Conversations with friends by Sally Rooney
One of the 1 star reviews on Goodreads (obviously not mine)
I have to admit, I am a self proclaimed, annoying Sally Rooney skeptic in a world of her admirers. While Jack from “Jackinthebooks” proclaims that he could read a grocery list if it was written by Sally, I think - sounds like a recipe for a death from boredom. I have read “Normal people” - and remember not feeling anything, then going into “Beautiful World, Where Are You”, I was think - wait are us millennials are truly this insufferable? But with “Conversations with friends” (ironically Sally’s first book) it finally clicked to me.
Book is essentially about two friends and ex-girlfriends Bobbi and Frances, both students in their early twenties. In one of their poetry readings they are noticed by journalist and photographer Melissa, who invites them over to her house where they also meet her husband - Nick the actor.
Frances, our observant protagonist grows enamored by beautiful Nick. As their romance grows quietly, Frances is tries to intellectualize all her feelings and gain some control over all her relationships - with her own imperfect body, with her drunk father and her complicated friendship with Bobbi.
She is also aware of her own self delusion.
“At a certain level of abstraction, anyone could have written the poem, but that didn't feel true either. It seemed as though what he was really saying was: there's something beautiful about the way you think and feel, or the way you experience the world is beautiful in some way.”
This quotes reflects to the way I feel about this book. There is something beautiful about the way author thinks and feels, about what she choses to emphasize and what to make without. Some things that are missing but not necessarily lacking:
Pompastic prose. Salley doesn’t deal in flowery languages, intricate metaphors or pages of pages of descriptions. She will add a seemingly random detail about the place or the atmosphere that will be just enough for you to feel it.
Direct speech punctuation. It is annoying at first, uncomfortable. It’s like the usual rhythm of reading itself is “punctuated” (pun very much intended). The reader is forced to think and stop, figure out what is happening inside of the head of Francis and what is happening in the conversation.
Resolution. In the entire book one could say no true resolution happens in a satisfying way. One could hope that Frances would wake up and understand that what she and Nick are doing is hurtful to Melissa. Or she could come to terms to her own unresolved feelings for Bobbi and try to get back to her. But none of those things happen. Towards the end she comes to straight forward conclusions:
“Everyone’s always going through something, aren’t they? That’s life, basically. It’s just more and more things to go through.”
Which is painfully adult realization. Sometimes you do conventionally bad things and possibly you don’t come to learn some absolute truth about yourself or life. Maybe life doesn’t really deal in absolutes? Maybe none of us are purely good (as much as we all like to believe) or purely bad, but the unique mixture of the two?
p.S. This is the quote I relate to the most and how I justify me being an introvert.
“I think I only appear smart by staying quiet as often as possible.”
