Exciting Times
It’s certainly been a while! I’ve been so happy to keep you all updated through my little monthly newsletters, but I can’t lie, I’m even more excited to be typing out some long form content for a true post.
Recently, my creative writing hasn’t been something I want to share. Most of the time, my privacy is due to the unfinished nature of the work–I’ll easily post a poem that i’ve been chewing on a while, with the knowledge that it isn’t quite finished, but prose feels very different. When I was younger, of course, this wasn’t a problem–I’d crack open my writing notebooks and explain character sketches to anyone who would listen. Often, I wish I could take a little bit of my former confidence and use it now, but I guess confidence isn’t a “save it up” situation, it’s more like a “grow your own and harvest it” vibe.
Did you miss me and my rambling sentences? Anyway, as you might have guessed, I don’t have any prose for you today, but boy have I been reading, so I have a book review instead. I’ve read (on average) 1.5 books a week for work since January, and this book, Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan was a great way to start my vacation. (Yes, I brought four books for one week, no I haven’t read more than one). I picked up Exciting Times from the sweet Libreria bookstore in London back in March, after hearing that it was a good book for Sally Rooney fans (don’t judge me, ok?!). The comparison was apt, but I found Dolan’s work witty and interesting all on it’s own, and found it offered a dry and occasionally heart-twisting story of young love (when do I read about anything else), class, bisexuality, and self-definition.
Exciting Times follows Ava, a 22 year old Irish woman who, upon moving to Hong Kong to teach English as a second language, finds herself involved with a new cast of characters.She immediately becomes involved in a situationship with a wealthy British ex-pat Julian, and begins sleeping with him, staying in his guest room rent free, and charging his Amex for anything she likes.
Although her feelings for Julian are deep, they’re also complicated, and mostly unsaid. At one point, she writes a text to him, saying “sometimes i love you and sometimes i think it would be best if a plane flew into your office and you were on the plane or in the building.”, then deletes it. When Julian leaves Hong Kong for a few months for work, Ava meets Edith, and although she’s never been with a woman before, she’s drawn to Edith and can’t help but fall for her…despite her ongoing “non-relationship” with Julian.
There are a lot of relatable text drafts in this novel, as well as the distant and sparse writing that Ms. Rooney is so fond of, but I thought Dolan built on Rooney’s foundation successfully. I was particularly excited to find that the protagonist wasn’t bisexual in name only (like in many of Rooney’s books) but actually had relationships with women and touched poignantly on sexuality often. There’s also a more diverse set of characters than in Rooney’s work, and although Dolan won’t be winning any awards for diverse narratives, it is an improvement. Maybe it’s just because I am used to the type of prose that Dolan and Rooney write, but I found that Exciting Times injected a little more reader-character connection than some of Rooney’s characters, which might entice readers who are on the fence about this newly-popular writing style…and Dolan uses quotation marks, I promise. Honestly, if you liked Normal People and Conversations With Friends, you will like Exciting Times. If you didn’t like them though, and are still searching for a way into the stylized world of Rooney and her fans, maybe Exiting Times is the one to add to your reading list.
Ultimately what interested me most about the novel was the explicit navigation of large life themes that was more defined than many bildungsroman these days. The pace of Exciting Times has a bildungsroman quality mixed with Sally Rooney drama, and the commentary on class, capitalism, and socialism was successful and thought provoking (unlike Beautiful World, Where Are You).
Ok, sorry about all the Rooney comparisons… I can’t help myself. Outside of it’s merit as a stylized novel, Exciting Times had me laughing in recognition, and curling my toes with stress as I watched Ava navigate the world and turn down self-destructive relationship paths, hoping that at the end, she would treat herself well, and follow her brain, not her heart for once. With a satisfying ending and a medium pace, this one took me a minute to get into, and it also took me a few days to realize how smart and sharp the story was. It’s one of those books that you don’t think you’ll remember reading, and then find yourself thinking about often.
It made me think about what being a stranger to yourself can feel like, and tasted like cold mint ice cream (but maybe that’s just due to the toothbrushes on the cover). I think it would be a great read for the fall, in big socks with some tea and cake, and it sounded like the playlist below:
Have a listen!
