The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez
I’m so glad to have fitted this novel in at the end of the year as it elbowed its way into my best of list. Written in much the same vein as The Friend and What Are You Going Through, Nunez’s narrator gives us another mixture of life and often flyaway musings on friendship, reading and writing. It’s certainly a winning combination that keeps things light, and is told with a degree of clear-eyed self-deprecation and plenty of humour on the narrator’s part.
This is Nunez’s lockdown novel, and charts how her unnamed narrator gets through it. She ends up parrot-sitting for a friend of a friend who’s been stranded with Covid elsewhere and whose nephew who would usually oblige has made himself unavailable. Parrots are social creatures, so as she needs to spend several hours a day in the bird’s company, she moves into the rather grand apartment. Said bird, named Eureka, is quite a character, and the narrator finds herself really enjoying their time together.
The nephew returns though, and the two have to share the apartment and Eureka, the narrator finds herself almost jealous when it’s his turn. She can’t return home having lent her own apartment to an ICU doctor who needs to isolate herself from her family. The pair soon start to get along better, even developing a friendship over a shared joint, and the nephew’s culinary skills. Finally, lockdown eases and everyone is able to return to their own homes – and thus the novel ends.
I knew I would love this novel, but its very first page gave this gem of a quote, which got me thinking…
Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read. Now I know the truth: what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional events described. They should teach you this in school, but they don’t.
I would argue that both sides of this argument are right. Immersion in a novel in this way is wonderful, but remembering it is too, don’t you think? Especially if you have someone to talk about books read with, like you, dear reader!
This felt a quite personal novel in a way, for there were times when you could be forgiven for thinking the narrator, who is also a writer, is Nunez herself. Despite the title, we were all vulnerable during the pandemic, this was a much happier book than the previous two by Nunez that I read. Luckily no-one dies, and no tears were shed, instead I was charmed through the story.
Source: Own copy. Virago hardback, Jan 2024, 242 pages. Now in paperback – BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link (free UK P&P)
The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller
From a book that I loved, to one that I enjoyed so little, I only skimmed after the first 14 pages, making it a defactor DNF. It wasn’t a hit with any of our book group either – only a couple of whom read it the whole way through.
I’ve never read any Henry Miller before, and frankly after this am unlikely to ever do so, ditto the book group. And this is cited as his best book by many including the author himself. Published in 1941, The Colossus of Maroussi, is non-fiction, a travelogue set in 1939, in which Miller travels to Greece at his friend Lawrence Durrell’s invitation, the outbreak of war would force him, as a dodgy American passport holder, to return to NYC.
Although he wasn’t one of the Beats, The C of M is written very much in a stream of consciousness style, with long, long paragraphs. It’s also very repetitive, chronicling every drink drunk, every time the heat gets to him. After just fourteen pages I was bored stiff, that I just skimmed the odd paragraphs thereafter. The blurb on the back of the Penguin classics edition promised him nearly getting trampled by sheep – but I never found that bit. I couldn’t be bothered with his encounter with the Greek poet Katsumbalis either, as the good bits are submerged in pages of waffle about food and drink and how he loves the Greek persona so much. I never got as far as discovering what the C of M was!
I had always wondered whether it would be worth reading Tropic of Cancer, Miller’s most infamous novel. This has cured me of any urge to so do!
Source: Own copy. Penguin classics paperback 201 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link.
I found the Nunez really charming, too, though I’m told it’s not her best (apparently that’s The Friend or What Are You Going Through—I’m also interested in A Feather on the Breath of God). That quote about what you get out of a novel really stuck with me, though! Such guilt we readers all feel about not remembering things in books we read long ago, but really, who can remember most of what they read (or even experience)? It’s how it makes you feel that counts.
You should read The Friend – it’s the same style but a tearjerker too! Lovely, lovely book.
Oh, I so hope the dog doesn’t die…
Er… Great Danes are not long lived, that’s all I’ll say.
OH NOOOOO
I love that quote about emotional remembrance – I often feel guilty that my reviews and memories of a book or film or exhibition or music us all about how it made me feel rather than a clever analysis of plot, structure, style, technique. It feels very superficial and naive, but that is what stays with me ultimately.
And it repays on re-reading too. You tend to remember the emotions you felt – which is certainly the case for the Eco with me at the moment – I couldn’t tell you what will happen, but I can remember the thrill.
Oh, interesting contrasts! I confess I’ve always been wary about Henry Miller, wondering quite what I’d think of him. I think I’ll give him a miss now…
It felt like he was trying to be Kerouac style-wise. Soooo boring.
I’ve been reluctant to read this particular Nunez (the term “covid novel” puts me off) even though I’ve really enjoyed the handful of hers that I have read, but your review might have persuaded me to give it a go! I love the quote about reading. I agree with you that it’s helpful to remember the details (which is one of the reasons I keep a blog) but I do love the idea that it’s about mood and how it made you feel etc.
Let me reassure you that there’s very little Covid in it, that’s more the device to engineer the parrot-sitting!
So glad to read your review of the Nunez which I own (yay!) and am very much looking forward to reading. I think the best novels give you a great experience AND leave lingering memories in the mind. Having taught a lot of books, I can also say that this model is complicated by reading a book several times, as the experience can change! My students once complained that they couldn’t catch me out with books we were working on – they tried but failed to find bits I couldn’t remember. So I pointed out to them and I was the one who got to CHOOSE which books we were doing which gave me a massive advantage! Well we all had a good laugh about it anyway.
Nunez is so good. I have her book before The Friend on my shelves, having read everything since. I love the way that rereading at different times of life brings new experiences. That’s certainly the case with Umberto Eco with me at the mo!
I really liked The Friend so I’m keen to read more by Nunez.
I’ve never read Henry Miller, I wasn’t sure he was for me. I think from what you’ve said he’s safe to miss!
And Miller wrote primarily to shock with his novels it seems. By contrast Nunez charms and beguiles and tackles complex issues without making an undue fuss. I’ve loved all three of hers I’ve read now.