Dept. of Speculation – Jenny Offill
Section 1 – Reading For
Of the books we have read so far this semester, Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill is the most vague, yet painfully specific narrative. The story follows a woman, who calls herself the Wife, and the beginning and possible end of her family unit. In the first few chapters, we read as she falls in love and gets married and has her first child. We then experience the fear and joy of being a mother, and the pain of being cheated on. Jenny Offill drags the reader through an experience that many people know deeply, and presents us with one possible ending out of millions.
The wife tells her story in bursts and jumps sprinkling in seemingly disconnected facts or quotes. The epitaph says “Speculators on the universe…are no better than madmen” which is a quote from Socrates. To open a book called Dept. of Speculation, this quote immediately makes me think that the narrator finds herself to be some kind of madman. Or at least her speculation is driving her somewhat mad.
I found this book extremely easy to read. The short paragraphs and seeming random nature of outside information kept me deeply committed and interested in the story. I sat down to read just a few pages to get a feel for the narrative and I found myself halfway through without even trying. I thought then, I was already halfway there, so I finished it in one sitting. The narrator resonated with me. She is struck with a dual nature, two perfectly opposite desires, one never possible if the other is true. This contradictory nature is something I believe I struggle with, and so I found the book compelling and hard to put down. As I read I would wonder how this narrator would deal with her conflicting desires.
She struggles with what she once wanted from life, and what her life has become. On page eight she says “I was going to be an art monster instead.” In the past she never wanted to get married and have children, but by chapter 12 she’s done both of these things. But also, she no longer knows what she truly wants, or why she isn’t satisfied with what she has. She even has inner monologues like this one:
What do you want? I don’t know.
What do you want? I don’t know.
What seems to be the problem? Just leave me alone” (39).
The narrator can not rectify that she is a wife and mother, working a job that the husband would probably call “only vaguely soul-crushing” (34) if the roles were reversed. The narrator also says that someone asks her about her second book, (38) which isn’t written yet. She was on the path to be this art monster, she even has people who are curious about her next work, yet here she is struggling to get by being a mother and a wife. Her life unfolds at a pace counter to her original desires. But don’t dreams change?
I think mostly, the narrator is struggling with herself in these first few chapters. If she was an art monster who didn’t care for mundane things (8), than she would have never known the laughter of her daughter (32), but by giving up that part of her she loses a light that shines within (30). Then again, by giving up being that monster she can be a part of a society that thinks she is doing all the right things, but by being a part of this society she fades, becoming one of the mothers who do not show up early (42).
This progression is the start of the novel’s network of controlling values. These values can be found throughout the novel, but specifically in the in first 12 chapters. A controlling value for any given person is a cultural narrative their life follows. People will see any event or action through the lense of their own controlling values. This is how people with opposing views will always think their way is right even when given evidence that may prove the opposite. Controlling values are at the base of all judgments and a person’s assumed meaning of reality. In Dept. of Speculation this is one of the dominant networks of controlling values that I found:
Controlling Values
Context: Being selfish and concerned only with oneself and the creation of art, one loses out on the biologically driven happiness that having a family and children provide.
Purpose: By forgoing some personal desires and giving oneself fully to the life of family, one will be wholly rewarded in the delights of children and die knowing that they have left something behind to continue to grow and prosper.
Opposing Controlling Values
Context: By giving up personal agency to focus on having a family and following social norms, one loses the spark of originality and light that made them an artistic creator.
Purpose: Accepting that the creation of art takes sacrifice, one can be a greater asset to society by allowing themselves to break free of social norms and do what they were meant to do, create.
But even this does not encapsulate the whole story for the narrator. I wonder if she really gives anything up to continue creating. She has her family, and she has her second book, so to speak. She has gone through hardships and made sacrifices, but in the end it looks as if the only thing she truly loses is the city.
To me, she is never truly happy. Even she quotes, while talking about the Buddhist’s three marks one must reach to attain wisdom “The third is an understanding of the unsatisfactory nature of ordinary experience” (47). I think she may have discovered a kind of wisdom, yet still she feels “There is such a crookedness in my heart. I had thought loving two people so much would straighten it” (44). This is the conflicting nature the Wife lives in, not fully committed to either ideal, for both are perfect opposites and she doesn’t know what she wants more.
