Say Anything

"The inability to articulate what one feels in any satisfactory way is one of our enduring tragedies."

That's what Annie was thinking as she tried to make heads and tails about how she felt about this man she only met through the Internet. It's a scene from Juliet, Naked, Nick Hornby's sixth novel.

I fell in love with Nick after reading High Fidelity; that beauty was so spot-on about the male psyche that I found myself laughing again and again throughout his story about a guy who, as he tried to make sense of his latest breakup, revisited all his relationships past. And that's what happened again this time. In between my lunch of Ensaladang Bagnet, I poured over the pages like mad. So if you saw a forty-something woman hunched over a book at Via Mare laughing out loud every so often, that would have been me.

Anyway, the novel is about this forty-something couple stuck in a relationship of convenience. There is no passion here, just comfort and maybe a bit of resentment because Duncan, Annie's partner, is more interested about the whys and wherefores of a one-hit wonder eighties star than about the little details of her.

In part, this is about Annie and all the things she wanted to say and never could. And sometimes, I wonder about all the things I want to say and never could. I maybe a writer, true, but sometimes, words are difficult. Call me wacko but all I could think of right now is Jackie Chan in one of his Rush Hour movies, and he goes in his Chinese English accent, "Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" Well, sometimes, I can't understand those words myself Mwahahaha