The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
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No One Is Talking About This
Booker Prize for Fiction
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2021 Booker Longlist - No One is Talking About This
I agree with Paul, but that is the way a lot of people use it, and Cindy is right, being turned off by the first half was what Lockwood intended. I didn’t get much out of the first half or the second half, really, but the message of the book as a whole, showing the impact social media has on many people and how the mind begins to process information, emotion, and experiences differently once one’s own life isn’t viewed through the eyes of other social media users was important. I didn’t enjoy the book, hence the 4 stars, not 5, but I recognized Lockwood’s talent as a writer and felt she conveyed her message.
Cindy wrote: "You could argue that it is to Lockwood's credit that you had such a viscerally negative reaction to the first half -- that she conjured up such a revealing and damning depiction of social media in general and Twitter in particular is a testament to her skills. Just saying."I agree but I sure hated having to go read the first half! It was genius to do it that way. The second half redeemed the first half and I hope that was the intent was as WndyJW posits it.
I think this capture a lot of the intent behind the book - it’s written the day after the attack on the Capitol Q There’s lots about the book that is incredibly dark, but it’s also completely seamlessly hilarious. Would you say you use humor as a sort of deflective coping mechanism when moving through the world, and how effective do you find that?
A I think that that is really the question of the book. Because it feels in the first half like this humor, this irony, is a tool or a weapon that you’re wielding, against the oppressors. And then gradually, as the book goes on, you start to see them adopting it, as well. So they take something that is personal to us, that is something that we have created. It’s the same thing as grassroots movements — they take control of these things, they wrest them from us, and they turn them against us. And I think, in the second half of the book, you see that you have been perhaps left completely unprotected, that the one weapon you thought you had cannot protect you in this situation, cannot protect you now.
Q And maybe it was never protecting you in the first place.
A That’s absolutely what it is. And context does become an issue. Jokes that you made 10 years ago, in the context of those conversations, were very funny. But you look at them now, and it’s like, without that surrounding context, what are these? What actually were we doing, if some guy can look at this, and also take from it that he should put on a Viking hat and try to overthrow the government of the United States? Maybe it’s time to lay down that particular tactic, right? Maybe it’s time to enter into some new form of sincerity, or radical unprotectedness.
Q So, how would you describe your relationship with social media right now?
A Right now? After yesterday? It became difficult. Again, in the more autobiographical, second half of my novel, you really do start thinking, “What am I doing here?” At the end of a day that you spent in a hospital, you don’t necessarily want to log on. So then you start to evaluate what you've been doing the entire time. And it sort of made it impossible for me to participate in the same kind of way. And I think that that’s carried through into the future. But it’s also — in the US — become so that almost everything you see is about Donald Trump in some way, or you log on and you have to find out about how Mitch McConnell is trying to kill you that day. And those are absolutely the worst days, when it feels like again, you have a job to perform. I don’t think that any of us can say that we’re having a good time right now, can we? Are you having a good time on the internet these days?
Q: But you need to acknowledge that there’s joy there as well. And I think you do do that.
A: There are those days. There are the days when llamas are chasing each other down the highway. There are the days when we can’t decide whether a dress is blue and black, or white and gold. There are those days when everyone has the same sentence in their mouths in a good way. There is that good kind of day. And then there’s the other kind of day where you have the same sentence in your mouth, but it feels like a poison pill, and you’re wondering, “How do I get this pill out of my mouth?”
Thanks for this, GY. After the Jan 6th insurrection I had to ask myself if my social media use was healthy for me or the country. Not that anyone cares what I post, but the portal is made up of millions of individual posts like mine and the deluge of partisan posts fed the need to take a side and left no room for dialogue, i.e., If one supports BLM on social media, one can’t post anything supportive of police or fellow BLM supporters will attack.I just checked Lockwood’s Twitter and she’s still active, although as far back as Feb it predominantly books related.
The second half worked better for me, but then I realized it’s another book pushing the boundaries of what is fiction. The second half is basically autobiographical, right? (And very moving, in my opinion. I connected with her.) The first half is largely a series of memes. Maybe I’m being too harsh now, as I really really liked this when I read it a few months back, but there’s very little fiction writing in here. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an excellent book. I may need to re-read though as my reflection on it now is definitely different from my original takeaway.