Section 2 – Form and Genre
Contributions made by Brittany Green
Looking beyond the mimetic and thematic registers I tried to move deeper into the synthetic. Dept. of Speculation, for a fiction novel, certainly has an interesting structure. As I briefly mentioned in section 1 the story is told in small snippets that are interspersed with quotes and the like from other authors that the narrator/Wife feel are important. When I first read the story, the divergences in the narrative felt just like that, divergences; but, when I took another look I found that many times the divergence actually gave the narrative more meaning. On page 38 the narrator writes:
I tell my husband about [the job offer]. Yes, yes, yes, he says. It turns out we’re running low on money for diapers and beer and potato chips.
What Fitzgerald said: Once the phial was full–here is the bottle it came in. Hold on, there’s a drop left there…No, it was just the way the light fell.
So I meet with the rich man” (38).
Her divergence into “What Fitzgerald said” is actually directly related to the struggle her and the Husband are experiencing. The Wife was not aware that money was becoming so tight, and I would guess she had the hope that she could hold out from taking a job she didn’t want, but that dream was dashed when she knew she had to for the sake of her family. Another example can be found in chapter 15, each paragraph is some fact about astronauts or the cosmos and they seem only loosely connected until finally the narrator writes “ ‘What I’m looking for,’ the almost astronaut tells me, ‘is interesting facts’ ” (60); it is then obvious that the jumps are symbolic of her telling the almost astronaut different tidbits that she has found through her research, and that he is ultimately shooting down what she finds interesting.
As Brittany Green discussed “We usually do not think in clear, concise patterns, but instead we experience a million random thoughts one after another” which explains perfectly how this narrative reads. There are bursts of story, reflection, and outside information. It may be disjointing to read at first, but once the reader allows themselves to be taken along by the form, once they alter their reading for, they will begin to feel the natural flow of the story that, to me, is very similar to natural human thought.
Not only is the narrative told in an unconventional way, something as simple as the margins appear to be different as well. To me the pages look closer to those out of a book of poetry than that of fiction. The margins are wider on both sides and create a thin, streamline look, that to me, promotes a faster reading pace. That, coupled with the shorter paragraphs, I would read quite a few pages very quickly without even realizing.
All of these things that I’ve mentioned so far reflect how this narrative broke away from my generic expectations. Most fiction books follow a very similar form, there is an obvious story taking place, most times with clear dialogue between characters, physical descriptions of the setting, and an easy to follow progression of events (to name just a few expectations). Dept. of Speculation does and does not do this. Once the reader can move past the difference in structure from what they were expecting to what they have, then the rest of the normal generic expectations are present. When the narrative ends and the reader looks back the story does have all the things that one would expect from a fiction piece, but because of the structure it’s like the story has so much more, and it makes it that much better.
So far, I’ve focused most on the Conventional form of the story, or the generic expectations. Jenny Offill’s substantive and stylistic features are what standout the most, the stream of consciousness style and interspersed tidbits create the experience the readers progress through. But the Conventional form is not the only one, the Syllogistic Progressive form deals with “the unfolding of the steps of an argument, such that the conclusion follows as a matter of necessity once the premises are laid out for the reader” as argued by Dr. Andrew Kopp. In the case of Dept. Of Speculation, a story surrounding a wife dealing with a cheating husband, among other things, I thought that the story would progress to her leaving him. In my mind, many of the passages in the text pointed to this end, for example:
Once ether was everywhere. The crook of an arm, say. (Also the heavens.)…Then it was gone, like hysteria, like the hollow earth…There is only air now. Abandon your experiments.
The wife wants to go to the hospital. But she does not want to have gone to the hospital” (157).
These two passages show the pain, and the helplessness that the Wife feels, largely in part because of what the husband did. To me this is indicating that for the Wife to prosper again she’d have to separate herself from that which causes her so much pain. This isn’t the only instance that sways the reader to believe that the Wife can not go on being with the husband, but by the end they are still together. I was surprised to find that the Wife managed to forgive, and maybe forget, to some degree, all the low places she was in. When she finally starts making the small steps to be in a good place with the Husband my expectation of the end did change, and so did the syllogistic progression. At the beginning of the story I would have said they wouldn’t make it, but by the end I think there is hope for them, at one point the narrator says “And one day the Wife realizes she’s driven past the Holiday Inn Express without noticing” (171), meaning the place she escaped to when the couple was at their worst was losing meaning, becoming just a hotel again. It’s at this point the reader starts to think, they may make it.
