Dolly Alderton - Ghosts (2020)

to ghost someone = “the act or practice of abruptly cutting off all contact with someone (such as a former romantic partner) usually without explanation by no longer accepting or responding to phone calls, instant messages, etc.”¹

In this case the Ghosts of the title is also referring to a father losing memories due to dementia, and the protagonist losing her old friendships to their marriages and babies.

My friend referred to it as my sex-and-the-city-novel, and I couldn’t describe it better, it’s all about navigating early adult life, believing or not in marriage and love, about ex boyfriends and dating, about being in your early 30s going out and drink and buying your first house and the anxiety of building a future for you and not getting any younger again. Understandably at this stage of life we sometimes feel still like a child and hesitate with certain decisions or struggle with responsibilities. Notably it’s mostly the men in the novel that are selfish, childish, a bit careless and not even honest about it with themselves.

It is clearly a book written for young women. The main character Nina George Dean just bought her first own flat in London Archway, and is back to dating after her long term relationship broke up. As a first person narrator she is retelling the events that happened in her life between her 32^nd to her 33^rd birthday, the “strangest year of her life”, which to me personally didn’t feel very strange or extraordinary at all. Her name is associated with George Micheal, who’s song was top of the charts when she was born.

Nina works a kitchen book writer publishing her own books, sufficiently successful as to be able to live from it. She published a book called “Taste”, a second one “The tiny kitchen”, and is now starting her third one, weirdly she chats with her editor about her personal life, I don’t know if this is common. She used to be a English teacher like her father, in fact she is very close to her Dad, who has dementia and is deteriorating which is a very difficult condition to witness and accompany.

Nina’s ex boyfriend Joe now has a new girlfriend, she and Joe were together for 7 years, now she has been single for 2. So, Nina decides it’s time to download a dating app and starts dating again. She starts going out with Max, 37, tall, masculine, surfer type, accountant, a bit insecure or at least introvert. They fall in love, but after 3 months of relationship Max disappears all of a sudden.

A lot of the novel is just reciting stereotypes. Nina and her friends talk about how friends and their wives behave, men want to impress, girls want to make friends. Lola is her only single friend, a yoga girl with eccentric taste clothing, always drinking prosecco or wine, talking probably about astrology (I don’t remember) a dating expert. A fun character, the Samantha of Sex and the City.

Katherine is her oldest friend, now married with children and moving to the suburbs with little time or comprehension for her childless friends. Nina also has to handle a strange new neighbour in her building who doesn’t respect anything of basic conviviality rules.

She has always had a difficult relationship with her mother who seems a hateful selfish person, with not much of personality anyway. This is put on a further strain with her Dad’s health issues.

So this is it, not much else happens. Nina is looking for meaning in life, in the decisions made y the people around her, but instead she finds mostly only pragmatism or convenience which disappoints her, but doesn’t make her lose her optimism.

I don’t regret reading Ghosts, but the characters are a bit flat, the plot a bit short, and it straight out bored me. It’s not really bad, but definitely not good either. I found it hard to identify myself in any of the characters, even as a woman in my (late) 30s. I can't relate to this life personally, I have very few couples among my friends who actually got married and going to the pubs and drink is a thing that I left in my 20s. I also know very few people who still celebrate their birthdays is their 30s with cake and invitations and their parents and all. Nina listens to female serial killer podcasts, the kind of “true crime” (the worst category of podcast, in my opinion this makes her even more pathetic). The narrator starts the novel announcing “The strangest year of her life” which makes you want to read it, but in the end to me it looked like a pretty event-less year except for the father’s health deteriorating.

Looking at the cover it becomes clear to me that I normally wouldn’t have chosen to buy this book, but I had read a nice recommendation somewhere and made an effort to not judge it by its cover.

Not really funny, not deep, not really emotional, but very readable, however a bit boring and predictable. The kind of book you can read with half of your brain switched off, just to wind down before sleeping.