The definition of fiction has been expanded quite a bit the last few years. This is sort of essay as fiction and memoir as fiction.
Tom wrote: "The second half worked better for me, but then I realized it’s another book pushing the boundaries of what is fiction. The second half is basically autobiographical, right? (And very moving, in my ..."Not sure I agree that there is very little fiction writing in the book. Yes, the second half is based on a tragedy in her family, but we don't know how much of what she depicted happened the way it appears in the novel, and while the first half is responsive to memes, it's not only the memes themselves. It's actually a lot more than that. I think the memes are particularly memorable.
I really liked (contrary to most, but hey, I used to be on Tumblr and still enjoy memes) the first part, like a well done, seriously hilarious version of Weather by Jenny Offill and didn't connect at all with the second part. Maybe hailing from the Netherlands, where we have quite progressive policies on abortion and euthanasia didn't help in this regard, and yes I am aware this section was partly based on the authors real life experience. But also the whole juxtaposition between vapid online life and profound and moving "real" life just felt too constructed, not sufficiently executed and unsubtle to me.
My review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Excellent review, Henk. I agree with your thoughts about the book, but I still have it 3 stars because of the writing. Lockwood is a good writer I think, this just isn’t the book for me. I’ll read something else by her though.
Henk wrote: "I really liked (contrary to most, but hey, I used to be on Tumblr and still enjoy memes) the first part, like a well done, seriously hilarious version of Weather by [author:Jenny Of..."I completely agree, Henk, on the second half. It just didn't land for me. I was a bit less sanguine on this first half but it did have its moments.
I didn’t like priest daddy at all, I found it contrived, which what people are saying about no one…..
I feel like I need to reread this one. I first read it a couple months ago, and I didn’t care for it much. The first half felt like a trick. Yes, it was clever, but it also felt repetitive and ultimately boring. I liked the second half better, but I’ve read so many books about sickness/disability that are better than this second half. So, I’m left with two halves of a book, neither one of which fully worked for me. The juxtaposition of the two halves was the best and most interesting feature (I.e. witnessing the impact of a family tragedy on a social-media-obsessed character). In the end, that intriguing interplay wasn’t enough to save the book for me. After reading everyone’s comments here, though, I’m wondering if this book might benefit from a reread. I might like/understand/appreciate the first half more when I know what’s coming up.
I'll join the group that struggled with the first half but loved the second half. I'm not sure why because even the first half has all the hallmarks of a book I should love.
Nice deletion of the initial tweet - I was wondering when you would delete it! I must admit I had never expected the first half to really appeal to you - although "experimental"/fragmentary/non plot driven - I felt it was too meme driven for your tastesYou should post here about the possible deliberate spelling mistake you discovered - I had wondered if there was one (but as I listened to this on audio it was rather hard to look for it!!)
Interesting to see all the thoughts so far on this one. For me it was a strange experience, like picking up a foreign language novel and discovering that somehow you are fluent in a language you never remember learning! I suppose it goes to show how pervasive the language of the internet is, and that seems to be one of the points she's making. It'll be particularly interesting to see how this one ages. If it somehow won the Booker, I can only imagine what it'll read like for people in 30 years who are catching up on the prize-winners.
I guess depending on the way the world goes, this may be the book that most makes sense in 30 years (or even 5-10 years). Whereas these old fashioned novel things with lengthy sentences and no hashtags - what ancient language were those written in?
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Nice deletion of the initial tweet - I was wondering when you would delete it! I must admit I had never expected the first half to really appeal to you - although "experimental"/fragmentary/non plo..."I never expected to actually get away with deleting my original post, but I did quickly realise I needed to remove it because the second half of the book is a very different experience.
On the deliberate spelling mistake, there's a sentence that reads "Having a crystal egg up her vagina made it difficult to walk, which made her houghtful, which counted as meditation." I initially marked it because I thought I had found an error in the book. But then, a bit later we read "Don’t expect too much—we’re looking for a single misspelling in a single word on a single page of a very long book,” the geneticist told them." and then "The exome test had found the misspelling, the one missed letter in a very long book.". So, maybe not a mistake after all?
