I hadn't planned on writing a blog post today but I feel as if it's been something of a significant Tuesday.
I read a lot at work (occupational hazard of booksellers, I admit), mostly recipe books & first pages of novels, occasionally a short story during a particularly rainy afternoon, all things that are always enjoyed but not necessarily remembered. Today was different. I had read about Marina Keegan before, likely in the American press although I can't remember with any clarity the circumstances of this discovery. I do remember being struck by her story, that verb being apt given the real shock of what actually happened - a bright undergraduate student at Yale & aspiring writer, between graduating from college & starting a job at 'The New Yorker', is killed in a car crash at the age of twenty two. I'm twenty two. What incredible, inexplicable tragedy. It wasn't, however, until an encounter with the book of posthumous (posthumous!) writing she left behind that I felt the force of this sadness that has left a hollow in my chest. This is particularly true as my feelings weren't always so ambiguous - I thought, however cynically, of the impossibility of really knowing the quality of the writing in the light of its dark context, of the undoubted parallels between Marina Keegan & the girls I disliked at school & university because I envied them - the ambitious, opportunity creating & fulfilling, optimistic & successful.
A first look at the cover of 'The Opposite of Loneliness' dispels these feelings almost instantly - a young girl stands in a park with cuffs pulled over her wrists & balled into her palms, eyes level & face smiling & the potential & the future that she already represents is haunting. This continues throughout this slim but vital volume during which Marina writes engagingly, in fiction & non-fiction, on themes of the fragility of hope, of the importance of achieving 'the opposite of loneliness'. In these pages, a girl so unlike myself, talked me around to this impatience for and anticipation of all that awaits her in life with the knowledge of her seemingly arbitrary and senseless death only increasing their poignancy. The dust jacket is covered with laudatory quotes from adoring professors &, while further testament to her promise, Marina says all that she needs to in her own words. They make me feel newly determined to make the most of every opportunity, to flip the 'v's at food intolerances, to be curious about the world around me, to fill more & more pages of my notebook (more & more pages of this blog) with whatever is important to me & to have the self belief that enabled her to graduate from an Ivy League college without the dread of unemployment or unhappiness.
So, Marina Keegan, I might not change the world with the knowledge of your relentless optimism or dedicate myself to your legacy but right after I finished that final page, I scribbled a list of things that I want to write about soon to make an impression on the world & I think you'd be okay with that too.
Read the titular essay here & I hope you feel that it changes you too.
Speak soon - O.
I read a lot at work (occupational hazard of booksellers, I admit), mostly recipe books & first pages of novels, occasionally a short story during a particularly rainy afternoon, all things that are always enjoyed but not necessarily remembered. Today was different. I had read about Marina Keegan before, likely in the American press although I can't remember with any clarity the circumstances of this discovery. I do remember being struck by her story, that verb being apt given the real shock of what actually happened - a bright undergraduate student at Yale & aspiring writer, between graduating from college & starting a job at 'The New Yorker', is killed in a car crash at the age of twenty two. I'm twenty two. What incredible, inexplicable tragedy. It wasn't, however, until an encounter with the book of posthumous (posthumous!) writing she left behind that I felt the force of this sadness that has left a hollow in my chest. This is particularly true as my feelings weren't always so ambiguous - I thought, however cynically, of the impossibility of really knowing the quality of the writing in the light of its dark context, of the undoubted parallels between Marina Keegan & the girls I disliked at school & university because I envied them - the ambitious, opportunity creating & fulfilling, optimistic & successful.
A first look at the cover of 'The Opposite of Loneliness' dispels these feelings almost instantly - a young girl stands in a park with cuffs pulled over her wrists & balled into her palms, eyes level & face smiling & the potential & the future that she already represents is haunting. This continues throughout this slim but vital volume during which Marina writes engagingly, in fiction & non-fiction, on themes of the fragility of hope, of the importance of achieving 'the opposite of loneliness'. In these pages, a girl so unlike myself, talked me around to this impatience for and anticipation of all that awaits her in life with the knowledge of her seemingly arbitrary and senseless death only increasing their poignancy. The dust jacket is covered with laudatory quotes from adoring professors &, while further testament to her promise, Marina says all that she needs to in her own words. They make me feel newly determined to make the most of every opportunity, to flip the 'v's at food intolerances, to be curious about the world around me, to fill more & more pages of my notebook (more & more pages of this blog) with whatever is important to me & to have the self belief that enabled her to graduate from an Ivy League college without the dread of unemployment or unhappiness.
So, Marina Keegan, I might not change the world with the knowledge of your relentless optimism or dedicate myself to your legacy but right after I finished that final page, I scribbled a list of things that I want to write about soon to make an impression on the world & I think you'd be okay with that too.
Read the titular essay here & I hope you feel that it changes you too.
Speak soon - O.
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