1https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ghosting

Sally Rooney - Intermezzo (2024)

Después de leer todas las otras novelas de Sally Rooney, la joven autora irlandesa que está teniendo no poco de fama en los últimos años, tuve que leer Intermezzo, la encomendé con ansias y no me defraudó. 

Esta novela analiza el efecto de la diferencia de edades en la pareja y como el duelo de perder un padre influye la vida personal de dos hermanos. 

Me gustó bastante, es una lectura fácil y llevadera con temas algo pesados. Pienso que Rooney evoluciona como escritora y estoy con curiosidad esperando leer mucho más de ella en el futuro. 

Todas sus novelas exploran caracteres y relaciones amorosos dentro de sus condiciones sociales, más que acontecimientos. En Intermezzo se concentra en una relación de hermanos además en las relaciones que cada hermano tiene con las mujeres. Creo que es la primera novela que tiene personajes masculinos en su centro, sus otras novelas siguen más el punto de vista de la experiencia de mujeres, aunque estén narradas en tercera persona. 

Tenemos los hermanos Peter y Ivan Koubek cuyo padre viene de fallecer después de larga enfermedad. Los dos nunca se llevaron muy bien, quizás también debido a la diferencia de edad, pues Peter le lleva unos 10 años a Ivan y están en etapas diferentes de su vida. 

No es un libro deprimente, - y esto fue una preocupación mía antes de comenzarlo, aunque la temática es menos alegre que los enamoros y desamoros de sus otras novelas, de hecho se lee muy bien, se ríe y se llora. En capítulos alternantes entramos en la cabeza de cada uno de los hermanos y vemos sus perspectiva y luego el punto de vista desde afuera, a través del hermano o la novia.

Ivan, el más joven, es un jugador de ajedrez desde temprana edad, no es profesional porque no vive de eso, pero está ganando títulos muy importantes de alto nivel. Toda la gente lo llama un genio, y le molesta, pues para él el termino está mal porque su ranking en el mundo del ajedrez está bajando y su “talento” de hecho es fruto de horas y horas de estudio y practica. A parte de eso se mantiene con pequeños trabajos freelance, de análisis de datos y similar. No tiene mucho dinero pero no le gusta la idea de buscarse un trabajo de tiempo completo en que no pueda desarrollarse y disfrutar según sus intereses. Vive en un piso compartido y por eso tuvo que dejar su perro Alexei con su madre. Pienso que su carácter de introvertido no le hace realizar que se siente solo.

Peter el hermano mayor es abogado, el orgullo de la familia, aunque en realidad siente que esta carrera no le está dando la vida que soñaba, sí que tiene menos preocupación de dinero pero sigue siendo un trabajo arduo cuando se trabaja defendiendo derechos de particulares y no articulando litigios de grandes empresas. Peter está sufriendo de una depresión desde que unos años atrás su novia de longa data, Sylvia, estuvo involucrado en un accidente grave, pero no lo reconoce. Ella sigue trabajando y sigue siendo buena amiga de la familia, pero sufre de dolor crónico y no puede o no quiere ya llevar una vida de pareja porque su dolor le incapacita mucho en la intimidad y no quiere condicionar la vida de Peter. Ahora Peter se ve en el dilema, quiere quedarse con ella. Es el amor de su vida, al mismo tiempo siente que se enamoró de una chica más joven, Naomi y disfruta mucho lo poco complicado es la relación con ella. Interiormente se castiga porque tiene una imagen de abogado a mantener, se ve a si mismo como una persona seria, no como alguien que tiene una novia 10 años más joven a quien le importan más las fiestas que la universidad, ni mucho menos lo ve aceptable por un hombre el hecho de estar involucrado con dos mujeres al mismo tiempo. Ahora cómo resuelve esto? 

