I’ve started reading Orson Scott Card’s book Enchantment on the advice of some NaNo pseudo-acquaintance who read my NaNo’s premise. It’s surprised me a couple times.

And there’s a few lines I’ve liked. In the context of the protagonist’s mother (Esther) talking with his fiancée (Ruthie):

[Ruthie] might not realize it consciously, but she had let some thing slip, and Esther had picked up on it. That was the way communication was among women, most of the time; few women realized it, but they all depended on it. “Women’s intuition” wasn’t intuition at all, it was heightened observation, unconscious registration of subtle clues…Esther didn’t need to be told any of this. She knew, because she had trained herself to know these things. It was a school at least as rigorous as any university, but there was no diploma, no extra title to add to her name. She simply knew things, and, unlike most women, knew exactly why and how she knew.

Aren’t we most likely to consider brilliant those who think like us?

This has been my theory about “women’s intuition” as long as I’ve considered its existence, so finding someone else articulating it inclines me to think well of him for a few more pages. He has enough of these redeeming moments it’s been fairly easy to continue reading, even though nothing much had happen-happened yet (only things hinted at).

In the same conversation Ruthie is trying to explain to Esther’s husband (Piotr) the difference between the “Bible of scarcity” and the “feminine Bible,” an idea she was eating up in her Jewish philosophy class (all these characters call themselves Jewish); the idea that all the distasteful stuff in the bible can be separated from the nice stuff:

“It’s the Bible of scarcity that makes Jews think they have the right to displace the Palestinians. In the feminine Bible, the lamb lies down with the lion.”

“Lions are always glad when lambs act like that,” said Piotr. “Saves them all that energy wasted in hunting and chasing.”

It kind of loses its punch when the girl guilts him into apologizing for it.
Later, he asks his wife what’s for dinner.

“Soup,” she said. “Can’t you smell it?”
“The house always smells like good food,” said Piotr. “It’s the perfume of love.”