The Life of the Mind by Christine Smallwood

Author:Christine Smallwood [Smallwood, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2021-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

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“Did you hear,” said Keith, leaning close in a way that suggested drunkenness, “about Elyse?” Dorothy knew Elyse slightly from a Texas conference two years prior where they had presented on the same panel. Elyse’s research was about the history of meteorological reports; she had a theory about how practices in weather observation had impacted the development of literary description. It was a clever idea, and timely, and Dorothy had enjoyed Elyse’s paper. Usually Dorothy was jealous of what she enjoyed, but on that occasion she was aware that she did not wish Elyse’s research was her own. Elyse’s conclusions were interesting, but arriving at them seemed boring; Dorothy had no appetite for data. She would never call her work “research.”

In addition to her scholarly virtues, Elyse was widely acknowledged as sexy, rather in the way of an artist or elementary school teacher; she always looked a little sloppy, she carried around some aura of bedsheets and papier-mâché. Her eyebrows were dark and unruly and she never wore the typical female academic uniform of black blazer enlivened with large pendant or “statement necklace”; she favored slouchy overalls, interesting collars, dramatic patterns, and large hoop earrings. It was like she was dressing for a different life, or had a different life, off this stage and on some other. She had been married the last time Dorothy had seen her, but, according to Keith, in the intervening period Elyse had gotten a divorce. He tottered back and wiped saliva from the corner of his mouth. It was no surprise that Keith desired Elyse or that he was friends with her. Elyse and Keith had done the same postdoc and friendship blossomed between them as easily as professional laurels were exchanged; after the Texas panel, in fact, Keith had solicited Elyse to contribute to a journal issue he was editing, an issue celebrating the work of the scholar Lauren Berlant and her theory of “cruel optimism.”

“Cruel optimism” was Berlant’s way of theorizing why and how people remained attached to fantasies and aspirations of “the good life,” how those aspirations injured them, and the resulting affect—something she called “stuckness.” “Cruel optimism” was Dorothy’s entire life. But Keith had not solicited a contribution from Dorothy. He had, instead, emailed her to explain that this lack of invitation was not a sign of disrespect but the contrary—he respected her so much that he did not want to burden her when he knew, as all of Dorothy’s circle knew, that she was behind on her manuscript, her only chance of escaping, as he put it, “adjunct hell.” In other words, Dorothy knew too much about cruel optimism to write about it. When the journal arrived, she put it on the dresser/nightstand on top of the other books and magazines she intended to read. After months of not reading, she moved it to the coffee table, where it lingered until Rog, in a rare burst of tidying fever, moved it to the pile of catalogs

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