Cuando los dos hermanos deciden de cenar juntos pues no se han vistos desde el entierro, la cosa explota, se pelean, los dos piensan tener razón y que el otro reacciona exagerado. Durante los meses de otoño que siguen al entierro de su padre los dos se ven confrontados con sus emociones abrumadores quizás amplificados por el duelo, aunque la muerte de su padre no ha sido una sorpresa y en cierto sentido incluso un alivio del sufrimiento de la enfermedad. Su desequilibrio emocional se vuelve una vulnerabilidad, pues los dos quieren “funcionar” con normalidad. Como casi no hablan entre ellos, y tienen poco contacto con la madre, las mujeres de sus respectivas vidas vienen a ser las que se dan cuenta de todo el tumulto emocional no resuelto.

Un día, en un evento de ajedrez, Ivan conoce a Margaret. Los dos sienten una grande atracción mutua, pero ella está en su trentena unos 10 años mayor que él y cuestiona si se puede permitir esta relación o si la presión social de la sociedad va a ser demasiado que aguantar. La gente asume que ella está abusando del joven. Y es eso que Rooney estudia con tanta precisión, las formas y maneras en que la sociedad nos presiona aunque no queramos dar por eso. Para Ivan, Margaret representa el primer amor real y la relación le hace bien en muchos sentidos. Margaret trabaja en un centro cultural rural y vive un poco aislada en el campo. Ella aún está en proceso de divorciarse de su ex-marido lo que complica un poco las cosas en el sentido de que su madre y algunos conocidos no quieren aceptar que se divorció, y ciertamente no aceptarían la idea de verle con un hombre tanto más joven. Y Ivan por su lado, chocó con su hermano precisamente por eso, porque se le escapó que está viendo una mujer casada, diez años mayor. Peter teniendo una amante mucho más joven que él no estará en la posición de dar consejos, pero esto Ivan ni sabe aún.

Con la diferencia de edad tanto entre hermanos como entre novias viene una diferencia económica, Rooney explora como esta diferencia “banal” influye nuestras relaciones sociales. La amante de Peter, Naomi, vive en una okupa y cuando la expulsan en medio de la crisis de habitación, Peter la invita vivir con él. Le da dinero pero no la reconoce como persona a la altura de sus ojos. Disfruta llegar a casa y que la casa no este vacía, pedir comida rápida y tener sexo. La relación con Naomi es muy diferente de su relación con Sylvia. La última era su compañera de estudios y ahora trabaja en la facultad.

Ninguno de los dos hermanos tiene una buena relación con la madre, Christine desde que esta vive con su nueva pareja y la familia de éste, aunque Peter está más cómodo con la situación que Ivan, que se siente un poco como la oveja negra de la familia y se quedó a vivir con su padre en el momento de la separación. Christine parce un personaje realmente antipático.

En resumen, es una novela que en buena manera Rooney analiza dinámicas de poder inherentes en toda interacción social, las expectaciones de la sociedad, el qué dirán y hace un deep dive psicológico en los protagonistas. Como en todos sus libros hasta ahora las escenas de sexo no me gustan, me parecen poco realistas. No es una novela para todo el mundo. En comparación con sus otras novelas diría que ésta sin duda es más seria, no que las otras no lo sean, pero en el sentido que se centra en un momento difícil en la vida de los personajes. Obviamente al final se resuelven los problemas y todo el mundo sale de eso más fuerte. Yo la disfruté.

Miranda July - All fours (2024)

"Everyone thinks doggy style is so vulnerable,” Jordi said, “but it’s actually the most stable position. Like a table. It’s hard to be knocked down when you’re on all fours.”

Miranda July – 

This is an unusual novel, it's about desire, artistic and emotional freedom, deep relationships, ageing and modern family life.

I very much liked it, I loved parts of it, but I  kind of didn't love the whole. I think it is an important novel. The title gives the idea that it is a sex novel, but it explores way more.

