A review by onlyalookalike
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez

emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

 
Death, companionship, and literature are the main focus of our unnamed narrator. In just over 200 pages, Nunez creates a comprehensive (yet partisan) referential text. The near-constant quotation and homage, though tedious at first⁠—who are these characters, I wondered, what is Nunez’s style outside of these snippets of borrowed text?⁠—perfectly articulates just how universal and timeless these themes are. Feeling around in the void of existence for someone to care for and to be cared for by, goes hand-in-hand with loss, as well as art. There are very few answers to be found in this novel; if you seek solutions to your problems, look elsewhere. If you’re interested in a clever study of literature, grief, and unconditional love, you may have found a new favorite. 

After losing her long-time friend and mentor to suicide, our narrator tries and fails to find some sort of salve for her grief. At the memorial service, she sorrowfully notes, “I have found that the more people say about you…the further you seem to slip away, the more like a hologram you become”. She explores death (specifically suicide) in its numerous incarnations among writers. I really enjoyed the nuanced approach to suicide Nunez took. She didn’t flat out denounce the act on principle, instead taking the time and care to explore the gray areas. “People have said that were it not for suicide they could not go on,” as paradoxical as that is, it is a sentiment I understand wholeheartedly. 

The theme of aloneness plays nicely alongside the throughline of friendship. Many of us know intimately the feeling of being alone in a crowd of people. "What we wanted in life but never got to have...isn't it this that makes up who, deep down, we truly are." It is through absence that we often finally find⁠—with clarity and in its simplest forms⁠—what we've wanted and needed all along. 

The dog! The dog! The dog! Apollo, my beloved. The arthritic, massive, bed-hogging Great Dane. I shed a few tears during this book, all of which were Apollo's doing. This loyal pet, left with no home in the wake of the suicide, is taken in by our narrator. A half comical, half melancholic old-married-couple dynamic ensues as they learn to cohabitate a tiny new york apartment. Apollo is clearly grieving his dead master, and it is questioned if maybe he suffers more due to his lack of explanation for the absence: "You can't explain death to a dog. He didn't understand that Daddy was never coming home again." And later, a line particularly harrowing regarding pets, "they don't weep. But they can and do fall to pieces. They can and do have their hearts broken. They can and do lose their minds". 

I found, above all else, the purity of the companionship between these two to be the most impactful aspect of the book. The way it gradually becomes a profoundly devout relationship: "Who doesn't know that the dog is the epitome of devotion?" Slowly building each other up again. Little moments like reading Rilke to Apollo in which, "after a few pages [he] assumes the half open-mouthed smile," brings to mind the kind of innocent love children feel. These two become, as Rilke wrote, "two solitudes that protect and border and greet each other". It is gorgeous and it is vibrant.

Lastly, I'd like to discuss the way Sigrid Nunez blurs reality. A big topic of this novel is the lines we draw between fact and fiction, especially when it comes to writing/reading. What is believable? What is too real, so much so, it seems fake? Is literature just as cathartic either way⁠—for the reader and the writer. A woman, writer turned psychologist, tells our narrator: "I've become less and less interested in reading, especially fiction...I started to feel bored with stories about made-up people living made-up lives full of made-up problems." Conversely, there is "Doris Lessing, who thought imagination does the better job of getting at the truth."  I am unsure which I agree with and Nunez creates an environment where that dual opinion is celebrated. 

At times, our narrator seems to be losing her grip on life: "Since I first heard about your death, haven't I often felt like someone living with one foot in madness?" The illusive reality of the prose comes to the forefront, in the penultimate chapter, when our narrator tells her up-until-them deceased best friend that she has been writing a novel about his death. 

Q. “Are you writing a book?” 
A. Yes. 
Q. “What about?”
A. “About you…it’s fiction. I disguised everyone.”

So what is to be believed by the reader? I choose to believe this chapter was her fictional retelling because for Apollo to be fake twice over, is something my poor heart cannot bear. But then again, does it matter? If it evoked any form of emotional purgation, what does silly things like fact and fiction matter (in literature at least)? In close, I find myself agreeing with Isak Dinesen who believed, "you could make any sorrow bearable by putting it into a story".
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