Little Labours

Little Labours
Rivka Galchen

AN OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEARA droll and dazzling compendium of observations, stories, lists, and brief essays about babies.‘Beguiling … A wunderkabinett of baby-related curios … A peculiar book, and astonishing in its effect.’ Boston GlobeOne August day, a baby was born, or as it seemed to Rivka Galchen, a puma moved into her apartment. Her arrival felt supernatural, she seemed to come from another world. And suddenly, the world seemed ludicrously, suspiciously, adverbially sodden with meaning.But Galchen didn’t want to write about the puma. She had never been interested in babies, or in mothers before. Now everything seemed directly related to them and she specifically wanted to write about other things because it might mean she was really, covertly, learning something about babies, or about being near babies.The result is Little Labours, a slanted enchanted miscellany. Galchen writes about babies in art (with wrongly shaped head) and babies in literature (rarer than dogs or abortions, often monstrous); about the effort of taking a passport photo for a baby not yet able to hold up her head and the frightening prevalence of orange as today’s chic colour for baby gifts; about Frankenstein as a sort of baby and a baby as a sort of Godzillas. In doing so she opens up an odd and tender world of wonder.

Copyright (#ulink_76209a53-8c70-5907-bcd2-cec26f8ef99e)

4th Estate

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2017

First published in the United States by New Directions in 2016

Copyright © Rivka Galchen 2016

Design by Erik Rieselbach

Cover image © Cougar (coloured engraving), German School, (19th century) /

Private Collection / © Purix Verlag Volker Christen / Bridgeman Images

Rivka Galchen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

“Notes on Some Twentieth-Century Writers” originally appeared in Harper’s Magazine.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780008225186

Ebook Edition © October 2016 ISBN: 9780008225193

Version: 2017-04-03

Contents

Cover (#u3d0b04b9-042a-53ac-bd54-b4edc0b714f3)

Title Page (#u3a85cae9-0470-5647-8f78-96b30e96751f)

Copyright (#ua1947d0f-7c11-5089-bed6-ba2a0e262a94)

Children’s books (#uabe950a7-12e1-5b66-8b6b-940527c6e1ec)

The crystal child (#u584168a7-6e88-5839-b345-fab3da6ea8c3)

A long, long time ago, in late August (#u725ffc46-f1f4-59b6-8ebd-e45bf8f0f238)

A reason to apologize to friends (#u5624abfb-8bed-5f28-aca7-66a88c72148b)

What drug is a baby? (#u2c9f42b7-8211-5ce2-8eb1-75904fcab795)

Dynasty (#u6a6283d0-15a5-52f5-b060-10f68479afc2)

Cargo cult (#u76fa2b66-acb1-50db-aa3a-2d3494e97749)

Mysteries of taste (#ube115cf4-4daf-5536-9983-69e7355b128e)

Cravings (#u3dcd4e55-6324-5a80-bece-4be663fbaf25)

Religious aspects of the baby (#u520baa49-4f6a-5d4c-8c1a-92981f7a77e0)

Head shape (#litres_trial_promo)

The romantic comedy (#litres_trial_promo)

Wiped out (#litres_trial_promo)

The species (#litres_trial_promo)

Literature has more dogs than babies (#litres_trial_promo)

More Frankenstein (#litres_trial_promo)

And movies (#litres_trial_promo)

Princess Kaguya (#litres_trial_promo)

Rumpelstiltskin (#litres_trial_promo)

How the puma affects others, one (#litres_trial_promo)

How the puma affects others, two (#litres_trial_promo)

Notes on some twentieth-century writers (#litres_trial_promo)

Other people’s babies (#litres_trial_promo)

Other people’s babies, two (#litres_trial_promo)

Other people’s babies, three (#litres_trial_promo)