You should find the passage in the audio and listen to it to see whether the narrator pronounces the misspelled work as it is written.
Incidentally, I have just come across these eggs in Great Circle, so there’s another connection in the longlist.
Interesting. I wonder if the genetic misspelling involved the t allele (thymine).
I'm always vacillating between one and five stars for experimental books like this.I think beyond the discomfort of seeing 'connected' society so ingeniously criticized, there was also a lot of compassion in how she described the collision between the portal and reality.
Review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I have been thinking about my response to this book for several days, hoping my emotional reaction to the first part of the book would calm down, but it hasn't.Am I the only person on this board who hasn't a clue what 'social media' entails? Yes, I am old, long retired and possibly an extreme. I don't own a cell phone and gogoduck is my search engine, but I simply had no idea what was going on in the first half, nor why anyone would find what was described interesting or relevant. The second half? I was too confused and angry about the first half to pay enough attention. I absolutely hated this book.
Lascosas wrote: "I have been thinking about my response to this book for several days, hoping my emotional reaction to the first part of the book would calm down, but it hasn't.Am I the only person on this board ..."
I'm not much of a social media user, either, but I do think this book is relevant and well executed. The context collapse (an expression I learned half an hour ago) that she describes is painfully accurate. I do see the identities of younger people diluted when they live their lives online. But then I wonder whether these social media natives (another recent term that designates young people whose lives are documented on social media from early youth to adulthood and beyond) have any solid identities to begin with.
Statistics on active users of social platforms could tell us what proportion of our society these people make up.
Goodreads is a good example of social media.
Social media is a tool that can be used for good, but has the potential to be harmful. It requires more self-control than many adults have so kids should not have access to it. It is modern life though. If the argument can be made that this book is relevant now I wonder if the book will be relevant fifty years from now.
Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Goodreads is a good example of social media."Yes, but a more specific one than the major platforms. Our contexts do not collapse here, as here we still virtual-socialize according to our own interests. We are still in a specific context as bookworms. Here our micro-communities of followers and friends can see a well-defined side of us and the differences (in taste) create opportunities for communication rather than divide. On Facebook and other non-specific platforms, this contextualization is completely lost, all of our personas are combined into one - I daresay meaningless - identity. At least that's the case for most whose feeds can be followed by their bosses, friends, relatives, etc.
Lockwood captures this loss of context perfectly. For example, the funny lines she comments with on other people's posts - out-of-context, rootless laughter - do not have the same connecting power as does the involuntary, grotesque laughter triggered by the brother's mistake (calling himself the baby's husband). Both 'funny' situations are improper, in a way, but the latter, the real-life one, creates communion among the bereaved. This was an unforgettable detail for me.
WndyJW wrote: "If the argument can be made that this book is relevant now I wonder if the book will be relevant fifty years from now."Oh yes, that's the big question. The great classics we know, while they capture the particularities of their times, still speak of what's universally, timelessly human. This question keeps nagging me whenever I think of this Lockwood book.
Gumble's Yard-Point taken, but I merely followed Trevor from his blog. With the exception of one review written to warn potential readers of a scam, I don't engage in non-Trevor Goodreads.
But back to this odd book...Can a dog be twins?
Is that supposed to be funny, ironic, stupid and meaningless? I simply don't get it. Nor do I 'get' anything else about the first part of the book. It is utterly Greek to me, which I find infuriating.
Lascosas, I use Twitter daily and most of the Twitter memes and jokes were unfamiliar to me. One can follow specific accounts, so for instance I only follow publishers, authors, science, nature, art, themed accounts, and some journalists; based on who I follow I see similar tweets in my feed. The kind of memes and jokes in the book are more pop culture so I didn’t get them either.You are missing nothing by not engaging in social media.
I don’t think this book will be relevant. The nature of social media is to make something hot today, like can a dog be twins, and forgotten tomorrow. The first half is too topical, the second half was too dependent on the first half to make it meaningful.
