Various Forms of Love
There was a time when I thought there were winners and losers in love. If you liked someone more than they liked you, you lost. To keep my feelings from growing too large, to avoid losing, I would put the brakes on my affection or try to deceive myself.
Perhaps that was just me being in love. Kaori Ekuni once said that love is not something you do, but something you fall into, didn't she?
Maybe I thought that liking someone less was a way to protect myself.
Falling for someone of the same sex, falling for a married person, dealing with social disparities—the 21-year-old protagonist is full of love.
Is it our only choice to live by hurting others and being hurt ourselves?
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
Frances is 21, a student in Dublin, and a poet. She always observes her surroundings with a cool gaze. At night, she performs poetry with her best friend and former girlfriend, Bobbi. Bobbi is beautiful, determined, and the center of attention wherever she goes. At an event, the two meet a journalist named Melissa, who wants to write an article about them. When they follow her invitation to her home, they find her husband, an actor named Nick. As they continue to associate with this wealthy, older couple, Frances realizes she is irresistibly drawn to Nick.
As the title 'Conversations' suggests, the story is composed through conversations, emails, chats, and phone calls, yet it is silent and not noisy. Opinions, impressions, sharp and cruel words are quietly piercing and stinging, and I was drawn to Frances's precariousness.
Bobbi, Melissa, and Nick are wealthy, but Frances is not. Burdened by her father's alcoholism and her own poor health, she feels anxiety and frustration about life, and she doesn't know what to do about love either.
Frances's sensitivity and the intensity of her inner life made my heart ache. A 21-year-old girl with nowhere to go.
The email from Melissa after she found out about their relationship was intense. There are emotional surges, but she also has the composure of an adult woman and a wife, and she is struck by Frances's youth.
Why the handsome actor Nick doesn't feel attractive—Melissa's email helped me understand that myself.
I love you.
The fact that Nick only used these words after telling Melissa about the affair feels like a key to understanding Nick as a slippery character.
Frances uses these words with Bobbi, but not with Nick. She also has love for her alcoholic father.
Same-sex, married, capitalist, wealthy, society, individual.
Forms of love as defense and attack.
Hurting and being hurt.
Covered in wounds, Frances, you are 21.
Your weapons are youth, freedom, and talent.
It will surely be okay.
