CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS by SALLY ROONEY
23 October 2018
There has been so much talk and excitement bubbling around Sally Rooney's "Conversations with Friends" that I knew I had to read it for myself to see what all the hype was about it. After whirring through it in no time at all I can see why people love it so much. Rooney offers up a searingly insightful take on relationships both romantic and platonic and the confusing reality of our own traumas and fears. Fearlessly truthful and unrelenting in the exposure of human interaction, Conversations With Friends was definitely worth the read.
We follow the protagonist Frances, a twenty-one-year-old student and aspiring writer who performs spoken word poetry with her friend and ex-girlfriend Bobbi. When they're interviewed to a party by Melissa, a journalist, married to actor, Nick, they step into a different world of dinner parties, holidays and literary events. As Nick and Frances become closer, they intertwining relationships become increasingly complex and confusing, as Frances faces both new experiences and new challenges to her identity and vulnerabilities.
Something I notice about Rooney's novel is that none of the characters are explicitly, or rather completely, likeable. All of them, including Frances, do things that lead us to question their actions and intentions, but I think it's this that makes it all the more intriguing because you want to follow them further. You want to see if we will learn why they do these things, if they will learn what to next and if any of us can really learn how to navigate the complexities of modern relationships.
I never know how fully we are intended to trust Frances' perceptions of others. Insightful though she definitely is, I think Rooney makes it clear that she, like all of us, is biased and swayed by our own preconceptions and fears. At times, Frances seems to reach directly into another character's mind and pull out the core of their identity and at other's she almost appears to purposefully misread people, often as a form of self-protection.
Despite all of Frances' mistakes and confusions, I think it's clear that she, like all of us, is still always in the process of learning how to live her life. We see, in stand out moments, her learning new things about those around her, Nick's past or Bobbi's current stresses, and in these moments she seems to learn that it's important not to forget what other people might be going through. It's not so much that Frances is self-centred but more to remember, as Bobbi says, that "everyone's always going through something, aren't they?"
A lot of Frances' doubts and her occasional cruelty to others seems to come from a deep-rooted self-preservation and, for me, what makes that understandable rather than unlikeable is that it's something so universal. Everybody knows what it's like to push people away for fear of getting hurt or to pretend that we don't feel the things we do. This self-preservation is largely what directs her conflicting relationship with Nick and her unfinished relationship with Bobbi. She thinks at one point, "I was a very autonomous and independent person with an inner life that nobody had ever touched or perceived". This notably happens after one of her relationships crumbles and so we see Rooney's example of how quickly we can lurch into an attempt to self-preserve and to shape a self that no-one else has seen and so also one that no-one can hurt.
As the book progresses, I felt like one of the root focuses of France's story is that she's trying to understand who she is between the blurring lines of self and others. While we do need to self-reflect, Rooney also makes it clear that we have to be able to see situations from other people's perspectives, something she shows in an exchange between Frances and Melissa, and then later Frances and Bobbi. And it's not just about letting yourself hear others but also about being honest with yourself too.
Reflecting on the events on the book, Frances notes, "You live through certain things before you understand them. You can't always take the analytical position." When you look back on the book you see how truthful this is because it's those moments that Frances stops overanalysing and is instead honest both with herself and with others after having gone through these things that we see the most progression and understanding, and the reality that in the end, we all share the same vulnerabilities. Rooney leaves the novel deliberately ambiguous but it encapsulates Frances' above realisation because she shows that we can't truly predict what will happen or how Frances or any of the others will act and neither will they. It's only something you can live through.
We follow the protagonist Frances, a twenty-one-year-old student and aspiring writer who performs spoken word poetry with her friend and ex-girlfriend Bobbi. When they're interviewed to a party by Melissa, a journalist, married to actor, Nick, they step into a different world of dinner parties, holidays and literary events. As Nick and Frances become closer, they intertwining relationships become increasingly complex and confusing, as Frances faces both new experiences and new challenges to her identity and vulnerabilities.
Something I notice about Rooney's novel is that none of the characters are explicitly, or rather completely, likeable. All of them, including Frances, do things that lead us to question their actions and intentions, but I think it's this that makes it all the more intriguing because you want to follow them further. You want to see if we will learn why they do these things, if they will learn what to next and if any of us can really learn how to navigate the complexities of modern relationships.
I never know how fully we are intended to trust Frances' perceptions of others. Insightful though she definitely is, I think Rooney makes it clear that she, like all of us, is biased and swayed by our own preconceptions and fears. At times, Frances seems to reach directly into another character's mind and pull out the core of their identity and at other's she almost appears to purposefully misread people, often as a form of self-protection.
Despite all of Frances' mistakes and confusions, I think it's clear that she, like all of us, is still always in the process of learning how to live her life. We see, in stand out moments, her learning new things about those around her, Nick's past or Bobbi's current stresses, and in these moments she seems to learn that it's important not to forget what other people might be going through. It's not so much that Frances is self-centred but more to remember, as Bobbi says, that "everyone's always going through something, aren't they?"
A lot of Frances' doubts and her occasional cruelty to others seems to come from a deep-rooted self-preservation and, for me, what makes that understandable rather than unlikeable is that it's something so universal. Everybody knows what it's like to push people away for fear of getting hurt or to pretend that we don't feel the things we do. This self-preservation is largely what directs her conflicting relationship with Nick and her unfinished relationship with Bobbi. She thinks at one point, "I was a very autonomous and independent person with an inner life that nobody had ever touched or perceived". This notably happens after one of her relationships crumbles and so we see Rooney's example of how quickly we can lurch into an attempt to self-preserve and to shape a self that no-one else has seen and so also one that no-one can hurt.
As the book progresses, I felt like one of the root focuses of France's story is that she's trying to understand who she is between the blurring lines of self and others. While we do need to self-reflect, Rooney also makes it clear that we have to be able to see situations from other people's perspectives, something she shows in an exchange between Frances and Melissa, and then later Frances and Bobbi. And it's not just about letting yourself hear others but also about being honest with yourself too.
Reflecting on the events on the book, Frances notes, "You live through certain things before you understand them. You can't always take the analytical position." When you look back on the book you see how truthful this is because it's those moments that Frances stops overanalysing and is instead honest both with herself and with others after having gone through these things that we see the most progression and understanding, and the reality that in the end, we all share the same vulnerabilities. Rooney leaves the novel deliberately ambiguous but it encapsulates Frances' above realisation because she shows that we can't truly predict what will happen or how Frances or any of the others will act and neither will they. It's only something you can live through.
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