Sigrid Nunez has been on my radar for a long time. So, why now? I blame Jonathan (Me Fail? I Fly!), since it was his post on Nunez’s latest novel, The vulnerables, that captured my attention and encouraged me to make now her time. What an intriguing book! I have no idea whether it is like her other books, but it certainly captivated me.
What exactly is it, was my first question? A novel, says its subtitle. Its probably best described as autofiction, but it did feel at times like a book of essays. In fact, late in the novel, our narrator who, like Nunez herself, is a writer, refers to Virginia Woolf and her aspiration
to invent a new form. The essay-novel. Chapters of fiction alternating with nonfiction chapters, “a terrific affair” that would include, well, everything: “satire, comedy, poetry, narrative . . . And there are to be millions of ideas but no preaching—history, politics, feminism, art, literature—in short a summing up of all I know, feel, laugh at, despise, like, admire hate & so on.”
On the next page, Nunez writes of Annie Ernaux who told her diary that “Tonight, I know I have to write ‘the story of a woman’ over time and History.” And so she did, some twenty years later. Ernaux’s book, says Nunez, is “a personal narrative spanning the period between 1941 … and what was then the present day, 2006: the autobiography of a woman that was also a kind of collective autobiography of her generation”.
Both of these encapsulate, to some degree, what Nunez is doing in The vulnerables. I like essays, so I enjoyed the “essay-novel” feel of this book, including its cheeky toying with where the boundaries are in what she is doing. And, I like personal narratives, not to mention the idea of a book being “a kind of collective biography” of a generation.
Nunez and I are of the same broad generation, although with some significant differences given she was born in New York in 1951 to a German mother and a Chinese-Panamanian father. But, we are both women of a certain age and so were designated “vulnerable” at the start of the pandemic, which is where the novel opens – in the northern spring of 2020. It is here, early on in the pandemic, when she is “breaking the rules” by going out and about too much, that a young friend admonishes her, telling her, “You’re a vulnerable … And you need to act like one.”
There is so much to write about in this book – her exploration of our generation, and how we are seeing things in these last decades of our lives. The discussions our narrator has with her friends about gender, for example, mirror mine, as does her awareness of the changes that come with ageing. Her concern about what happened in American politics in 2016, and its ongoing implications, mirror that of many of us. As do her references to racial and social injustice, the climate crisis … and so on. All heightened, here, by the pandemic, whose uncertainties shape the book’s tone. But, I want to focus on one particular aspect, her exploration of writing.
Our narrator is, as I’ve said, of a certain age. She’s seen a lot of life, and a lot of writing, and here she ponders, though her lively stream-of-consciousness style, the role, meaning, and form of writing. She begins with the opening sentence – “It was an uncertain spring” – from Virginia Woolf’s The years. But, just a few paragraphs on we are told that one of the first rules of writing is to “never open a book with the weather”, albeit our narrator has “never understood why not”. Between the opening sentence and this statement, she admits that she remembers almost nothing about Woolf’s book, and then writes that:
Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read. Now I know the truth: what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional events described.
I felt right then and there that this was going to be a book for me. I rarely remember plots, but frequently remember how books made me feel, how I reacted to them.
Why are you making things up?
The vulnerables is deceptively simple. Our narrator takes us into her confidence about what is happening to her, and what she is thinking, as she moves through those early days of spring and into lockdown stage, when she accepts the task of pet-sitting a miniature macaw named Eureka in a classy New York apartment, only to find herself sharing this role with a disaffected, but opinionated Gen Z son of friends of the apartment owner. She calls him Vetch, a prickly metaphoric contrast to the old-lady flowers, like hydrangeas, that she had previously regaled us with.
Woven through this loose plot, are our narrator’s thoughts on a range of subjects. It has a relaxed stream-of-consciousness feel, but is, nonetheless, formally stylish, using subtle repetition, metaphor, sly humour and literary allusions, to develop her ideas. It’s also erudite with frequent digressions that explore anything from the relevance (or not) of Dickens and what, say, J.M. Coetzee thinks about writing, to a discussion of My octopus teacher and of how the events of 2016 stopped speculative fiction author William Gibson in his tracks. This might feel random at the start, but the links are there, and the ideas – the questions – slowly build. It’s the sort of book that invites you to go with the flow, and if you do, you will eventually not only see the pattern, but will also have been both entertained and inspired to think.
