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I’m sure none of us here would exploit a friendship for our own ends. Is that really what friendship is all about? Of course not. Perhaps all friendships have an underlying self-serving purpose? Maybe Becky Sharp was simply more honest in her blatant use of Amelia as a stepping-stone to loftier things. But was it? Was Leo not using his fledgling friendship with Marcus and the invitation to spend time with his much grander family as a means of bolstering his own status? And indirectly, it led to tragedy. An example surely, of a purer, more innocent friendship than that between Sebastian and Charles in Brideshead. Hartley’s The Go-Between (1953), a classic that I loved. There is of course, much more than male friendship explored in Waugh’s classic and eventually the friendship is strained beyond repair. If I think of ‘book’ and ‘male friendship’, I immediately see Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. I feel that a dose of male bonding is needed next. I’ll take that form of friendship over the Becky Sharp variety any time. From the blurb: a poignant, funny, outrageous, and wise novel about a lifetime friendship between four Southern women. Regardless, it’s in as the fourth link, the story of a mother-daughter relationship with a heavy side order of 1950s female friendship. I feel certain that I’ve read Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (1996), written by Rebecca Wells but in reminding myself of the storyline, I’m left wondering. I still can’t bring myself to defend Becky but her name does provide a link into the next book. I tried to ignore this next one, given that the book has had plenty of exposure on the blogosphere lately, but really, how can I not add Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1848) to a chain exploring friendship? For Becky Sharp, friendship is a tool, a rung on the ladder of advancement and she exploits the friendship of poor little Amelia Sedley without mercy. I’m well into the theme of friendship now and acknowledging to myself that not all friendships are pure and unsullied. This is also one I haven’t read but I’ll be reading it as soon as our marvellous library system delivers it to my local branch which should be later this week. It charts the lives of Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, through their mutual love affair, their various other affairs, their houses, gardens, writing and other passions and their enduring friendship. Vita & Virginia (2018) by Sarah Gristwood is by all accounts a very beautiful book, filled with illustrations. There’s a lot of speculation over whether My Brilliant Friend is autobiographical but the female friendship in the next link is definitely between two real women, scandalous in their time.
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So it’s not just making time for one book but potentially four. And my understanding is that when I finish the first in the quartet I will be compelled to rush immediately onto the next. Heaven knows why it really should – and does – appeal, but … time, I suppose. For anyone who doesn’t know (is there anyone?) My Brilliant Friend recounts the friendship of Elena and Lila, growing up in poverty in 1950s Naples. Nothing clever here, it’s an obvious choice for the theme of friendship: My Brilliant Friend (2011) by the enigmatic Elena Ferrante. Perhaps in my eagerness to leave Nunez’s book behind, I jumped instantly onto my first link. Which seems fitting since Nunez also wrote The Friend. But for this month’s chain I’m going to take one of the themes from the book and run with it. Not even the cat on the cover will tempt me. Reading the blurb is enough to confirm that this is not a book for me right now.