The last time I was in Houston, I borrowed the Alchemist and A Long Way Down from Kim’s library. Kim and I have shared a few books in our time. We read Fear of Flying in 2006 (my excerpts from my old blog here) when she was still in NYC. We had Romantic Movement and On Love. We also gave up on A New Earth around the same time. So when Kim recommends me anything, I usually end up liking it. We have a large area of overlap when it comes to our literary palate.
A Long Way Down, written by Nick Hornby who also wrote High Fidelity and About a Boy, opens with 4 strangers who have all decided to kill themselves on New Year’s Eve in London and they so happen to pick the same time and building rooftop, kind of intercepting each other’s plans. What ensues is a series of misadventures that keep delaying their respective suicides. From entirely four different walks of life the four make a very odd quartet. Jess is a loudmouth, shameless 18 year old who antagonizes everyone she speaks to; Martin is the celebrity talk show host who just served time for sleeping with a 15 year old girl; JJ is an American ex band member who also just got dumped by his girlfriend; lastly there is Maureen who is a religious, timid, inexperienced middle aged woman with a severely disabled son. At a moment’s glance, the only thing they have in common is the desire to die. They hardly like each other yet their union is remarkably solid. Individually, as well as generally, they are so dysfunctional it’s hilarious with moments of unexpected sentiment.
There you have it. Please consider using my Amazon link if you decide to give this book a try, which I recommend to those who find that life, even when it’s bad can be hilarious in its absurdity.
I find that the more quotations and excerpts I pull out of a work correlates with how much I enjoy it.
Excerpts
What I’ve come to realize over the years is that we’re less protected from bad luck than you could possibly imagine. Because though it doesn’t seem fair – having intercourse only the once and ending up with a child who can’t walk or talk or even recognize me- well, fairness doesn’t really have much to do with it, does it? You only have to have intercourse the once to produce a child, any child. There are no laws that say, You can only have a child like Matty if you’re married, or if you have lots of other children, or if you sleep with lots of different men. There are no laws like that, even though you and I might think there should be. And once you have a child like Matty, you can’t help but feel, That’s it! That’s all my bad luck, a whole lifetime’s worth, in one bundle. But I’m not sure luck works like that. Matty wouldn’t stop me from getting breast cancer, or from being mugged. You’d think he should, but he can’t. In a way, I’m glad I never had another child, a normal one. I’d have needed more guarantees from God than He could have provided.
I was beginning to realize an important truth about suicide: Failure is as hurtful as success, and is likely to provoke even more anger, because there’s no grief with which to water it down.
Why did we persist in the pathetic delusion that this relationship was in any way viable? I’m not sure. When I asked Penny what the big idea was, she said merely that she loved me, which struck me as an answer more likely to confuse and obscure than to illuminate.
“You’re seeing someone else, aren’t you?”
Seeing someone else? How on earth could that explain an of this? Why would seeing someone else necessitate bringing home a middle-aged woman, a teenaged punk, and American with a leather jacket and a Rod Stewart haircut? What would the story have been? But then, after reflection, I realized that Penny have probably been here before, therefore knew that infidelity can usually provide the answer to any domestic mystery.
I’ve been cheated on a few times by more than one person and I can related to jumping to conclusions instinctively because of your past.
There was a breakup coming, you could smell it, and no one was saying anything. And it was for the same reason, which was that we’d taken things as far as we could, and there was nowhere for us to go. That’s why everyone breaks up, I guess: bands, friends, marriages, whatever. Parties, weddings, anything.
How do people, like, not curse? How is it possible? There are these gaps in speech where you just have to put a “fuck.” I’ll tell you who the most admirable people in the world are: newscasters. If that was me, I’d be like, “And the motherfuckers flew the fucking plane right into the Twin Towers.” How could you not, if you’re a human being? Maybe they’re not so admirable. Maybe they’re robot zombies.
True fucking that!
But being alive seemed worth the price of a round of drinks. Being alive seemed worth celebrating. Unless, of course, it wasn’t what you wanted, in which case… Oh fuck it. I wanted a drink anyway. If we couldn’t think of anything else, then me wanting a drink was worth celebrating. An ordinary human desire had emerged through the fog of depression and indecision.
Hear, hear. I like to celebrate every thing even the dark things. I remember I used to celebrate monthsaries of surviving a bad break up. Every month I made it, I went out and partied. I have a friend who celebrates the anniversary of his own stabbing.
We all spend so much time not saying what we want, because we know we can’t have it. And because it sounds ungracious, or ungrateful, or disloyal, or childish, or banal. Or because we’re so desperate to pretend that things are OK, really, that confessing to ourselves they’re not looks like a bad move. Go on, say what you want. Maybe not out loud, if it’s going to get you in trouble: “I wish I’d never married him.” “I wish she was still alive.” “I wish I’d never had kids with her.” “I wish I had a whole shitload of money.” “I wish all the Albanians would go back to fucking Albania.” Whatever it is, say it to yourself. The truth will set you free. Either that or it’ll get you a punch in the nose. Surviving in whatever life you’re living means lying, and lying corrodes the soul, so take a break from the lies just for one minute.
There you have it. Please consider using my Amazon link if you decide to give this book a try, which I recommend to those who find that life, even when it’s bad can be hilarious in its absurdity.
Related Blog Entry:
August 3, 2009: 500 Days of Summer & Alain de Botton
June 17, 2009: Book Review: The Alchemist
April 5, 2008- Romantic Movement excerpts
Mar 24, 2008- Romantic Movement and On Love excerpts