The problem, for me, when trying to finish a whole Cannonball, is that I read a lot of very long books that take me a long time to finish, and then I spend a week in a book coma, and then it’s July. So around August/September, I think oh shoot this is not going to work, and then I find a ton of random novellas so that I can reach my goal. The choice of these shorter books is based solely on feasibility (length). Sometimes I take cover art into consideration. I have found some delightful and unexpected books this way (I am surprised now to see how middling my review of Mezzanine was – I remember it very fondly!). This is one of those books.
There are two characters: Fanny and her lifelong friend, the Narrator. Early on we learn that Fanny has died. The Narrator is reflecting, as a writer, on their decades of intense friendship. He remembers how she was, and who she was, but it’s clear from the beginning that she’s not been well for some time. At first we aren’t sure exactly why; it becomes clearer as the Narrator recalls specific vignettes, achronologically presented, untethered. Fanny had a mental illness that became more acute as the years progressed. Such was the Narrator’s love for her, though, that this mental illness, despite being enormously difficult, is kind of an opportunity to love Fanny even more, for she has so many hidden parts to discover.
‘Suppose I were to place other friends on that turntable and, like a phrenologist, examine them closely, with my fingers: would I glean as much information, would I discover as many crannies, craters, mountains, and landscapes?’ the Narrator wonders. He thinks of friends he is fond of, and tells himself, no, the whole thing would be wrapped up in ten pages. Perhaps it’s mental illness that transforms you into a landscape.
And:
For there was more to Fanny than the obstacles she encountered. She also had in her, popping up from time to time, and always when you least expected it, the jovial young woman in the leopard-skin hat she would have been had certain hatches not got battened down one day, by accident, abruptly, as if by a gust of wind.
It’s impossible to summarize the narrative because it’s full of these keenly observed notes, like someone holding a jewel up to a light and noticing individual sparkles they’ve never seen. Yes, it’s about mental illness–but it’s actually about love. The Narrator loves Fanny, and she loves him, but he cannot understand her, but also understands her more than anyone else on Earth. It’s about the impossibility of ever really knowing someone; the small and intimate knowledge of each other that friends and lovers hold in their hearts.
Perhaps we all have lives the person closest to us knows nothing of? And perhaps this is what really attracts us to each other: the presence of this secret life which, from time to time, is revealed to us through a gleaming, narrow slit. The vision is fleeting and comes as a complete surprise; all our convictions are shaken because, however observant we might be, we hadn’t noticed a thing.
While at first I had trouble orienting myself, by mid-way I was deeply invested. And the final 3 chapters were so, so good; I was almost overcome with the obvious and delicate love that Anne poured into the final chapter. The ending is exquisite.
Serre explained in an interview for the Booker Prize, that this book is a memorial for her sister, who died by probably suicide at age 43: ‘I wanted to create a memorial to [my sister], one that was as beautiful as possible.’ She succeeded.