Friends · Letter 50
The book came with homework
Fictional editorial letter
Dear Duck,
My friend lent me a novel that “changed her life.” Every time we meet, she asks which chapter I’ve reached. I have been on page forty-two for six weeks.
When I said it was slow, she looked wounded and told me the first hundred pages were “essential groundwork.” I am beginning to suspect they are the foundations of a building I do not wish to enter.
Yesterday she asked whether I had cried yet. I said nearly.
Can I return it unfinished, or must I fake a literary awakening to save the friendship?
— Still on Page Forty-Two
Dear Reader on Probation,
Return it. Your friend’s life has already been changed. The book has achieved its advertised result somewhere.
I keep the royal record. I encounter many pages whose principal achievement is that another page follows them. Some require preservation. Very few require recreational suffering.
Say, “Thank you for lending it to me. I can see how much it means to you, but I’m not getting into it, so I’m returning it.”
Then actually return it. Leaving it beneath the television remote until both of you die introduces an unnecessary inheritance question.
You may ask what she loved about it. Perhaps a character made her feel understood, or she read it at a moment when she needed the company. That conversation could tell you something about your friend without requiring you to inspect a fictional mill for another four hundred pages.
Do not consult a summary and manufacture tears at the appropriate chapter. There are already enough unreliable narrators inside novels.
And please stop reporting imaginary progress. “Still trying” encourages her to arrive with a bookmark and provisions.
For the record: she loved it. You tried it. Both statements can survive in the same friendship.
If she offers you the sequel, keep your wings behind your back.
Answered by Dame WillowfeatherKeeper of the record. Including yours.