What most inspired me was Nunez’s exploration of what sort of writing is most relevant now. She shares the thoughts and experiences of many of the great writers of the last century or so – Virginia Woolf, Annie Ernaux, Joan Didion, J.M. Coetzee, to name a few. Early in the novel she quotes Coetzee who said that what comes in late life to many writers is “an ideal of a simple, subdued, unornamented language and a concentration on questions of real import, even questions of life and death.”
Then, late in the novel, in a wry comment about the pandemic and its distinction between “essential” and other workers, she notes that of writers, the only ones deemed essential were the journalists. She seems to agree, writing that “silence all the journalists and we’d have the end of human rights”. And, more pointedly, she responds to the question of whether there is still a place for fiction, with:
Growing consensus: The traditional novel has lost its place as the major genre of our time. It may not be dead yet, but it will not long abide. No matter how well done, it seems to lack urgency. No matter how imaginative, it seems to lack originality. While still a powerful means of portraying human character and human experience, somehow, more and more, fictional storytelling is coming across as beside the point. More and more writers are having difficulty quieting a voice that says, Why are you making things up?
There is fear about “the growing use of story as a means to distort and obscure reality”. But, in her subversive way, Nunez explores both sides. She writes of her time with Vetch, saying
… even now I sometimes find myself talking to him. But when I do he is never ‘Vetch.’ Always his real name. His sweet name.
But how could any of this have really happened? I must be making it up.
Does it matter whether she’s making it up or not?
It is a little before this, that our narrator discusses Woolf’s thoughts about creating her new form, “the essay-novel”, and then teases out what we might want now (including a funny dig at reader’s guides for book clubs). It’s not simple or straightforward – indeed, it’s paradoxical, it’s “elegy and comedy” combined – but, in the end, what she has written is a novel. A strange, or different, almost essay-novel it may be, but there, I’d say, is your answer.
Sigrid Nunez
The vulnerables: A novel
London: Virago, 2023
250pp.
ISBN: 9780349018096
Whispering Gums 
I’ve decided that my shallowness as a reader is actually laziness: I can’t find the energy to put in the kind of work necessitated by so much of today’s fiction (or quasi-fiction).
<i>Colpa mea.</i>
You are certainly not shallow MR, and I think laziness is a bit harsh too. You do all that complicated handwork following complex patterns. It’s just what we are interested in – I appreciate that you hang in with me! Now you’ll have to keep hanging in I reckon!!
My first reaction to these sort of books is a certain grumpiness, that I didn’t think of it first, as though I would write anything even if I had. Still, I enjoy the idea that they are there. Whether I have the energy to read them is another matter, so I’m glad, in this case, that you have.
A William Gibson fan, I wondered what tracks he was stopped in, in 2016. He says of his Jackpot trilogy, the first book of which came out in 2014, that the election of Trump and the Cambridge Analytica controversy “had caused him to rethink and revise the text” of the second, which ended up coming out in 2020. I have the New Yorker article up now.
I’m glad that your grumpiness is positive Bill ie that these ideas interest you too.
I will send you what she says about Gibson as I think you’ll be interested.
This is the first thing I’ve read by Nunez, too. I found it easy to read but didn’t tease out all the strands that you have. As I said in my own review (Feb. 8, 2024), it reminded me of Ali Smith’s seasonal novels.
Oh I must read your post Jeanne. I was in Melbourne for birthdays in early to mid February, so missed a lot of posts.
I’ve never read Nunez either but this one appeals to me,
I’m glad Cathy as I think you’d like it.
My gosh, you certainly DID tease fascinating ideas in the book. I kvetched too soon about the old lady hydrangea talk, not knowing that there would be a Gen Z Vetch for a contrast. I look forward to getting more into the book.
Haha Carolyn. The hydrangea talk made me laugh and think that this was the book for me! I enjoy that sort of sly humour – and as I think I said I like essays so that opening essay feel attracted me too.
Sounds like a book for me. Smash the genres – mainly marketing tools. All kinds of things are happening with texts now, once verboten, and it’s exciting.
