These essays were originally conceived to be broadcast on Radio Four. In them Andrew O'Hagan reflects upon the many different forms of friendship he has encountered in his life. Beginning with childhood friendships, the friends who you grow up and share enthusiasms with, the type of friends we make through our work, how animals form a type of unconditional friendship, the imaginary friends of childhood and those a novel writer invents, how the internet is adjusting the definition of what a friend can be.
There are two stand out chapters. One on 'Losing Friends' where O'Hagan remembers his friend Keith Martin who was the inspirational catalyst for his very moving novel Mayflies, about the loss in later life of an old friend from his teenage years. The other is a chapter about how he met and became friends with Edna O'Brien. Who he touchingly celebrates their uniquely platonic form of friendship with an older, distinctly eccentric, fiercely independent minded woman. This was for me the real delight of this short volume. the obvious reciprocity of love and appreciation between O' Hagan and O'Brien leaps fondly off the page.
"I poured her another glass. She reminisced about the first time we had dinner and recalled me telling her my daughter's name.
'I remember where we sat at the Wolseley' she said.
'I've had lovely times with you. And we have....not identical sensibilities but a lot of resemblance, whether that's race or disposition. I know that you're a wounded man who handles it very impeccably and very plausibly.'
'I remember where we sat at the Wolseley' she said.
'I've had lovely times with you. And we have....not identical sensibilities but a lot of resemblance, whether that's race or disposition. I know that you're a wounded man who handles it very impeccably and very plausibly.'
'Who knows' I said, 'but there's friendship in the speculation."
Throughout all these essays, O'Hagan reflects cogently and with all his captivating linguistic flare, not just on the particularities of one friendship, but broadens this out to ponder on our need for and the benefits of friendship. What they provide us with, that the intimate closeness of our love partners cannot.
" We each wander so much of the road alone that it's nice to have someone else, a friend who knows the weather and is minded to share their umbrella."
A lovely short book, that brings a melancholy to mind for friendships that have been lost and smiles of recognition at the life enhancing conspiratorial joys of camaraderie.
CARROT REVIEW - 5/8
No comments:
Post a Comment