Exciting Times
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan is one of our fiction recommendations and was our book club pick for May. Exciting Times is the debut novel from Naoise Dolan, an Irish writer whose work has appeared in The Stinging Fly.
If you have read any of our other reviews: when writing about a book I think it is helpful to include the blurb as this is what folks might first read if they picked up this book in a bookshop or in your local library. We are told about Exciting Times:
When you leave Ireland aged 22 to spend your parents’ money, it’s called a gap year. When Ava leaves Ireland aged 22 to make her own money, she’s not sure what to call it, but it involves:
A badly-paid job in Hong Kong, teaching English grammar to rich children;
Julian, who likes to spend money on Ava and lets her move into his guest room;
Edith, who Ava meets while Julian is out of town and actually listens to her when she talks;
Money, love cynicism, unspoken feelings and unlikely connections
Exciting times ensue.
The Seaside Books monthly book club had lots of lively discussion about this book at our last meeting. Some of us were annoyed by the character of Ava. Some of us felt sympathetic towards her, thinking of our own fumblings at age 22. We discussed the role of class and wealth within the book and how the English language and language in general frames the larger themes. We discussed the relationships within the book and what they might be representative of in a broader societal context. Seriously, it was a great time, and if you are looking for a great conversation that deep dives into a book then you should come along for our next session on July 15th where we will be discussing Milkman by Anna Burns. You can RSVP here.
The book takes place in 2016 which is an interesting setting for this story. Ava, a 22-year-old from Dublin who has just graduated from Trinity College, travels to Hong Kong and begins teaching English as a second language to rich children. This is all happening with the Brexit vote in the background, Ireland’s marriage equality referendum just passing in 2015 allowing same-sex marriage, and the continued illegality of abortion in Ireland. Ava uses her emergency abortion fund to move to Hong Kong, letting the reader know that at this time abortion was still illegal in Ireland and so Ava had saved money to travel to England if she needed one. We are given breadcrumbs about Ava’s past and are led to believe that she struggled to form lasting friendships or relationships with others. She tells us often how she did terrible things in Dublin and how no one liked her. This all makes for an interesting backdrop to the story.
The book is divided into three sections, the first of which is ‘Julian’. Julian is a wealthy banker that attended elite private schools before going on to Oxford. Ava meets Julian while out with coworkers one night. They chat and find they share the same dark and droll sense of humor and outlook on life. Eventually, they begin sleeping together and Julian offers to let Ava move into his guest bedroom, rent-free. Ava tells us, “I enjoyed his money and he enjoyed how easily impressed I was by it.”
Julian makes it clear to Ava that he doesn’t want to be in a monogamous relationship with her but likes having her around. Ava is upset by this but tries not to let it show. Their relationship is a layering of non-communicated feelings and passive aggression. Ava tells us, “And I couldn’t even feel truly, sumptuously sorry for myself, because it wasn't reciprocation I was craving. My desire was for Julian’s feelings to be stronger than mine. No one would sympathize with that. I wanted a power imbalance, and I wanted it to benefit me.” Many times Ava feels that she shouldn’t put up with their arrangement but she doesn’t say anything, continuing to live rent free and stay available to Julian whenever he isn’t too busy with work or out of town on business.
In the second section of the book, we are introduced to Edith, a lawyer who was raised in a wealthy Hong Kong family and educated in English private schools before going to university at Cambridge. Ava begins a friendship and then a romantic relationship with Edith. They spend all their available time together and discuss their past and emotions openly, very unlike Ava and Julian. Both Edith and Ava have not opened up about their sexuality to their family, both of them admitting that their families would be too focused on the sex part of their sexuality to understand how to support them or respond. Edith says she will never come out due to the stigma associated with identifying as gay in Hong Kong. Ava discloses that she was bullied as a teenager in Ireland when people suspected she might be interested in women. It is clear that both characters are struggling with compartmentalizing their lives in this way and have a hard time feeling like they are ever being their full self, except when they are together. The similarities and differences between Ava’s relationships with Julian and Edith are the central action of the book so I won’t give too much away, but if you have read this book I would love to know your thoughts about the ending.
The relationship I enjoyed the most in the book was the relationship between Ava and Julian’s father Miles. While Julian is out of town for work Ava visits Miles and they talk about politics and philosophy. In their conversations we see a side of Ava that we don’t with other characters: she seems genuine and open with Miles. We learned that Ava’s relationship with her own father is distant, only consisting of a few mumbled hellos and generalities about work as part of a longer conversation with her mom and brother. She states that she can’t talk about politics with her dad because they don’t agree, implying that she knows her father wouldn’t approve of her relationship with Edith. Her family seems loosely interested in her life abroad, preferring to keep her updated with the day-to-day gossip of their family and neighborhood in Ireland. We get the feeling that they have always been dismissive of Ava’s feelings and emotions so she has learned not to give too much away. This tactic shows up in all of her relationships, romantic and with friends.
The element of the book that I found the most interesting was the discussion of the English language. During our book club, one of the participants shared that they had spoken with a coworker who was committed to having his child learn his first language of Russian because the language you speak becomes the lens through which you interpret the world. This is a present theme in Exciting Times. Many times Ava points out how Irish English differs from what she has been instructed to teach her students, indicating the fine line between “proper” and improper English. “‘Tings’ was incorrect, you needed to breathe and say ‘things’, but if you breathed for ‘what’ then that was quaint. If the Irish didn’t aspirate and the English did then they were right, but if we did and the English didn’t then they were still right. The English taught us English to teach us they were right.” This complemented the larger theme of colonization present in the setting but also within Ava’s job and the characters of Julian and Edith.
One of the most interesting themes in the book is how class and wealth impact the characters and how they interact with each other. Julian makes much more money than Ava and comes from a wealthy background that is totally different to Ava’s upbringing in a working class family. Edith is also raised in a wealthy family and was able to attend private schools and an elite university and now makes a significant salary as a lawyer. This difference in background and current wealth is something always present to Ava. She brings it up often as a symbol of her moral failings and a sign that she isn’t doing life correctly. This is coupled with a lot of socialist commentary explaining Ava’s personal philosophy on personal wealth (lots of ideas that I share personally). That Dolan pairs all of this so cleverly with Ava’s efforts to appear aloof around people she desperately wants to feel a connection with is just one of the layers of this book.
One of the things I loved about the book was the writing style and dry humour throughout. The sentences are short and sharp. The dialogue between the characters was great and reflected the way people communicate in the modern day. This might be why Dolan has been compared to Sally Rooney. I see some commonalities in their writing, but I think it is unhelpful to compare writers in that way. Just because a writer shares a similar age bracket and gender as another, doesn’t take away from their unique writing style, and I think Dolan is doing wonderfully unique things in combining larger philosophical themes with current social issues while still writing something humorous and gripping. I’ve gone on much longer than I planned here, but if you have read this book I would love to know your thoughts!
For More Information on Exciting Times:
Exciting Times Review The Guardian
Exciting Times Review New York Times
Naoise Dolan Interview in The Guardian
Naoise Dolan Interview in the Independent