The main character is a woman in the second half of her forties. She is married to Harris, a nice, reliable guy, with whom she has a non binary child. She is a medium successful/known artist and Harris is in the music business, they have a nice home and don't have to work crazy hours.

She is trying to manage family life and keep pursuing her interests in arts, performance and beauty in her garage studio. We don't really get to know a lot about her artistic projects, but she has an agent and gets appointments with pop stars in the arts and performance world.

She has a work trip to NY coming up and randomly decides to drive from LA instead of flying. She thinks about enjoying this time away from family life, have an adventure. She loves her family over everything but knows that her work is essential for her mental health, allowing her to be a better mother.

Harris, her husband comes up with Drivers and Parkers as a metaphor for people who either are very stable and reliable but kind of boring or very good in special, but exceptional, precise or creative tasks. Clearly he is a Driver and she a Parker. I liked this thought experiment.

"Well, in life there are Parkers and there are Drivers,” he began. “Drivers are able to maintain awareness and engagement even when life is boring. They don’t need applause for every little thing—they can get joy from petting a dog or hanging out with their kid and that’s enough. This kind of person can do cross-country drives

Parkers, on the other hand”—and he looked at me—“need a discrete task that seems impossible, something that takes every bit of focus and for which they might receive applause. ‘Bravo,’ someone might say after they fit the car into an especially tight spot"

She goes for her Drive but ends up having a Parking experience. So she ends up staying in Monrovia, in a cheap motel, half an hour drive from home in LA, where she spontaneously refurbishes the room in ancient French decor, with 20 000 dollars she just earned. 

She meets this young man called Davey, who is the reason she stopped her trip. He works at a Hertz auto rental but is a passionate dancer.

She falls in love head over heals with him, they seem to be soulmates, he knows who she is. He too, is married, so they do everything together except having sex. Knowing that eventually they have to separate, they spent every day as if it was the last.

The best of all in this story is the protagonist's best friend Jordi who is always there, available, and with the right words of advice. 

--- stop here if you don't want to read spoilers----

When she goes back to her family she doesn't tell them she didn't go to NY. Readapting to family life is hard for her, she even records a dancing performance for Davey and puts it on Instagram, but he doesn't respond.

She then randomly finds out she is perimenopausal, which makes her Google her symptoms and thinking about how to manage this new epoch in her life. She starts to work out and take care of her body, always thinking about Davey. It troubles her that she doesn't have this romantic exaltation with her husband, because she loves him very deeply especially as they went through the severe health issues of their newborn together, but it is a different kind of love. The childbirth trauma left her with serious flashbacks which come up even years later.

After very much debating with herself she feels she needs fill in the need for living out her sexual desires before hormones and libido vanish. For her mental and physical health and peace of mind. She then happens to find a female lover who kind of also meets that need.

You could say she has three key sexual experiences before starting to come to term with this crisis the perimenopause caused to her. She comes to an arrangement with her husband who get himself a lover as well, they affirm to each other to keep married and even talk to their child about their new special friends. 

The novel clearly has some autobiographic elements, Miranda July's best friend is a sculptor as Jordi in the book. She has a non binary child. She is a filmmaker, author and performance artist. I think I will read more by her even though I feel I'm a very different kind of person, more of the Driver's kind, not at all interested in dancing or fancy designer pop stars.

Somehow spoons are a recurring symbol of taking care of someone, in this novel. 

I think it's cool how contemporary novels treat modern marriages, normalizing separate bedrooms and having partner to raise the child and lovers on the side. And yes, even in 2025 female desire and menopause are not enough talked about publicly. 

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Ultimately, there's not so much an ending or a closure to the novel, although she does come to manage her symptoms and emotions with the right conversations with her woman friends who are going through the same. A couple of years later she even meets Davey again.

It's a smart novel. I personally think I would have liked it more if we would have known more about her work. She comes over as a but posh. But I definitely can imagine being in her shoes and feel the tension that built up and the emotional and moral dilemma.