Katariina Kottonen’s Reviews > The Wedding People > Status Update

(Also, curious that Cubism gets mentioned so very much, but without the author ever giving a reason. On page 25: '...[students] were drawing graduate-level comparisons between Virginia Woolf and Cubism.' There is no getting away from either.) (3/3)

This is one of the more interesting points in the novel: the repetition is unrecognised by the speaker, but the description applies to the marriage of Lila's parents. Strange that her groom remained unaware. (2/3)

'[Lila] kept going on about how she didn't want to be in a marriage where she was expected to sit around and talk about the Cubists every day.

Which was very confusing, since I don't think I've ever said one thing about the Cubists in my life.' (1/3)

This would be unremarkable, except that four pages earlier we were told, 'Juice eats twelve [spoons] in a row.' The cited number should have been one hundred and forty-seven.

It does not matter as such, but serves as a point of annoyance: why would the author insist on precision and then not provide it? Cf. proofreading. (2/2)

'Lila stops just before the door. Looks at the one hundred and fifty-nine spoons. She picks one up. She eats it. She nods, like she's had an experience.' (1/2)

Husband ex machina!

Friendship can be hard. Friendship can be very easy. Friendship can fluctuate between those two states. 'Radical honesty' sounds like a very blunt tool and hardly a universal one. How is our character, having lived in this world for forty years, having thought and read extensively, portraying such newness to everything is arresting. (2/2)

'Perhaps there really is no such thing as friendship, just as Phoebe thought on the darkest nights back at home.

But Phoebe can't let herself fully believe this. It seems truer to say that friendship is just hard. It requires radical honesty. A kind of openness that Phoebe felt for the first time in her life that night she arrived at the hotel, so free and unburdened by anything.' (1/2)

Alternatively, displaying all decorations for all holidays at once seems to rob the entire idea of any meaning (the sequence of holidays, putting up the decorations being part of the tradition and the ritual — as is putting them away, etc.), not to mention the dust. Not to mention that it would be very difficult to celebrate Christmas and Easter at once, unless you make it solely about chocolate, of course. (3/3)

"This is Gary's life, she thinks."

This is presented as a charming detail, illustrating that Gary is both thoughtful, uncompromising, and not afraid to go against the convention. I think. (2/3)