Toward the end of “Birnam Wood” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), the latest novel from the New Zealand writer Eleanor Catton, Rosie Demarney, an otherwise minor character, gets a moment in the spotlight. She has been presented with a series of facts that seem to add up to a humiliating conclusion: the guy she likes has blown her off to pursue an old flame. Her fears are only confirmed by the embarrassed gaze of her crush’s sister. At home, clinging to her self-respect by a thread, Rosie firmly tells herself that she “was not going to play the role that he had cast her in; she was not going to spend the evening in her sweatpants, getting drunk and stalking him pathetically online.” A beat, a line break, and then the inevitable: “But hell. Nobody was watching.”
By now, if readers of “Birnam Wood” have learned one thing, it’s that someone is always watching. Whether people are being spied on by the modern technologies of surveillance (Google, G.P.S., cell phones, drones, social media) or by the more ancient techniques of intimacy (marriage, friendship, family, gossip), they are never afforded the luxury of a purely private action, or of avoiding the roles that others have written for them.
Denne historien er fra March 13, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra March 13, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
