116.

A personal book review written for a book loved much.

—

Tell me if you have ever thought of that one stranger, or many more. Remembered the curve of their smile or the flecks of light in their eyes.

I have, and I know what it means to lie awake wondering where they have gone, and if they are still here.

Even as a child growing up, stories unspoken in people unmet fascinated me. Though crowds are not my fancy, and fears of being closed in fluctuate without warning, the idea of knowing people deeply remained an irresistible attraction.

Without uttering hello, I have already been given a thousand goodbyes.

Meet my read, Jon McGregor’s If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, an author who has done me no favour by augmenting my strange affection for nameless individuals.

It is a story of a little town in the North of England, nothing extraordinary to colour the narrative. Here, you will meet the familiar, watch lives that intersect in the simplest of ways. Children, teenagers, families and the elderly, a community common and probably never given a second glance.

To add to this seemingly plain piece of fiction, there is no punctuation to indicate the dialogue and there are no names! At least, one will see them unfolding in the present, but in the recollection of the past, things fall into a distant blur. This is all one will get: knowing the neighbours via their house numbers and distinct physical features.

Some may be tempted to jot down details in order to grab information, or find themselves frustrated at this seemingly unremarkable writing, contrary to its title. Yet I find a loveliness in its quiet and gentle expression.

It reminds me of the real world we all live in. Some people will make you take a second glance, more so than the others. For me, I fall for the boy at number eighteen. Somehow drawn, and as the narrative drew to a close, only then did I understand why.

This book, it centres around the living of days normal save for one, when a terrible incident happens that changes the town for always. Some do not see, some are not involved, but in one way or another, it became a part of them.

Jon McGregor writes painful truths, in which they are scattered and hidden between the lines. Though a book first published in 2002, he already speaks of human disconnection and the possibility of a whole wide world out there. Here, I leave a quote to express my point:

“There are so many people in the world he says, and I want to know them all but I don’t even know my next-door neighbor’s name.”

We search far and wide to find the spectacular, constantly leaving, never staying. Please, take a seat and watch the clouds rumble with me. I may be strange, seeing what others cannot, but I have an impossible love for the neglected ordinary and a longer look may prove its value otherwise.

If ever, pick up this book, a book plain among the rest.

Don’t forget: there is something remarkable in the everyday anonymity of things.