Through his newest work, author Andrew O’Hagan presents a series of eight short essays first recorded for a broadcast series. The style is one of memory, touching on a forgotten early pal from the council estate where he came of age in 1970s Scotland. Additionally, he muses over former colleagues at the London Review of Books, where O’Hagan built his reputation in the 1990s, as well as his older daughter’s former imaginary friend.
Examining Friendship
The author reflects on the reasons thespians, elected officials, and Republicans make bad friends, the factors behind why writer Colm Tóibín makes such a good one, and the ways in which the nature of friendship is shaped by bereavement and the internet.
“What defines a friend in the digital era? … Is it possible to trust someone you’ve never actually spoken to …?”
In his view, the latter has a worse impact than the former, a perspective that may not shock in a literary figure who compares friendship to “a series of commitments that turn in the head like classic albums”. He expresses concern that folks skip the local pub because they’re too busy making digital purchases.
Family vs. Friendship
In his essays, companionship frees whereas kin restricts. Being raised with multiple brothers, O’Hagan’s home was a “realm of challenges”, a “fortress of tension”, including a cold paternal figure who on one occasion caused their canine intentionally taken away out of town and abandoned, gone for good. At primary school, respite was found in exploring derelict areas with Mark, a nearby friend of similar age.
“An exceptional companion can invoke a fresh reality, and, most importantly, the potential start of a transformed self, pulled away from domestic limits.”
In time, O’Hagan revises the formula to label another friend’s fellowship “a passport to being the kind of person you aspired to be”.
Imagery of Rebirth
Images of journey and transformation seem powerful throughout the work suffused with subtle amazement at the path O’Hagan has advanced since boyhood. In one section, he works as a stocker during his teens at his local Tesco in Ayrshire; elsewhere, he attends a celebration for a fresh love interest at “the high-end shop on Park Avenue”. He makes no bones about his habit of mentioning famous people – clubbing with the Stone Roses, enjoying spirits with the journalist.
The Limits of Disclosure
Although a lot of life unfolds in the essays, he doesn’t reveal everything. O’Hagan acknowledges that bonding is not merely a bowl of cherries, but he remains cautious, at times hesitant, about the subject’s shadow side: slights, confusions, fallings-out (“I am acquainted with a well-known performer who wanted me at his wedding, but he ignored my invitation when I extended an invitation to my ceremony”).
The degree of openness, of disclosure, is somewhat restricted: even as he makes a passing reference of his aborted attempt to ghostwrite Julian Assange’s memoir (the WikiLeaks founder struggled “to befriend himself”, he notes, carefully), he omits about his detailed report for the LRB on the Grenfell Tower fire, notable here particularly since the resulting uproar must have reminded him where his loyalties lay.
A Notable Friendship
To some extent because of this, the standout essay here involves the deceased author from Ireland Edna O’Brien, that he first got to know in London in 2009 following Seamus Heaney’s 70th birthday party. When he invites her to lunch at a renowned restaurant in Mayfair (“Perfect … ask for the corner table, Lucian Freud’s table”), it’s the beginning a long-term connection during which “we turned to each other to develop concepts we struggled to conceive solo”, as he uniquely puts it, subtly clarified when he later recalls “the soft sonatas we often enjoyed while I assisted her with her writings”.
Personal Disclosures
Among the many celebrities referenced in the book, she is the sole individual permitted an insight into his personal nature. Throughout many of his stories, he comes across as the person who comes out best – be it as a young student getting emotional over Charlotte’s Web while rougher peers mocked, or like a resilient partygoer who is however quickest to awaken following a late party – hence interest is sparked a little when, apropos of nothing, O’Brien tells O’Hagan (seen, uniquely, as opposed to analyzing) that she perceives that he is “someone with scars who manages it flawlessly and rather believably”.
Last Musings
As a personal account – which is what On Friendship is – it might be considered to leave money on the table, to say the least. In the end, these stories and ideas – in appealingly slimline hardback, eminently gift-ready – prompt you to ponder concerning a more comprehensive memoir O’Hagan might write, should he ever he chooses to do so.
