"The Rosie Project"

[fiefoe]

Graeme Simsion's delightful confection only strains a bit towards the end.

• Then Claudia told me, as though it was a problem, “She has very firm ideas.” “Are they evidence-based?” “I guess so,” Claudia said. Perfect. She could have been describing me.
• My own work focuses on genetic predisposition to cirrhosis of the liver. Much of my working time is devoted to getting mice drunk.
• in reviewing the interaction later, I realized that Gene must have lied to her about his reason for not being present.... It seems hardly possible to analyze such a complex situation involving deceit and supposition of another person’s emotional response, and then prepare your own plausible lie, all while someone is waiting for you to reply to a question. Yet that is exactly what people expect you to be able to do.
• “Use the baby as bait.” “How many guns do we have?” “Cover its mouth.” “How long can it live without air?” As I had expected, all the ideas came from the Asperger’s “sufferers.”
• age of 207, according to the number of birthdays, when she stopped recognizing me, and 319 when she no longer responded to the daphne and I abandoned the visits.
• A questionnaire! Such an obvious solution. A purpose-built, scientifically valid instrument incorporating current best practice to filter out the time wasters, the disorganized, the ice-cream discriminators, the visual-harassment complainers
• But my strategy was to minimize the chance of making a type-one error—wasting time on an unsuitable choice. Inevitably, that increased the risk of a type-two error—rejecting a suitable person. But this was an acceptable risk as I was dealing with a very large population.
• “My jacket is superior to yours by all reasonable criteria: impermeability to water, visibility in low light, storage capacity.”
• “Get the fuck off me. I’ll fucking kill you,” he said. On that basis, it seemed illogical to grant his request.
• I corrected her. “It’s not a minor problem at all!” I pointed my finger in the air to indicate an exclamation mark.
• “People with long earlobes are more likely to choose partners with long earlobes. It’s a better predictor than IQ.”
• 1. Good experimental design requires the use of a control group. It would be interesting to use Rosie as a benchmark to compare with women selected by the questionnaire.
• vendors still setting up stalls, Asian women comparing prices, goods being delivered, and tourists taking photos of each other in front of the produce. Fortunately I am usually the only jogger.
• someone told me that a lecturer had brought a dead fish to class and given it to a student who had made a statement of religious faith, I would guess that the lecturer was you. Do you understand where I’m coming from?”
• Discordant sound, wind, risk of death—I tried to assume the mental state that I used at the dentist.
• noted by the book as being among the most popular. The (cocktails) were all excellent and tasted far more different from one another than ice-cream varieties.
• Judging from the pelvis size, it was almost certainly a male skeleton, but this was irrelevant for dancing practice.
• The second-best day was the second day there, and the third-best the third day there. But after recent events, the answer was not so clear. It was difficult to choose between the Natural History Museum and the night of cocktail making at the golf club.
• It was an odd response to an annoying version-control oversight on my part: Bianca had apparently responded to the original questionnaire.
• but not for a more serious problem. I had not practiced with music. I am sure I executed the steps accurately, but not at precisely the correct speed, and not at the same time as the beat.
• Then she said, “No way. No fucking way. You did, didn’t you? That’s worse. You’d rather make a fool of yourself in front of everyone than tell her she didn’t float your boat.”
• I’m not good at understanding what other people want.” “Tell me something I don’t know,” said Rosie, for no obvious reason. I quickly searched my mind for an interesting fact. “Ah . . . the testicles of drone bees and wasp spiders explode during sex.”
• Then, in this vanishingly small moment in the history of the universe, she took my hand, and held it all the way to the subway.
• I tried to clarify my position. “It would be unreasonable to give you credit for being incredibly beautiful.”
• Gene looked at it. “Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Do I have to point out that you haven’t had a baby recently?” “I don’t answer the baby-related questions. It was the only depression instrument Claudia had at home when my sister died. I’ve continued using it for consistency.” “This is what we call ‘getting in touch with our feelings,’ is it?” said Gene.
• it dawned on me that I had not designed the questionnaire to find a woman I could accept but to find someone who might accept me.
• “You consider the situation with Rosie to be the result of genetic compatibility?” “You have such a way with words,” Gene said.