The World is Full of Wonderful Things

I am so in love with her and her prose. I think I’ve figured out what intrigues me and freaks me out about her so much—her characters are incredibly astute; they have a social intelligence that approaches genius. Her female protagonists are whip-smart and have incredible skill at managing people. But no one in her books operates as if they understand that other people arehuman. They can predict and manipulate people’s actions and reactions with fantastic accuracy, but they are so isolated from each other and so incapable of actual intimacy that they have no sense whatsoever that other people also have true feelings, complicated inner psycho-emotional lives. It’s totally bizarre and yet such a real phenomenon in a social circle like the ones she portrays.