"Happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" - Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

One of my favourite books which I'm finally getting a chance to re-read; and I'm being swept off my feet all over again. I think Tolstoy gets a reputation for heavy, long-winded epics and 'War and Peace' has become the literary equivalent of rocket science or brain surgery - something that a lay reader would resign themselves to never having the motivation or patience to undertake. In actual fact, his writing is delightfully human. It reads like a modern day novel, albeit more beautifully and accurately than anyone has, or maybe ever will, describe the turmoil, joy and neurosis that exist in the human mind. The first complete edition of the novel was published in 1877, and few books of that era still produce the same effects as they did then; few manage to create characters so rich and detailed but remarkably modern that you feel you've known them your whole life. Anna and I are separated by 140 years, 1 revolution, 2 world wars, 1800 miles and a hell of a big class difference, and yet I still wish I could pick up the phone and call her up one evening to gossip over that mega-bitchy argument she just had with her husband.

I am rather a fan of the 2012 film version with Kiera Knightly, which is strange, because the vast majority of her other roles I find intensely irritating and hollow. But I think this films' strength lies in the fact that they created a theatrical, crimson whirlwind of adrenaline which doesn't lay claim to anything more than sharing the same storyline. I laughed when I first realised that Vronsky (the handsome Count who conquers Anna's heart) was a blonde; in the book he is a brooding dark horse, and to make him a blonde pretty-boy seemed a crime of epic proportions; like making The Hulk a pastel pink. Knightly's casting as our tempestuous and passionate heroine also awoke the sceptic in me, I doubted her having the skill and experience to carry off the gravity of such a role. 

It took a little while for me to look past her vacant stare and to adjust to the mildly chaotic use of scenery changes in this version, but I was won over by the costume, use of music and brilliant timing and restraint exercised by the director/writers/whoever is responsible for that (I don't pretend to know the first thing about film production). Whenever a lengthy and detailed novel is translated onto the screen, I always commiserate the inevitable loss of subplots, the simplification of dialogue and the feeling that it's all a bit sped up, with the characters running away with their emotions before we've had a chance to properly explore their psyche. It's unavoidable, and even the best attempts often fall short to audiences familiar with the original.
Perhaps my saving grace was that I hadn't read the book in many years, and it was much easier to overlook such inconsistencies and appreciate the story on a different level. Jude Law's role as Anna's ever-faithful and righteous husband Karenin was also a pleasant surprise, he has transitioned well from playing the lovable rouge into characters with more complexity and weight, and I thought his Karenin was brilliantly subtle in his strength and saved the jilted husband from being a complete spoil-sport in the eyes of the viewer. Knightly, too, is well suited to playing the tragic, delirious final days of our heroine; this time her open mouth and shaky countenance didn't scream of overacting but added to Anna's loss of reality. (This, too, I think is why the only other performance of hers that I have truly enjoyed is the mental patient in 'A Dangerous Method' with Michael Fassbender... maybe she's finally found her niche?)

Back to the novel; I've always been most enthralled by the way Tolstoy handles moments of silence and pause during dialogues. His description of every glance, every chewed lip and every involuntary shudder speaks volumes about what is going on inside the mind and body of the characters. His understanding of worry, of indecision and of human frailty is what transports him above and beyond what even some of the best psychologists and writers of our day can ever hope to achieve. I like to think that the sign of a good book is when you read something that you had previously thought you were the only person in the world to ever experience; and here, on this page written hundreds of years ago by someone with whom you have nothing in common, are YOUR feelings and your thoughts as if he'd taken a pair of tweezers, plucked the words right out from the deepest level of your cortex and written them down more perfectly than you ever could.

(This is why, when attempting to describe how I feel about something to my therapist, I often have no choice but to paraphrase lines from my favourite authors, which allows me to better describe what I mean than cobbling my own words together. Why make Cava when you can buy Champagne?)

