{"id":1154,"date":"2020-04-29T12:27:38","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T02:27:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/?post_type=articles&p=171884"},"modified":"2020-11-17T15:28:51","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T15:28:51","slug":"naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"If You Long For More Exciting Times\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Photography: Sean Foley \/ Unsplash<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our current reality \u2013 quite apart from being dystopian and scary \u2013 isn\u2019t exactly fertile ground for variety and excitement.\u00a0 We\u2019re limited in what we can do, who we can see and where we can go.\u00a0 In times like these, the best thing books can offer is escapism \u2013 the opportunity to inhabit a different place and a different life.\u00a0 To step away from our own bodies and out of our own heads for a little while.<\/p>\n

I think the blend of circumstances making up life at this particular moment led me to love Exciting Times<\/em>, Naoise Dolan\u2019s debut novel, even more than I would have if I\u2019d picked it up in more normal times.\u00a0 My immersion in it from page one calmed my frayed nerves and was a balm for my tattered attention span.\u00a0 It transported me away from my own modest routine into the glitzy newness of arriving in Hong Kong as a young expat (a term Dolan doesn\u2019t like<\/a>, because it just means \u2018you\u2019re white, of course \u2013 and more welcome as a result;\u2019 this perceptiveness to her surroundings and cultural context pervades the book, and is one of the best things about it). \u00a0For the past couple of days, I\u2019ve clung to this book like a security blanket.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The key story arc is a love triangle (although something about that description doesn\u2019t feel quite right \u2013 it\u2019s too simple to capture the nuance with which the dynamic is drawn out). \u00a0The triangle\u2019s central point is Ava, who has moved to Hong Kong from Ireland to teach English.\u00a0 She becomes romantically involved, first with Julian, an Eton and Oxford-educated investment banker, and then with Edith, a Cambridge-educated lawyer who grew up between Hong Kong and boarding school in the UK.<\/p>\n

There is something coldly gripping about Ava\u2019s relationship with Julian. \u00a0They start sleeping together only after hanging out platonically for a while, because Julian \u2018didn\u2019t want to impose.\u2019\u00a0 Not too long after this, Ava moves from her roach-infested Airbnb into Julian\u2019s large and comfortable, if sterile, apartment.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t pay rent, and he buys her things.\u00a0 Ava is very interrogative of the power dynamics of this arrangement, which creates fertile ground for unpicking issues of class, wealth and gender.\u00a0 She speaks of these things matter-of-factly: \u2018Our wealth disparity was too wide to make me uncomfortable.\u00a0 It was a clownish level of difference that I could regard only with amusement.\u00a0 I also felt it absolved me of any need to probe the gendered implications of letting him pay for everything.\u2019<\/p>\n

There is a power imbalance \u2013 both tangibly, in that Ava lives in Julian\u2019s apartment, and emotionally, in that she feels more for him than he appears to feel for her.\u00a0 Ava presses this dynamic like a bruise, only hurting herself in doing so.\u00a0 She leans into caustic, witty banter, hoping to get the upper hand in their relationship.\u00a0 She likes to imagine he has a secret wife, because this \u2018would make me a powerful person who could ruin his life. \u00a0It would also provide an acceptable reason he did not want us to get too close.\u2019\u00a0 She says things like, \u2018I wasn\u2019t good at most things but I was good at men, and Julian was the richest man I\u2019d ever been good at,\u2019 as though to convince herself it\u2019s all a game.<\/p>\n

Where Ava\u2019s relationship with Julian is jarring, her relationship with Edith is sweet.\u00a0 It creeps up on you; it\u2019s tentative and kind. \u00a0Edith is practical and affectionate. \u00a0She gets excited about things.\u00a0 Everything about her is present on the surface.\u00a0 She buys Ava gifts and flowers, in a way that feels intuitively different from Julian\u2019s habit of paying for things, because it\u2019s thoughtful and personal.\u00a0 She introduces Ava to her family after they\u2019ve been dating a month: \u2018The fact that \u2018over a month\u2019 brought Edith and me into meeting-the-family territory, whereas I\u2019d known Julian for months before he\u2019d even mentioned Miles, told me all I needed to know about dating gay women versus straight men.\u2019\u00a0 Edith comes along at just the right time \u2013 while it was intriguing to watch the relationship between Ava and Julian unfold, it\u2019s not the sort of thing you could watch for too long.\u00a0 Edith\u2019s appearance in the story is a breath of fresh air, which shows something important about love \u2013 that it needs vulnerability to thrive.<\/p>\n

