens).
rating: 3.5
DAY 4: IN ONE'S OWN HOUSE
ignoring everything i'm supposed to be paying attention to in this one to be incredibly disturbed by the idea of being a wealthy widow whose two adult sons and daughter in law STILL LIVE IN HER HOUSE.
rating: 3.5
DAY 5: VILLA ADRIANA
lately everything i pick up seems like it's set in italy. at first this was fun because in 2ish weeks i'll be in italy, but now like anything else it's getting old.
rating: 3
DAY 6: CLIFFS OF FALL
well, it's been 3 weeks and i've taken a full whirlwind trip through europe during which i initially (delusionally) thought i'd be keeping up this project, but...
obviously i didn't. but this was a nice way to resume!
rating: 3.5
DAY 7: WEEKEND
birthday story. this one has to be good.
couples are so evil. you can spend your whole life single and then finally give in to a relationship and suddenly you're wickedly sympathetic to anyone who doesn't share your plight.
rating: 3.5
DAY 8: HAROLD
such a bummer to be on a good story streak and then have one that's incontrovertibly meh. it feels inappropriate to be able to obviously tell what a story is trying to do while seeing that it isn't doing it...like someone whose skirt is tucked up in their underwear.
rating: 2.5
DAY 9: THE PICNIC
a sequel story!
to be honest i am blown away with myself for remembering the names of characters in a short story i read a month ago.
rating: 3.5
DAY 10: THE WORST PART OF THE DAY
hope the answer here is "waking up."
in spite of the fact that this story says its title about 11 times (see day 8), none of those times is waking up.
rating: 3
DAY 11: NOTHING IN EXCESS
this is like a satire of corporate life if the satire had to keep excusing itself to explain itself to you.
rating: 2.5
DAY 12: THE FLOWERS OF SORROW
not a sequel story...
rating: 2.5
DAY 13: THE MEETING
well. it appears that this whole section (titled, a bit obviously, PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES) is a set of stories about the same people at the same company.
god help me.
rating: 2.5
DAY 14: SWOBODA'S TRAGEDY
i confess to looking ahead to see how many stories i still have yet to spend in this terrible awful "Organization" and i am demoralized to see the answer is 5.
i'll be tolerating these well into next week.
rating: 2.5
DAY 15: THE STORY OF MISS SADIE GRAINE
this is a story about a person's name who, when referenced in the last story, entered into a coquettish parenthetical about how sadie was a person in and of herself and we might be hearing HER story someday.
sigh. lucky us.
rating: 2.5
DAY 16: OFFICIAL LIFE
i did appreciate this story for agreeing with what i've always said: that it's actually tuesdays (not mondays) that are the worst day of the week.
but not for much else.
rating: 2.5
DAY 17: A SENSE OF MISSION
and so we beat on...boats against the current....
these never do stick the landing either.
rating: 2.5
DAY 18: THE SEPARATION OF DINAH DELBANCO
what joy...the final installment of this section.
rating: 2.5
DAY 19: WOOLLAHRA ROAD
with great relief and gratitude we move our way into the UNCOLLECTED / UNPUBLISHED section, and i hope i'm not soon saying "i see why."
phew.
rating: 3.5
DAY 20: FORGIVING
this story should have been clichéd first and foremost, and maybe it was, but all i know is i felt completely charmed by it.
rating: 4
DAY 21: COMFORT
i really can't believe THESE are the unpublished / uncollected ones. after all we've been through...
rating: 4
DAY 22: OUT OF ITEA
okay...well this has already taught me a new word if nothing else.
oh. never mind. it's a place, not a type of shrub. anyway this was fairly lovely.
rating: 3.5
DAY 23: THE EVERLASTING DELIGHT
that's what they call me. because of my unparalleled conversational skills, obviously.
i love House Talk.
rating: 3.5
DAY 24: THE STATUE AND THE BUST
extremely cool to be a smart and effortlessly charming woman who manages to mildly embarrass some random guy while simultaneously not thinking of him at all...
rating: 3.5
DAY 25: LEAVE IT TO ME
this one felt needlessly confusing. but maybe i'm just irritable.
rating: 3
DAY 26: SIR CECIL'S RIDE
oh men and women and young and old and so on and so forth.
rating: 3
DAY 27: LE NOZZE
i'd love to someday love anything as much as shirley hazzard loves italy.
this one was very romantic, and also not italian. whoops.
rating: 4
DAY 28: THE SACK OF SILENCE
what a nice note to end on: just banter city.
rating: 3.5
OVERALL
so much of this — the stories that feel like small captured moments of everyday life — is perfectly wonderful. unfortunately, bizarrely, inexplicably, a whole central swath of this book was what i can only refer to as the horrible corporate section.
i enjoyed this, for the most part, except when i detested it utterly.
rating: 3
Man this took forever. The first section was the strongest; the uncollected were an interesting mix. People In Glass Houses was cohesive but eventually tedious; vaguely dystopian settings don’t hold my interest.
It got pretty boring and slow. All the stories felt like they were preaching the same message and overall it got very monotonous.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity, Misogyny, Toxic relationship
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
The highlight is PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES, eight linked stories inspired by Hazzard’s time at the United Nations: pitiless, bone-dry satire of the first order.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced