Conversations with Friends

I’ve been with the Kindle for a while — love it to death — but a physical book has something about it. The hostel had a “book swap” which featured 80% Swedish books. In the slim pickings of languages I could read, I decided to read my first work by Sally Rooney. Part of being a (now-former and still-recovering)¹ debater is being proud that you share an activity with Sally Rooney, who wrote one of the best essays on the activity you could imagine.

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1. One of my biggest fears — which the book reminded me of — is how quickly life spirals. Illness, finances, relationships — they seem to feed & feed until they’re all in unrecognisable states, which yes is due to you, but at the same time it doesn’t feel like you got them there.
2. I’m fairly confident I have permanent nerve damage from a day on killy. My fingers continue to feel numb and uncomfortable — and yes, that is a lot better than brain damage, but part of me is scared to live like this forever. It’s interesting Frances’ reaction was religion.
3. Sally Rooney writes the most human characters I’ve read in a while.
4. The book was in rough shape (pages were falling out) and the condition of the book matched the condition of Frances as it went on. Funny coincidence.
5. Near the end, with a substantial number of pages in my right hand, I got lost in the last few sentences of the book — which are now in the 1/quotes section of this website — and I turned the pages excitedly, to the acknowledgements section. All this verbosity to say: I really enjoyed the ending, and didn’t notice the end was arriving. Although, that’s how those things usually go.

Footnotes

1. Joking, am not serious, do still value debating, promise. ↩