"Bettering Myself" by Ottessa Moshfegh

5 hours ago

Ottessa Moshfegh won the Plimpton Prize for two stories, 'Disgust' and 'Bettering Myself.'
The story 'Bettering Myself' features a sharp, unpredictable first-person narrator, a problem-drinking Catholic school math teacher.
The narrator's deadpan humor, unique voice, and sad undertones distinguish Moshfegh's writing.
The story describes the narrator's struggles with alcoholism, her relationships, and her disengagement from teaching.
She falsifies state exam scores to keep her job and eventually resigns due to personal reasons.
The narrative includes absurd and darkly comic elements, such as interactions with students and a attempt to find solace in a church.

The Sopranos is considered the greatest TV show, blending collective efforts in writing, acting, and production.
The show explores deep themes like mortality, identity, and meaning, balancing glamour with ugliness in human experience.
It examines three tensions: past shaping present, identity origins, and contrasts between greatness and mundanity.

The author regrets reading the sequel despite enjoying the first book, finding the law of regression to the mean unavoidable.
What was charming in the first book becomes overdone and clichéd in the second.
Violence shifts from an undercurrent to too pronounced and grim to be funny, while language antics undermine tension.

The author uses stories as their primary means of self-explanation because words alone are insufficient; stories convey deeper, nuanced meanings and require full context to be understood.
Examples from media like 'In Stars And Time', 'Carrie', '17776', and a personal photo illustrate that stories encompass multiple meanings that cannot be fully articulated in a single explanation.
The author identifies with a character from 'Ancillary Justice' (Justice of Toren One Var), whose fragmented identity mirrors the author's own experience of acting against interests and desires, highlighting the limitations of language.

Emily Wilson criticizes Christopher Nolan's script for lacking emotional depth and character development, particularly in Odysseus's motivation.
Wilson notes the film omits sex scenes and depicts food poorly, while stripping Odysseus of desires like hunger and lust.
She suggests hiring a scriptwriter could have resolved the film's issues.

Historically, potatoes were believed to cause leprosy due to their unusual appearance and growth method.
AI can now generate full academic papers from spurious correlations, potentially making some academic fields redundant.
2025 is projected to have the fewest US murders since reliable data began in 1960.

The Sopranos is considered the greatest TV show, blending collective efforts in writing, acting, and production.
The show explores deep themes like mortality, identity, and meaning, balancing glamour with ugliness in human experience.
It examines three tensions: past shaping present, identity origins, and contrasts between greatness and mundanity.

The author regrets reading the sequel despite enjoying the first book, finding the law of regression to the mean unavoidable.
What was charming in the first book becomes overdone and clichéd in the second.
Violence shifts from an undercurrent to too pronounced and grim to be funny, while language antics undermine tension.

The author uses stories as their primary means of self-explanation because words alone are insufficient; stories convey deeper, nuanced meanings and require full context to be understood.
Examples from media like 'In Stars And Time', 'Carrie', '17776', and a personal photo illustrate that stories encompass multiple meanings that cannot be fully articulated in a single explanation.
The author identifies with a character from 'Ancillary Justice' (Justice of Toren One Var), whose fragmented identity mirrors the author's own experience of acting against interests and desires, highlighting the limitations of language.

Emily Wilson criticizes Christopher Nolan's script for lacking emotional depth and character development, particularly in Odysseus's motivation.
Wilson notes the film omits sex scenes and depicts food poorly, while stripping Odysseus of desires like hunger and lust.
She suggests hiring a scriptwriter could have resolved the film's issues.

Historically, potatoes were believed to cause leprosy due to their unusual appearance and growth method.
AI can now generate full academic papers from spurious correlations, potentially making some academic fields redundant.
2025 is projected to have the fewest US murders since reliable data began in 1960.

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