On how Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend is a painfully intelligent, on-point, and thought-provoking story on dealing with loss from suicide
How do old people think? That was the question that drove me to pick up this book. Most of the time, I’m bad in fitting questions to its source of answer, but, well, luckily I love reading.
The plot was sederhana. An unnamed, single fifty-something woman had just recently lost "her lifelong best friend and mentor" to suicide. He left her a big, big old Great Dane. But no money to take care of it. The story follows the woman’s journey coping with her loss while going through new challenges caused by the undeniable presence of the dog. Apparently, her apartment doesn’t allow pets and she couldn’t rent a bigger place that allows them in New York City. But a friend told her there is a specific law that allows tenant to keep pets if after three months the landlord doesn’t do anything about it.
I was not an impulsive book-chooser. I do my research. At the most minimum, other than reading the back cover, I’d google something and click at one of those 'similarly asked questions' box and read the ready fast-food style answer.
Side note, sadly I haven’t found those sudden enlightenment moment of meeting 'the book that is so special' 'it changed my life’ yet. My meeting with The Friend was just, ‘ok curious’. But I do wait to find my book of life, like a key of living. If back then some people would have a sensei or mentor that understands life and how to live it, nowadays kids got none of that. Instead, we got smartphones that has it all. But I still count it on books to guide me.
However smart, something has to have a tangible limit for me so I could build a connection with it, like a book limited by its page count and physical dimension.
it will never make sense
“…writing was a vocation—like being a nun or a priest," said Nunez’s unnamed woman. She was a writer. I don’t know if it’s necessarily so, but the journey of loss the woman went through was filled with lots and lots of literary quotes, references, and commentary. It’s like she’s trying to make sense of her friend’s suicide by picking up pieces of other people’s thoughts, using them like bricks and lay them one by one to make a concrete structure that makes more sense about his sudden absence.
Suicide, I think, will never be a concept that people would easily understand, compared to other causes of death. ‘It was time’ or ‘Maybe that’s God’s plan’ are the most common expressions people use to accelerate their coping process. But they wouldn’t work for suicide — people think they defied time and God’s plans. Most importantly, the belief that the person we lost would be in a better place also wouldn’t work. For example, in certain religion, taking your own life is a sin. Those who did it would be denied entrance to heaven.
There’s just too many layers that dictates minds and influence judgments from various aspects throughout human history that makes universal understanding of suicide sounds impossible.
wired to be alone
The woman was like a “stray,” those who “despite whatever they might have wanted earlier in life, never really become a part of life” in the way most people do. Humans are so difficult to understand. For me personally I can only manage a few.
I noted Nunez researched dogs expansively. Many interesting canine anecdotes, as the dog was a major plot for the woman’s character development. As the woman went through her rigorous research about suicide, the dog slowly hijacked her life. Named Apollo, he invaded her life from making her apartment smelled really bad, getting her kicked out of it, and changing her view of things. She was previously a cat-owner, not dogs, because she 'doesn’t want a burden of an animal who can’t help themselves when she’s gone’. Gradually, she started to find comfort from walking Apollo around the block, reading him books and sleeping every night on the same bed with him. I guess it was in a steady and predictable way most dogs are.
The stinky apartment reminded me of the 2018 biopic 'Can You Ever Forgive Me?’. Lee Israel, an American writer, was so broke and she started to forge and sell famous authors signature. Her apartment was nearly exactly like the old woman’s. Only, Israel’s pet was a cat. One scene showed a repairman attacked by a violent smell as he approached the room. He then looked under her bed and tada! There lies cat’s poo lying scattered like macro-sized sprinkles.
How lonely being old is and are old people mostly lonely? Is it scary? I still don’t understand how someone become a ‘stray’. The thought of not being able to connect, not because you don’t want to, but because you simply can’t... the thought itself was very depressing.
The book contained a lot of clever sentences, which I admire. A side thought, there are many great stories that come from or triggered by tragedy. The Friend was a tragedy of love, loss, and loneliness. I recalled Tyler Durden from Chuck Palahniuk’s infamous Fight Club, "we are the middle children of history," no great war or great depression to trigger us to do something like there is no tomorrow now. One day I found myself wondering for my own one great tragedy that I certainly would manifest into several extra badass masterpiece l’importante. But I soon wake up and realize, that was utterly stupid.
My opening question ‘how do old people think?’ could actually be more of an attempt to understand what would become of me as I age — so when the time come I would arrive better prepared. One thing for sure is: there’d be lots of losses when you’re old.
About loss, loneliness and grief, The Friend tells you "you can’t hurry love, they say.” But also know that “You can’t hurry grief either."
What would make people be better prepared when they lose something important? Is it knowledge? Perspectives? Connections? Friends would be helpful. In a book I read once that there are certain phases in life that serves like a gate of friendships and connections. Once you missed the gate, you wouldn’t have a second chance. Like high school, or college.
I wouldn’t want to become a stray. I know I wouldn’t want loneliness because I felt powerful when I was needed and I hate being helpless.
what the loss is really about
Nunez depicted grief here like a fingerprint — every grief is unique to each person. Also a new idea for me. The old woman in the end moved temporarily to a vacant house by a beach with the help of an acquaintance, enjoying her time sitting on the porch with the dog at her feet. He died there and the book ended.
Would she follow her best friend’s path? What would save you when you don’t believe in anything anymore?
I think, perhaps, what the woman really grieved was a sudden change in her life that affects all the small things. She didn’t expect him to go that soon. She wasn’t prepared. The change was of something that is like a 'background noise' of our life that we heard every single second that makes things feels normal and okay. Like indistinct chatter, pouring water, ceiling fan, swaying leaves, machine hum, frying hiss, stuff going on around us we seldom paid attention to but it’s always there. Imagine a sudden silence of that background noises and you can only hear you and the sounds you caused. Horror, right? Shall that time come, I hope I don’t depend on one mp3 player alone to play my background noises. Maybe two or three. And some backups.-
→ 4 stars
