Opposites converge and hierarchies are upended in Tse’s début novel.
“The professor had his arms around Aliss’s waist, and imagined him self a prince from a fairy tale.” Already, the reader is peeking anxiously through her fingers. Abort! Abort! Literature is littered with the bodies of would-be lovers who gallop off the edge of reality. Don Quixote, the ur-fantasist, “spent his nights reading from dusk till dawn and his days reading from sunrise to sunset,” until “his brains dried up, causing him to lose his mind.” Two centuries later, Emma Bovary died of overexposure to romances, having fancied herself “the beloved of every novel, the heroine of every drama, the vague she of every volume of poetry.” And now, in “Owlish,” a new work of fiction by Dorothy Tse, a lonely middle-aged professor named Q falls in love with Aliss, a life-size mechanical ballerina. He forgets that his princess is just a toy and that he is just a “hack teacher.” In thrall to an inanimate object, he feels freer than he ever has.
Denne historien er fra June 12, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra June 12, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
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.