I’ll try again, WG. I did write saying that this sounds like a book I’d like. Smash the genres, I say – marketing tools in the main. All kinds of things are happening with texts, which were once verboten, a development I find very liberating and exciting.
If I’m repeating myself, blame it on WordPress.
I will Sara … I’m glad you tried again. WP is being difficult. I agree, I find it liberating and exciting too – and I’m not surprised you do also.
I’ve read a few Nunez but not this one. I think I was put off by the covid setting… I do highly recommend her early novel The Last of her Kind which is an entertaining saga about the friendship between two young women that goes off the rails.
You were, Kimbofo ? I guess that’s what interested me. I think I’m a bit weird … when difficult things happen I want to read what others say! But now I’m in, I’d like to read more of her, so thanks for that recommendation.
For me, covid is mixed up in too many other things associated with repatriation, career change, isolation from family/friends/support network, turning 50, trying to sell a house in another country knowing I couldn’t go back and pack up the remainder of my life/say goodbye to dear friends, and enforced separation from my partner. Maybe when enough time has passed I can disentangle all that but right now I don’t wish to relive it.
That’s a lot. I understand.
I did have both my parents die during that time but family support was able to be there and was strong, so it was very sad and difficult – but Covid was more a backdrop which complicated some aspects but we were lucky to skirt the worst times.
I’ve heard of this author but not read her.
She’s worth checking out I think Pam
I wasn’t much interested in reading this book before, but your review has made me add it to my TBR. It’s the bits about writing and Virginia Woolf that did me in. Thanks, I guess 😉
Haha Stefanie , “thanks, I guess”. I sure hope my enthusiasm hasn’t led people astray but I do think anyone interested in writing and its value must surely like this!
What was it that made you not much interested? The Covid setting? You haven’t liked her other books?
I’ve not read Nunez before, though I’ve always meant to. I think I wasn’t interested because it seemed to be just a fictionalized COVID novel from the bits I’d read about it and since COVID and the lockdown and all that is something I lived through and is still rather fresh, I really wasn’t interested in a novel about it. But, it sounds like that is not really what it’s about at all, or at least it’s much more than that 🙂
Ah thanks for explaining. Wondered if that was it. I know some feel that way about Covid. I’m a bit the opposite. As soon as I experience something powerful I want to read what others say – how they felt, the context they put it in, etc, to sort of calibrate mine or, in some personally emotional cases, to maybe offer catharsis. Anyhow, in this book Covid is the backdrop but it’s not really dwelt on. I think the things she is thinking about have been building over her lifetime with Covid providing an impetus.
This has been on my radar since Jonathan’s review too – you have both made it sound VERY enticing to me. I will keep this in mind for Cathy’s 20 books of summer/winter, after the move is done and dusted.
That would be a good time to read it Brona. It’s not long…
I have heard such good things about Nunez from all kinds of people. For some reason I though she was one of these young, hip writers until I looked her up. This title is still an expensive hardcover, so I will probably start with one of her earlier books when I get a chance.
Haha no, not young Joe – older than I am! I read the eBook version which is my current policy for non-Australian reading. To keep the number of books down at this stage in my life! I’d like to read some earlier books.
I’ve been meaning to try Sigrid Nunez for a while, so your review of this new one is very timely. The autofictional ‘feel’ really appeals!
Thanks Jacqui … I think it appeals to a lot of us, which says something I think?
What a terrific review, Sue. I’m glad to have spurred you to it.
Thanks Jonathan … I’m glad you did too. What you wrote really interested me.
I shared that quote about not remembering plots with my online book club. I wonder what they will say. I know Biscuit often forgets which books she read and sometimes gets a ways through before realizing she already knows the ending. I suppose, for me, the blog now functions as the memory depository. Sometimes I have a feeling about a book then go back to read the review, and I wrote almost the total opposite.
Haha Melanie … I have found that disconnect sometimes too between memory and what I wrote. Usually with time the glasses have become rosier!
OOOooh, discovering that single quotation would have made me certain it was a book catering to me too! Love it. I worked with a woman a few years ago who read her work faithfully and from the beginning. If only you and I had discovered her so early!
Exactly Marcie … not surprised we agree!