Nana wrote: "Lockwood captures this loss of context perfectly. For example, the funny lines she comments with on other people's posts - out-of-context, rootless laughter - do not have the same connecting power as does the involuntary, grotesque laughter triggered by the brother's mistake (calling himself the baby's husband). Both 'funny' situations are improper, in a way, but the latter, the real-life one, creates communion among the bereaved. This was an unforgettable detail for me...."Excellent comment Nana
So many wonderful ideas being discussed. It would take pages to address them all.On the book being read in fifty years. I didn't see posterity as the goal of the author. I think her goal was to write a book that would be read now. I would compare this to Fear of Flying. That novel had literary significance on release but I don't think it has much now, but again, it was written for the time it was published.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/fa...
Some books like that carry over with time, On the Road for example, but I think they have to be judged on different criteria than longevity.
On "Can a dog be twins?" I think this is an example of Lockwood at her cleverest. Aside from attempting to create a meme that would be associated with the book, she is giving us a clear example of what she is doing in the book. The answer to the question seems clear to most readers, but on a brief second thought, the difference between fraternal and identical twins comes to mind and most readers not knowing the exact answer to the question, will look it up, probably googling the exact words of the question on their internet search and will learn, suprisingly, that the actual frequency of identical twin births is rare in dogs and that perhaps will prompt a little more thought or research from the reader. The book is rife with instances where something the author has written prompts an emotional, intellectual or physical response, which I think is a key to enjoying this novel. One of its central themes is an exploration of present day communication and Lockwood is giving us little tidbits to help us understand. That may not be her intent, but it is in the result. Just as aside, I grew up educated on the difference between interpersonal and mass communication and after an introduction, courses usually fit into the philosophy of one or the other and I am curious what is taught now where we have a hybrid of the two. I love how Lockwood plays with the concept of communication and especially how she brings familiar examples of interpersonal in the second half.
In a future post I will try and explore her inclusion of the meme about the popular song "Creep," and why it works so well in this novel, and how it is a perfect example for what Lockwood is doing.
And for all the world to see, I humbly offer my empathy to Lascosas for her feelings about the novel. I can understand the difficulty.
Fascinating to read the responses to this book. I think it reproduces, basks in and reflects on a new sense of humour that was born of the meme/twitter age - a sensibility that's very hard to depict/paraphrase. I've never read anything like it. The point of view is appropriately dizzying, and whiplashy set against the real, heavy existentialism that exists outside the screen. I found Priestdaddy to be utter brilliance. While I didn't expect to find this novel as refreshing personally (bc of social media aspects), what she does with image and language and perspective is wildly refreshing and unique. Some descriptors made my jaw drop, in very poor covid etiquette!
Great contributions Sam and CaoilinnAnd Caoilinn congratulations on the RSL Encore Award 3 months back
Enjoying the contributions to this discussion rather more than the book which was banal in the extreme. But perhaps that is the ultimate social media book. One which is boring to read but prompts social media discussions?
Thank you Sam, your comment was very sweet. And WindyJW, I do appreciate that major corporations such as Twitter serve as legitimate marketing tools. I just find the whole lose of privacy appalling and difficult to understand. But again, I'm old. Most of my friends who are my age see things exactly the same way I do. My grandchildren on the other hand think I'm hysterical. Now I will try to articulate why, while I found this book enraging I ranked the Lawson book even lower.
Interesting take on the “can a dog be twins” as that baffled me as well and I had taken as an intended example of how silly things can go viral rather than profound, but seems there is more to it. When Lockwood posted the meme earlier this year to promote the book, someone responded with a link to a BBC story about the first verified identical twin dogs. Lockwood’s considered response was:
“fuck. I hate this. let dogs be different imho”
I assume she did it as including twins was compulsory to be on the women’s prize list (four of the longlist, three of the shortlist and three of the Booker longlist). Prize for first person to list all the books. And Paul for someone quite rightly exercised in books about the difference between proper twins and rubbish frats I assumed you like me had appreciated that for once this book (via the pretend tweet) took it as read that twins meant proper twins
Also should not you be on the beach or are you in quarantine? Or are you scared about Wimbledon men visiting Barbados after another of the longlist books so avoiding the beach!!!
No One is Talking About ThisThe Promise
Light Perpetual
Vanishing Half
Unsettled Ground
Consent
I missed one myselfGreat Circle
Seems we posted simultaneously.
The Can a dog be twins meme was a book promotion? Lockwood is a clever woman.
