{"id":4934,"date":"2010-09-17T15:30:14","date_gmt":"2010-09-17T19:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=4934"},"modified":"2010-10-27T14:14:55","modified_gmt":"2010-10-27T18:14:55","slug":"smart-and-bored-big-pretzels-of-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/17\/smart-and-bored-big-pretzels-of-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart and Bored; Big Pretzels of Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Which books would you recommend to a smart, bored, somewhat alienated
\nteenage girl trapped in the suburbs?<\/em>
\u2014Alice<\/p>\n

The first recommendation that leaps to mind is Jean-Christophe Valtat\u2019s novella 03<\/a>\u2014a book all about<\/em> being a smart, bored, and extremely alienated teenager trapped in the suburbs. I love it. I hesitate to recommend it only because it is so peculiar. It\u2019s written in long sentences, without paragraph breaks, and nothing happens in it. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d have liked it when I was the protagonist\u2019s age (sixteen). At that age, I remember loving Steppenwolf<\/a><\/em>\u2014even after my\u2014smarter, more bored and alienated\u2014friend Wawa told me it was trash. (I haven\u2019t gone back to decide for myself.) I also remember loving The History of Luminous Motion<\/a><\/em>, a novel you don\u2019t hear much about these days but which held up very well last time I looked.<\/p>\n

At that age (your age?), I mainly loved books that held out the promise of a more glamorous, more real world. (Washington, D.C. wasn\u2019t the suburbs, but it didn\u2019t feel real.) Elif Batuman has written memorably about her first, teenage encounter with Anna Karenina<\/a><\/em>: <\/p>\n

Think of the time it must have taken Tolstoy to write it! He hadn\u2019t been ashamed to spend his time that way, rather than relaxing by playing Frisbee or attending a barbecue. Nobody in Anna Karenina<\/em> was oppressed, as I was, by the tyranny of leisure. The leisure activities in Tolstoy\u2019s novel\u2014ice skating, balls, horse races\u2014were beautiful, dignified, and meaningful in terms of plot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I remember reading Anna Karenina<\/em> (in the smoking section of the Bagel Bakery across the street from school) and feeling the same way. Ditto Susan Sontag\u2019s essay collection Against Interpretation<\/a><\/em>. It implied a whole world of culture, and cultural events<\/em> if you know what I mean. Screenings. After-parties. Midnight debates with women in mascara. I also liked The Counterfeiters<\/a><\/em> because it depicted a world (1920s Paris) in which a brilliant teenager could become a celebrated writer without first waiting to grow up. <\/p>\n

I think I would have fallen in love with Two Girls, Fat and Thin<\/a><\/em> if I\u2019d known about it. But I probably also would have (secretly) loved The Secret History<\/a><\/em>. I bet The Rachel Papers<\/a><\/em>\u2014Martin Amis\u2019s first novel, about a kid trying to get into Oxford\u2014is almost as funny as I remember. When I was sixteen it blew my mind.<\/p>\n

There is one other recommendation I hesitate to make\u2014for very different (obvious) reasons. When I was fourteen I was given a copy of The Paris Review<\/em>. I certainly liked reading those stories, poems, and interviews, but they also gave me a connection\u2014my only connection, really\u2014to a thriving literary scene. I like to think another fourteen-year old might feel the same way today.<\/p>\n

Dear <\/em>Paris Review,<\/p>\n

I am fond of this thing called wisdom. And also books, fiction books. I am wondering if you can recommend fiction that poses or addresses questions philosophical in nature. I like a good story, yes, and some characters, sure, but what are some fictions (a la Borges or Dostoevsky) that seek to undo the questions of life, the big questions, the big pretzels of wisdom, in a way that compels my inner fiction-lover? Any works authored by the fairer sex, anything contemporary?<\/em><\/p>\n

Truly<\/em>,
\n
PHILANON <\/p>\n

To my mind, some of the most deeply \u201cphilosophical\u201d novels are comedies of manners where no one reads a book or posits a theory. But if I read you right, you are looking for recent, explicitly<\/em> philosophical fiction by women. In which case, I recommend The Last Samurai<\/a><\/em>, by Helen De Witt. Some of my friends swear by Iris Murdoch. She was philosophical. I have been encouraged several times to get through The Sea, The Sea<\/a><\/em>. It hasn\u2019t worked. But I remember enjoying A Fairly Honourable Defeat<\/a><\/em>. There are also the many wonderful short novels of Muriel Spark. You might begin with The Comforters<\/a><\/em>. Doris Lessing may not be in fashion\u2014and I very much doubt she would appreciate any reference to the \u201cfairer sex\u201d\u2014but she too is a brilliant thinker-in-fiction. Read \u201cTo Room Nineteen.\u201d A few years ago Zadie Smith did a sort of rewrite of Howard\u2019s End<\/em>, set in Cambridge: On Beauty<\/a><\/em> may not tackle the great questions of existence, but it is deeply informed by the philosophical work of Elaine Scarry. As a piece of wisdom literature, I cannot recommend highly enough John Clayton\u2019s short story collection Radiance<\/a><\/em>. In particular I have been moved by the story \u201cThe Man Who Saw Radiance.\u201d It\u2019s a story that\u2014a dozen years after the first time I read it\u2014I still think about a lot. <\/p>\n

Have a question for <\/em>The Paris Review? E-mail<\/a> us.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which books would you recommend to a smart, bored, somewhat alienated teenage girl trapped in the suburbs? \u2014Alice The first recommendation that leaps to mind is Jean-Christophe Valtat\u2019s novella 03\u2014a book all about being a smart, bored, and extremely alienated teenager trapped in the suburbs. I love it. I hesitate to recommend it only because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[57,884,885,886],"class_list":["post-4934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ask-the-paris-review","tag-advice","tag-teenage-girl","tag-trapped-in-the-suburbs","tag-wisdom"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSmart and Bored; Big Pretzels of Wisdom by Lorin Stein<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"September 17, 2010 \u2013 Which books would you recommend to a smart, bored, somewhat alienated teenage girl trapped in the suburbs? \u2014Alice The first recommendation that leaps to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/17\/smart-and-bored-big-pretzels-of-wisdom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Smart and Bored; Big Pretzels of Wisdom by Lorin Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"September 17, 2010 \u2013 Which books would you recommend to a smart, bored, somewhat alienated teenage girl trapped in the suburbs? 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