As Brittany Green discussed in her blog, the Qualitative Progressive form is also very important to the flow of the narrative. This progression deals more with emotions than a logical sequence. In the Syllogistic form the reader moved along in a logical sense, the Wife’s previous reactions lead the reader to believe that she would act in a particular way throughout the narrative and come to a logical conclusion. The Qualitative form deals more in the emotional aesthetic the reader experiences, one emotion leads to another, and allows the reader to exist in that feeling when reading the text. As the reader, I moved with the Wife through “loving” the Husband, “hating” his betrayal, and finally “accepting” him again.
Brittany points out the emotion of the Wife and Husband’s slow drift apart, she quotes “Lying in bed, you’d cradle my skull as if there were a soft spot there that needed to be protected. Stay close to me, you’d say. Why are you way over there?” (18). Here we see the beginning of the love they share, the gentleness of discovering this together, the closeness. Then “After you left for work, I would stare at the door as if it might open again” (24), and finally:
And then there is the night that he misses putting their daughter to bed. He calls to say he is leaving work right when she thinks he will be home, something he has never done before” (96).
The bud of the relationship, the slow drift after the daughter is born, and finally the assumed point of his transgression. The reader can move with the Wife through these emotions and feel something similar to what she would when the Husband comes home late from work for the first time.
These emotional shifts out the capable reader in a position to experience the book on a deeper level. If the reader can feel, or understand, how the Wife is feeling, then they can appreciate her resolution all the more. The form and the genre influence this.
Section 3 – Intertextuality
Contributions made by Alexander Geffard
Moving forward, another lense to view the Dept. of Speculation with is that of Intertextual Codes. As Alex Geffard points out in his blog “Kaja Silverman, in The Subject of Semiotics, paraphrases Roland Barthes by explaining that ‘a code represents a sort of bridge between texts. Its presence within one text involves a simultaneous reference to all of the other texts in which it appears, and to the cultural reality which it helps define-i.e. the particular symbolic order.’ ” meaning that a code is some form of a reference to another text, or all other texts. People move through life and have very distinct connotations for certain words without even realizing it. A word like exploit has an incredibly negative connotation yet it is a word that can be found in countless contractual terms and agreements, even though it feels so wrong. This word has such a feeling attached to it because the western cultural codes that surround it.
There are five interconnected intertextual codes. The Semic deals with grouping signifiers around a proper noun, this normally creates a meaning the reinforces the Cultural code. The Hermeneutic code deals with the introduction and resolution of mystery or enigma. The Proairetic code deals with cause and effect in a narrative, or its narrative sequence. The Symbolic code creates opposition that reinforces the cultural codes. Finally, the Cultural code itself. This code deals with the controlling values, and as Silva Silverman argues “speak the familiar ‘truths’ of the existing cultural order, repeat what has ‘always been already read, seen, done, experienced.” The Cultural code is a combination of all the other codes, and is arguably the most important.
Jenny Offill takes terms such as wife and husband, and creates a deeper meaning because of the already present cultural codes. I believe that Offill is very aware of the cultural codes that surround the nouns that she used. On page 126 she writes:
In Epirus, there is a kind of spider called ‘the sunless one.’ The Cypriots called the viper ‘the deaf one.’ The ides was to give such dangerous creatures a sort of code name, one that is calculated to leave them unaware that they have been mentioned” (126).
This discussion of code names makes me believe that the Wife is code for something much larger. Offill then writes “The fear was that to mention such a creature would cause it to appear” (126). What does the Wife stand for? Would saying it plainly make it appear, rearing its head? This is the Semic code at work.
The term Wife has numerous connotations linked to it, and they vary by person, and by culture. In Western culture the Wife is the homemaker. In modern days some of these stereotypes are finally being attacked, but the truth of the matter still remains; Wife is lover and mother. It’s sad to think that a lot of people believe this, and because they do these stereotypes are perpetuated. Any reader brings these biases to the book, without even being aware, and even if they do not agree with them.
It is a very strong stylistic choice then the for a majority of the book the narrator refers to herself only as the Wife. This creates a certain mold that the narrator feels she must fit, and when she doesn’t the reader knows. The double standard that the narrator makes for herself is one of the Cultural codes she struggles with.
There is a prevalent idea that a woman can not be a wife and mother, while also be successful in her work. Western culture shames women for even trying, they accuse them of neglecting their families while at the same time a man, or husband, is rewarded for neglecting his family and only focusing on work, if he’s providing for them. The Wife in the narrative enforces these cultural codes on herself. She feels like she is simultaneously wrong for wanting more from her work and from her role as wife. These double standards are so deeply enshrined in our culture that it is easy to be the Wife from this story, creating obstacles, and limitations where none may exist.