There is definitely a lot of cleverness in the first half of this. The sentence - can a dog be twins - is brilliant in the way it understands the nuance of language used online. It is a question, but there's no question mark. And the ambiguity/blurring of singular and plural is clever as well.It's the second half of the book that lost me.
I very much enjoyed the second half. The first half I think is a setup to show the immersion in the portal that takes us away from real life, and was, perhaps, necessary to fully appreciate the second. However, I did not enjoy the first half at all. It felt like reading a string of comments that had little relationship to each other. Perhaps that was the point, but it did not make for an enjoyable reading experience. I ended up liking it very much, more than expected.No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood - 4 stars - My Review
This is a book that I’ll readily admit my dislike was on personal/subjective grounds rather than on its objective merits. It’s clever and innovative and I wouldn’t be disappointed to see it on the shortlist - I just personally didn’t enjoy it.
I completely understand that.Much as I liked it I would equally not be disappointed if it did not make the shortlist.
Its already made the Women's Prize shortlist (and could still win)
Trying to think what has made both shortlists: Girl Woman Other, Milkman, A Little Life, How to be Both, Bring Up the Bodies, Wolf Hall - that's a pretty illustrious list and of those I think I am correct that four of the six were books that had already won the previous year's Booker (so it feels like the Women's Prize felt it had to shortlist them given their pedigree and reception).
Did I miss any from last 10 years or so?
Not sure even as a fan I see this as worth being in that company.
David wrote: "There is definitely a lot of cleverness in the first half of this. The sentence - can a dog be twins - is brilliant in the way it understands the nuance of language used online. It is a question, b..."If you put our two reactions together, we have a great book. You enjoyed the first half, and I enjoyed the second. I always find it interesting how the same book appeals to people in such different ways.
Very true! I think I would say that I appreciated the first half more than liked it. It's been a few months since I read it and, for whatever reason, my view on it has soured over time.
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Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer
(last edited Aug 27, 2021 01:48AM)
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rated it 5 stars
I just re-read it and I have to say (I know Sam, Nana and I are in a minority here) but I think its absolutely brilliant. I love the way the two parts work together - the book for me would not vaguely work with one or the other - and the many links between them.I get that people do not identify with the memes as such - and certainly almost none were familiar to me - but the immersion in social media of some form, or even just scrolling through the internet for news and feeling the need to have views and opinions on thinks we cannot influence is I would think too familiar to most of us and I think for most people got more pronounced in lockdown - and the idea of getting caught up in it to and ignoring people and family around us. Even posting here (both book reviews and on forums) is an example for me
I really liked the lines such as
"She fell heavily out of the broad warm us, out of the story that had seemed , up until the last minute, to require her perpetual co-writing"
Or when she and her sister even in their grief bond over a Harambe reference because
"whatever lives we lead they do prepare us for these moments"
Or the links at the end between the communal mind she mentions in her IRL LRB lecture and the family sitting in the ICU.
Neil wrote: "On the deliberate spelling mistake, there's a sentence that reads "Having a crystal egg up her vagina made it difficult to walk, which made her houghtful. ............ You should find the passage in the audio and listen to it to see whether the narrator pronounces the misspelled work as it is writtenAlas even in my printed copy this mistake does not exist which either implies
(a) it was an serendipitous mistake (the very passage itself of course does make a link back to her internet life and the idea of misspelling words like "sneazing" - yet another example of how the two parts of the book work in complete symbosis)
(b) - which would be much funnier - it was deliberate but was later corrected by an over-zealous copy editor for a later version
Neil - was your copy a Kindle version. If I had one with the spelling mistake I would be tempted to tweet is @-ing Lockwood and see what happens/
The Mookse and the Gripes
Books mentioned in this topic
Ducks, Newburyport (other topics)The Sellout (other topics)
No One Is Talking About This (other topics)
Fear of Flying (other topics)
On the Road (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Patricia Lockwood (other topics)Jenny Offill (other topics)
Patricia Lockwood (other topics)
You could argue that it is to Lockwood's credit that you had such a viscerally negative reaction to the first half -- that she conjured up such a revealing and damning depiction of social media in general and Twitter in particular is a testament to her skills. Just saying.