I Read Patricia Lockwood’s ‘No One Is Talking About This’.
Somewhere between 2012–2015, I wondered in a bit of a crisis: What if the funniest thing I ever say is only on the internet? — I was met with various responses when I spoke to others about it. Some people said little boiled down nothings like, “that would suck,” and others addressed it in a more confused way, wondering, “what’s the difference?” I believe that this book really breaks down what the difference is.
The first half of this book actually made me observe that it’s a bit too clever for its own good. It’s hilarious, very on-the-nose, and makes the internet and one’s presence within it feel so deeply important, it makes it feel like if you are on the internet and contributing to it either as a participant or a witness, if you’re doing it just the right way, then you’re in on this deeply exclusive club. You’re getting the updates, you’re getting involved, you’re in. The high that’s described by Lockwood is communal. We read it as one, we say it as one. Once a line is spoken into the “portal” (the novel’s objectification of The Internet and Its Channels) it becomes ours, linearly impossible to retrace the signature to its source. We all get on board or it’s gone in mere breaths.
People, the population en masse, feels as if it would cry out: “If only they could see me on The Portal, then they’d understand me.” If only they could see.
For 113 pages, Narrator observes the world as Funny Sex Things, as Funny Character Analogues, as Quotes We Can Attribute to Celebrity Motifs, etc. Everything is a post, everything is post-irony and too important for its own good. Everything is either laughing at itself or it’s extinct.
Crossing into Part Two, the humanity fills back into this chalice like a rising light. And it’s in this second part that the importance of what we post versus who we are when we don’t have our Device in our hands is dragged out into the light. In this second part, a family tragedy befalls this small little collective and the importance of all that pulses and writhes in the portal simmers into a silence and its irreverence is bared. The things that they do, the toll that they pay, the sadnesses and joys that they endure over the 6 months feel more banal and important than any of the observations over the first half. The value of their actions and their penance here feel more weighty and engaging than any of the golden observations and quick-witted quotables that they toss into their Posts. Humility becomes this aching and glowing saint that they all bend towards.
It feels like an important revelation.
This book is written brilliantly, beautifully. The words chosen to be placed into these paragraphs are marvels, heralded in perfect dreams and placed in passages that come together like monuments to language in the shape of rapid and casual human thought. And for all the sardonic and post-reality humor, there will eventually drop a deeply observed homily on Who We Are As a Society, without accusing us without patronizing us and without punishing us. It all becomes a big picture, an enormous Real Thing. I’ve been there [everywhere], I’ve been them [everyone], I’ve been through it [everything].
I highly recommend this quick read! I especially recommend it if you are An Online Person, someone who keeps some kind of score on their Twitter/Instagram/TikTok social media avatar, someone who in some sense separates their walking and waking world from who they are when they are Logged In. This book spoke to me in the language I speak.
