Jenny Offill's Dept of Speculation

Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

My visual representation is a set of pentominoes, which are are featured on the cover of the UK edition of Dept. of Speculation. In an interview, Offill says the cover “perfectly mirrors the form and content of the book.”

Just as the 12 pentominoes fit together to form a 6x10 rectangle, the 46 sections of Dept. of Speculation fit together to form a novel. If you arrange the pentominoes in the wrong way, they won’t come together to form the rectangle; on the other hand, the solution we see here, on the cover of the book, is only one of 2,339 possible solutions. This raises the question, Why did Jenny Offill fit the sections of her book together in this particular way? What other solutions might exist?

I’m a little less sure of how Offill thinks pentominoes mirror the content of the book. Here’s one guess: If we take the pentominoes to represent the many

pieces that make up a life—your job, your partner, your children, your friends, etc.—we can see how there are several ways for these pieces to fit together to make a whole. The first solution you find might not work your entire life. You might need to flip the pieces, slide them into a different slot. In rearranging the pieces, you might begin to see each one differently. You might even reveal hints of light you didn’t know were there, small moments of transcendence.

STRUCTURE


• The book consists of 46 sections, and each section consists of a series of short paragraphs.

• There is a noticeable shift/breaking point in Section 22 (p. 94), about midway through the book, which corresponds with the husband’s affair: “soscaredsoscaredsoscaredsoscaredsoscared”


• In Section 22, the point of view shifts: 1st —> 3rd. It doesn’t shift back to 1st until the final section

  1. 94: I vs. the wife; We vs. They; 151: who is “us”?; 177: return to “we”


• Quotations and “interesting facts” are invoked throughout the book.

• Linear narrative threads: relationship with husband; with daughter; working on the astronaut’s book; teaching (Lia).


THEMES


What Jenny Offill said: People usually describe this novel as being about marriage and motherhood, and it is about those things, but ultimately it is about loneliness and how we might find ways to lessen that, be it through love or work or smaller moments of transcendence.

• Loneliness

• Ways to lessen loneliness (love, work, smaller moments of transcendence) - Marriage (affairs, separation)

• Motherhood

More Themes:

• Letter-writing

• Attention/Observation; hiding or keeping things from each other (affair, bed bugs)

• Light (theories of light; the word “radiant”)

• Aging (gradual loss of light as you age past your twenties, thirties; the number of sections corresponds to Offill’s age the year the book was published)