What is also very interesting about Dept. of Speculation is its use of other texts. Most times the intertextuality of a text is implicit, but in this narrative there are numerous references to other texts, with quotes directly from them. While many connections are being made through the connotations of the words or story, others are blatant and obvious. Instead of recognizing a particular idea or expression, it’s there for the reader, written out.
Section 4 – Narrator and Addressee
Contributions made by Jordan Coughlin
The final lense with which to view this book is through the Wife herself, or the assumed narrator. When reading it is assumed that the narrator is the Wife. She starts with first person narration and transitions into third person. But if I believe that the narrator is the Wife then who is she addressing?
A story about betrayal, by one’s lover, and by oneself, is far reaching in the number of suitable addressees. But who exactly is this narrator writing to? As Jordan points out in his blog “the fact that the addressee would seem to be someone that is allowed to peer directly into her mind as if a window were literally installed in the back of her skull” while talking about the books stream-of-consciousness feel, makes me wonder who could have this type of access. But what’s really important is who would the narrator want to know her story on such an intimate level.
I feel that this story is the Wife’s long awaited second book. It reads like a nonfiction piece to me, the actual reader, and could possibly be the Wife’s “nonfiction” book in the narrative’s reality. This would make the addressee women like the wife, or others who have read her first book, and so on. It then makes the story a work that could possibly be consumed by a large number of people.
The story interpellates us into this role by starting off in the first person, and providing seemingly small meaningless details that create a rich, real experience. When the Wife is talking about her apartment in the city she writes;
I liked my apartment because all of the windows were at street level…Once, as I lay in bed, a bright red sun appeared in the window. It bounced from side to side, then became a ball” (6).
Something so small, and insignificant, draws the reader into this world the narrator is creating. This tiny detail makes me feel like the piece was nonfiction to begin with, even though it was not.
Also the way the story is so mundane, and not in a bad way. The events that take place are specific to these characters while also being completely universal. In one chapter the narrator walks the baby to get her to stop crying, she even takes her and walks around a drug store. How many countless parents have experienced something similar? These types of asides and plot points create the poignant narrative and interpellate the reader into story.
To be an authentic reader, one must agree with the controlling values of the text. For this story, one must understand the choices that shape a life from being a mother, or a creator. If a woman feels that to be a mother is the most important role in their lives, then they will struggle with the narrator’s reluctance to give herself over fully to her family.But if the reader can let themselves be interpellated into this role they will find things that they would not have been able to otherwise.
Through the methods learned in class over the semester I have been able to look at texts such as Dept. of Speculation in new ways. This was the final book that we read so our analysis from the start was more in depth than the previous blogs. I also finished the entire book before writing the first blog so I felt that I had a broader understanding to create my controlling values from.
Looking back, especially at our attempts from Slade House by David Mitchell, I approached the methods in a completely different manor. For example, when we were compiling blog 2 I basically wrote a blog 3 unintentionally. I thought I was taking the method and applying it, but really I took intertextuality and ran with it, but even so I did not focus on the codes but just references that can be found in the text. I did find some cool things out about different words, and things they meant, but I did not do the blog correctly.
Also my blog for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was blog 4, and was a mess the first time I wrote it. I had since revisited it and edited it completely, but I was sad to think that so much changed just from then to now. It was hard going through it in class.
Honestly, what I think I’ll end up taking from this course, and the methods, is a plethora of options, or lenses, to approach a text with. Also, the obvious, and sometimes disheartening, cultural codes and prevailing controlling values are popping up everywhere. Books or movies that I previously liked are littered with controlling values that I don’t want to live by, and of course the string of sexual assault victims coming forward is a perfect example of the controlling values rearing their ugly heads. Rape culture is real and terrifying. Women are sexualized younger and younger in books and television, and there is this new sick twist to the older man and younger girl trope. I keep seeing this depiction that if the girl is the one instigating it then it’s fine, but it’s not. It still comes down to an adult and child. But also the worst part, the part that I have the potential to be very ashamed about, is that I recognize these cultural codes and I have the option to ignore them. I can no longer plea ignorant, and I can have to realize that these codes appear even in my own writing.
Works Cited
Offill, Jenny. Dept. of Speculation. Vintage Books, 2014.
How Writers Read 