Still from Hulu's Conversations with Friends (2022)
Conversations with Friends is Sally Rooney’s late-aughts depiction of student life and the characters we encounter along the way. The Irish setting is only a backdrop to the glowing centrepiece of the novel that blooms in the south of France. This was my first Rooney novel, so I fully confess my ignorance regarding her established style and other works. That being said, I may be more unbiased in my review, as I can claim a more objective perspective than one that looks forward from her debut novel, Normal People, or looking back from the recent Beautiful World, Where Are You.
Let me now defend my title – am I taking a judgemental stance? I would argue that I am being more self-aware than nitpicky, but you are entitled to judge that for yourself. Dubbing a character simply unlikeable isn’t my way of saying I disliked her. Reading this novel after a string of classics, Frances’s voice was refreshing and relatable. I tried keeping track of everything she said I had thought on multiple occasions but quickly lost track. Frances’ narration is honest and judgemental. The latter characteristic is exercised not towards the people around her but towards herself in their stead. She assumes the worst that anyone could think of her, showing her deep-rooted anxiety about being alienated, so she does it to herself in her head. I especially found her preoccupation with aesthetics relatable. She would feel more sympathetic towards Nick after watching him cry in a movie clip. I may be reading into the incident too much, but Frances responds intensely to the physical expression of emotion because she doesn’t seem like someone exposed to it a lot. Bobbi was always aloof, her father seemed to be a tough study, and her mother seemed like she tried to shield Frances from trouble by putting up a stoic face.
What makes Frances postmodern? Besides the fact that she was written in a postmodern age, Frances was also unabashedly honest about her thoughts to us. So, as readers, we get to see that not only was she deeply insecure, she had entirely misinterpreted the way people perceived her, which ended up in her poor behaviour and inconsideration towards them. Gone is the manipulative and dishonest unreliable narrator, who twists the situation to put themselves first: Rooney presents us with an anxious and honest voice that confesses every intrusive thought with simplistic delivery. The writing style normalises Frances’ personality, and we quickly get used to her racing thoughts.
Jealousy leading to attention-seeking behaviour
The one thing I found truly unlikeable about this protagonist was that Rooney turned her inside out, and we got a look at the deepest, ugliest thoughts that Frances would never admit to out loud, except maybe to Nick. More on that later. Frances knows she shouldn’t express thoughts like if I were that good-looking (referring to Bobbi), I’d always have fun because she understands the social norm of not externalising emotions like jealousy. However, the deeper we go into the story, the less honest Frances is towards people she encounters in real life. She grapples with her deep envy toward Melissa, which results in a destructive affair; she never communicates with Bobbi, her best friend, even during a fight. She guesses at how mad Bobbi is with her based on how much she brings up something from the past. These feelings fester and develop guilt and heavy silences that she cannot talk away — simply because she has nothing she wants to say. This pent-up emotion comes out in the short story she writes, eventually creating a rift.
Lack of self-awareness leading to inability to form connections
While a lack of conversation is typical in most anxious young adults, Frances’ uncomfortable interactions go deeper. In my reading, this seemed rooted in a feeling of a lack of power expressed so plainly in silence, only to later reveal that her profoundly negative self-perception comes off as a superior air that puts people off. This external perspective doesn’t come to the reader’s attention until it is explicitly pointed out. Seeing the world through Frances’ eyes, we are so far inside her thoughts because she is so inside herself - so deeply narcissistic. Frances lives a heavy inner life that assesses and dismisses ideas and people in a heartbeat.
Inferiority complex displaying as an air of superiority
This phenomenon is further deliberated when Bobbi reads Frances’s story. Frances tells herself she’s better than people with money, but she needs to feel that way to maintain self-esteem. Her continued struggle with her father and money doesn’t offer growth or development. Even when presented with the opportunity to confront her father about not having money when he lied about sending it to her, she chose to brush it off and feign innocence. This narrator never talks about it to anyone but herself, and she is deeply insecure about this side of her life. she never addressed it or got any help.
It was only toward the end of the novel that she was able to address her monetary and paternal complex with Nick, albeit vaguely. Her recently diagnosed chronic illness was another thing she kept a secret. I felt that we could compare the two unexpressed wounds — one being endometriosis and another, her anxiety around money and her strained relationship with her father which can be rolled into one. I argue that they may be considered one because they are interrelated given that a) her father does not have a stable career which means lower income for her family, and b) when money is concerned, Frances discusses it as family money: Nick comes from a wealthy family, so does Bobbi. We may interpret the family and money complex as a block that limits her ability to form intimate emotional relationships, which can explain her lack of communication with Bobbi. Similarly, we could understand endometriosis as something that blocks her ability to form intimate physical relationships in the future.
Confessional acceptance of trauma and the complexes it brings
Discussing it with Nick in the phone call at the end of the novel could be a breakthrough that allows her to finally address the buzzing static blur in her mind, but it could also be seen as a self-destructive move. It has been clear from the beginning that there is no future with Nick. Even though, as readers, we look at the scene with blinkers set by Frances, we know that he cannot offer what she wants with him. But the end of the novel may signify two possibilities: a new beginning for Frances or possibly a dejection that comes with accepting the new reality of her life: that she can never live the “normal” life she tells herself she wants. However, this possibility may allow her to throw caution to the wind and stop restricting herself against what she wants - or enable her to turn into a maladaptive covert narcissist.
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