The Things We Never Say
The Things We Never Say…because those things are nestled deep (perhaps really, really deep) in our hearts. And they say the heart doesn’t lie. But also that the heart can be deceitful. So that’s where those things — the things we never say — remain because how they will be received is unknowable.
Unless I’m mistaken, our dearest Elizabeth Strout uses parenthetical asides far more often in this, her 11th novel. (And I would assume that’s because they indicate things that are unsaid but that might be important for someone to know. Maybe not everyone…but someone. But maybe they also represent the ways that our heart contracts and expands when we feel something — let’s call it love — when we get the tiniest peek into these things. That’s connection.)
What was also impressed upon me (or upon my heart, I suppose) was the way Strout uses emphasis in her dialogue. (Again, is it more so in this book?) “Really?” Artie asks his wife Evie. “You did?” Evie asks Artie. And so it goes that even when one actually does say something, we may not quite be sure how to receive it.
I don’t know how Elizabeth Strout can achieve a book like The Things We Never Say, which, really, is basically about those trademarks of 1st grade drawings — hearts and love — in such a multi-dimensional way. But she does, and I suppose that is why she has won a Pulitzer and twice been nominated for a Booker, while still appealing to the masses.
(I also thought about this outlet of mine [Instagram] while reading. Whereas this platform is designed to be performative, I have always found it more meditative. I consider my posts here the equivalent of an artist’s daily [or whatever] sketches. I’m grateful when someone interacts — which of course is harder amidst all the muck of it all — but that’s not why I post. Saying [writing] something with the intent mostly being a desire to practice writing or to untangle an issue in my brain is what gets me going. It’s not quite the things I never say. But it’s a pretty darn close representation of who I am. As Artie thinks to himself later in the novel, “It was a private thing, to be alive.” It is…but if you read my words, I’m grateful to connect with you in that way.)
originally published on instagram