{"id":2247,"date":"2019-01-06T11:36:40","date_gmt":"2019-01-05T22:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/?p=2247"},"modified":"2019-01-06T11:48:44","modified_gmt":"2019-01-05T22:48:44","slug":"elizabeth-smither-the-mathematics-of-jane-austen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/2019\/01\/06\/elizabeth-smither-the-mathematics-of-jane-austen\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Smither — The Mathematics of Jane Austen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It was probably the title that enticed me to buy this collection of understated short stories. The title story is about a woman trying to write a thesis on the use of mathematical concepts in the writings of Jane Austen. It’s clever, amusing and likeable. I enjoyed reading the stories, which made a relaxing contrast to the harrowing writing of Lucia Berlin<\/a> or Miranda July<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But after I bought it, I didn’t even read this book for a long time. It vanished into my “to read” pile, where so many excellent books go to die. Months later, I picked up a volume 12 of the Phantom Billstickers Cafe Reader<\/a> — this is a free periodical print magazine full of very high-quality writing: I always grab it when I see it. In this issue was “Toothpaste”, a short story that I initially found so confusing that I thought maybe there had been a printing error, omitting some crucial paragraph. But I re-read the story, figured out its apparently shifting viewpoint, and ended up really enjoying its description of a slightly dysfunctional family dynamic. “Toothpaste” was written by — go on, see if you can guess — you’re wrong! (Unless you guessed “Elizabeth Smither”.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that, I dug out my copy of The Mathematics of Jane Austen<\/cite> and the rest is history. Later I found another short story of hers when rereading The Best of NZ Fiction, volume 2<\/cite> — “Confrontation” is a very satisfying demonstration that revenge is a dish best served cold, and opportunistic revenge is the best of all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m pretty sure I have a book of NZ short stories edited by Elizabeth Smither too. She pops up everywhere — she’s clearly had a busy writing career.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was probably the title that enticed me to buy this collection of understated short stories. The title story is about a woman trying to write a thesis on the use of mathematical concepts in the writings of Jane Austen. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,153,19,64],"class_list":["post-2247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-books","tag-elizabeth-smither","tag-new-zealand","tag-short-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2248,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2247\/revisions\/2248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderguy.com\/bennett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}