#Curtis Sittenfeld

[thoughtkick]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[thehopefulquotes]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[perfectfeelings]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[quotefeeling]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[resqectable]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[stay-close]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[perfectquote]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[quotemadness]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[perfeqt]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[howifeltabouthim]

'Maybe he's not as bad as we thought, if he recognizes how special you are.'

Curtis Sittenfeld, from Eligible

[cup-and-chaucer]

Really the problem with these BookTok books like Romantic Comedy is that...they are commodities. The answer to Fran Leibowitz's brilliant quote, "A book is not a mirror, it should be a door." is that, with advent of a literary social media, we are not reading to engage with a story or an idea but to attain an ideal. Marketing is built on the tension of relatability and aspiration. We see commercials set in clean, pristine suburban homes with happy, well-behaved children because it feels like it something we could attainably be if only we had the right brand of cereal or peanut butter or dish soap or life insurance. We want to see ourselves in those places that feel within our grasp. With the rise of books as a commodity to be marketed, rather than as art or entertainment, we increasingly want to see ourselves in the books we read. We want to see aspirational versions of ourselves either reading the book (aesthetics bloggers like Dakota Warren) or within the pages of the books. This why so many of those romance books feel so...conflict-avoidant. Don't get too close to reality or imperfection.

As the idea of a corporate morality (think: rainbow capitalism) emerges, it comes out in books too. Books have to have queer or PoC characters...not because those characters are essential or interesting or natural parts of the landscape or have their own purpose in the books but because the people reading the books want to feel like they are reading diversely and want to believe they are the type of people who also have queer or PoC friends. It doesn't matter if these portrayals are sanitized or feel tokenish.

A book like Romantic Comedy, where the characters mouth literal Facebook think-piece memes I saw during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 as their political beliefs, without much self-reflection on the fact that these are two culturally powerful white people who are saying those things to signal that they are good people. It feels like a distraction and a benediction so you can support them in their rockstar fantasy romance, white guilt free. They are saying you are a good person for liking this book because the people in it are good the way you want them to be good and in the way you also want to be good. And they don't have to mean a word of it, they don't have to examine themselves any deeper, if the box is checked and disclaimer signed.

It's also why I think there is so much moral puritanism in reading now. We can't read Lolita because most of us don't want to be associated with its content and what we read, because it is now synonymous with what we buy and own and identify with, is a mirror to who we are and what we aspire to be. The problem is that books are not material things, not really, not the way jeans or furniture or cooking utensils are. They aren't forms of self-expression for the reader, the way fashion or make-up or paint is, they are simply a collection of thoughts from the imagination of an individual put into the world to tell of an experience or make an argument for us to read. That's all.

And all of this, all of this, all of this fucking capitalism is going to get conflated with the very real need for representation in literature and media, for more equitable publishing, for uplifting marginalized voices and experiences.

*sighs*

[thoughtkick]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[acotars]

Read in 2023:

Sally, you've confused the romance of comedy with the romance of romance.

ROMANTIC COMEDY by Curtis Sittenfeld ★★★★½

[perfectfeelings]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[quotefeeling]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld

[resqectable]

Being raised in an unstable household makes you understand that the world doesn’t exist to accommodate you, which… is something a lot of people struggle to understand well into their adulthood. It makes you realize how quickly a situation can shift, how danger really is everywhere. But crises when they occur, do not catch you off guard; you have never believed you lived under a shelter of some essential benevolence. And an unstable childhood makes you appreciate calmness and not crave excitement.

Curtis Sittenfeld