My favorite thing about the book is its sense of humor and perceptiveness of character.\u00a0 Even its minor cast is painted with shrewdness and wit.\u00a0 One of Julian\u2019s friends, \u2018Ralph, pronounced \u201cRafe\u201d\u2026 voted for Brexit to have tighter borders, and was applying for an Irish passport to avoid being stopped at them.\u2019\u00a0 Ava\u2019s boss at the school where she teaches \u2018wore a baseball cap backwards, either to look like he loved working with kids or to stress that he was his own boss, and dressed to please no one, not even himself.\u2019<\/p>\n

The fact that so many of these observations are directed at the habits of Julian\u2019s and Edith\u2019s wealthy, privileged friends, aligns this book with the tradition (seen anywhere from The Great Gatsby <\/em>to The<\/em> Secret History<\/em> to Crazy Rich Asians<\/em>) of placing a perceptive outsider among a group of elites \u2013 facilitating commentary from the trenches on how soulless or bizarre or extra they all are.\u00a0 Ava isn\u2019t really taken in by this scene \u2013 she is far less interested in Julian\u2019s and Edith\u2019s friends than she is in Julian and Edith \u2013 lending her social commentary a level of aloofness.\u00a0 It\u2019s fun to watch the story unfold from this vantage point \u2013 it makes you feel like you\u2019re in on the joke, peering through the looking glass along with her.<\/p>\n

The coolness used to describe others is contrasted by the intimacy of a series of texts, which Ava writes (first to Julian, and then to Edith) but doesn\u2019t have the nerve to send.\u00a0 These draft messages become the only place in the story where she expresses her deepest feelings.\u00a0 While as narrator, she remains droll and impassive, preferring to deadpan than show vulnerability, in the private world of her own phone, she tells us how she really feels. \u00a0Social media use is threaded throughout the story \u2013 the book excerpts text messages, discusses the delicacy of viewing an ex\u2019s Instagram stories and interrogates what social media posts say about the poster \u2013 giving it a modern feel.\u00a0 In a way, this is a tale as old as time \u2013 one about love and loneliness \u2013 but its perspective, and the way it\u2019s told, is fresh and unique.\u00a0 This is what makes the book so impossible to put down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10061,"featured_media":1155,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[38,16],"yoast_head":"\nIf You Long For More Exciting Times\u2026 - Grazia USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Naoise Dolan\u2019s funny, smart debut paints a world in which you can\u2019t help but get immersed\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If You Long For More Exciting Times\u2026\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Naoise Dolan\u2019s funny, smart debut paints a world in which you can\u2019t help but get immersed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Grazia USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-11-17T15:28:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/04\/FeaturedTile-1.jpg?fit=1280%2C720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/\",\"name\":\"If You Long For More Exciting Times\u2026 - Grazia USA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-04-29T02:27:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-11-17T15:28:51+00:00\",\"description\":\"Naoise Dolan\u2019s funny, smart debut paints a world in which you can\u2019t help but get immersed\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"If You Long For More Exciting Times\u2026\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/\",\"name\":\"Grazia USA\",\"description\":\"Driving tastemakers in Fashion, Beauty and Culture\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"If You Long For More Exciting Times\u2026 - Grazia USA","description":"Naoise Dolan\u2019s funny, smart debut paints a world in which you can\u2019t help but get immersed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"If You Long For More Exciting Times\u2026","og_description":"Naoise Dolan\u2019s funny, smart debut paints a world in which you can\u2019t help but get immersed","og_url":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/","og_site_name":"Grazia USA","article_modified_time":"2020-11-17T15:28:51+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":720,"url":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2020\/04\/FeaturedTile-1.jpg?fit=1280%2C720","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/","url":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/","name":"If You Long For More Exciting Times\u2026 - Grazia USA","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-04-29T02:27:38+00:00","dateModified":"2020-11-17T15:28:51+00:00","description":"Naoise Dolan\u2019s funny, smart debut paints a world in which you can\u2019t help but get immersed","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/naoise-dolan-exciting-times-novel\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"If You Long For More Exciting Times\u2026"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/#website","url":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/","name":"Grazia USA","description":"Driving tastemakers in Fashion, Beauty and Culture","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Grazia USA","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/1154"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}