I don't think my family is unhappy, per se. I think it's individuals are often unhappy, which reflects upon the household dynamic and strains relationships that are still under construction. My father says he cannot sleep unless I am in my own bed. I've been living at home for 6 months now, and his response to me wishing to spend the night elsewhere is that of hurt, of betrayal and the panic of a father whose beloved child is lying in a gutter somewhere sticking syringes into her arms.
I took on an evening waitressing job last week, told him I would be late home and didn't know when. Around midnight, the customers are getting ready to leave and I'm tidying up the bar, when in storms my hurricane of my father, eyes wide and fuming, hissing why wasn't I  answering my phone and how much longer I'd be. Between the baffled looks of the restaurant staff and red-faced, merry patrons, my father's pale face stood like a scared and angry child whose mother has accidentally left him at the supermarket. He later angrily dismissed my claim that I had felt humiliated. Apparently; my devotion to him should override my own feelings of pride and therefore awareness  of how strangers perceive me.

I wonder to what extent we are responsible for the happiness of our parents. We do what we can to avoid making them unhappy, but how far should we bend over to fulfil needs which originate in issues beyond our control? When does being lenient and accommodating towards someone's weaknesses and quirks become damaging not only to ourselves, but to their own well-being? How much can we discipline someone on whose kindness, love and support we still very much depend?
I fear my father is lonely, and I don't have the strength to provide him will the attention and care that he wants and needs. I don't think he understands the concept of emotional blackmail. In any case, he acts the way he does out of fear and worry rather than any malicious intent whatsoever. It's heartbreaking to witness someone drive themselves into a state of helpless animalistic fury over situations that seem so inconsequential to the untrained eye.
I feel like I'm watching the me of two years ago, a car crash happening in slow motion and understanding how frustrated and useless my friends and family must have felt; screaming at me because they knew no better.

I think that's why I read; because the best of friends can offer us a shoulder to cry on, but only the greatest of authors can make us understand exactly why we are crying.

“Funny how we take it for granted that we know all there is to know about another person, just because we see them frequently or because of some strong emotional tie.” - Robert Bloch, Psycho

18th birthday is the biggie. You wake up, and suddenly shop keepers are smiling at you, bars fling open their doors to accept your Saturday job money with glee, and the government welcomes you with open arms into the consumer rat race. "Yesterday, it would have been dangerously  irresponsible of us and harmful to your physical and mental health to offer you these products. But today.. TODAY, dear citizen, it is our privilege and our honour to invite you to join our club, to allow you to inhale the sweet smoke of adult life, and sip the nectar of the Gods. The membership fee is a tad steep, but if you think about it; the money you spend will go directly into paying your eventual NHS bills and covering your prescription charges. So you see, comrade, it's all about you now."

I've been driving for almost 5 years now, and the realisation still never fails to stun me whenever I join a motorway. Smokers may pose a threat to their nearest and dearest, drinkers (without the aid of a car) can do relatively little damage to anyone but themselves. The wake of their devastation is, to some extent, contained within their own circles. A driver can cause dozens of random deaths and ruin lives of utter strangers in the flick of a wrist; with less effort than it takes you to light a cigarette or pour a glass. The driving age is 17.  

I once heard a friend argue that the UK road network was one of the most socialist establishments that exist. No matter how expensive your car, how fast your acceleration and how loud your horn; once out on the tarmac, you have no choice but to follow the same rules as the smallest, most tattered, spluttering Ford Ka. The same speed limits apply, you get the same parking tickets and you hold absolutely no authority over the commandeering traffic lights.
If all the dominos are stacked in a neat formation, it becomes much easier to make the entire structure collapse through one wrong move.

I wonder whether it is the mark of a psychopath to get lost in the graveyard of your own imagination, seeing a trail of smoke and layers upon layers of metal, crumpled like intricate origami birds. I hear ambulances and a paramedic speaking to news reporters, I see fluorescent orange cones following a sprinkling of broken glass alongside the edge of the road. I can see the hundreds of people being late for work, school, weddings, court dates, holidays. I can see the butterfly effect of repercussions stretching outwards from the crash to families, newly made widows and orphans, limbs that will never work again, abandoned pets who will have no one to feed them when their owner doesn't return home that evening.
I can see all this whilst I am going at 69mph, overtaking a slow-moving removal van and double-checking my mirrors. I tense my arms to better grip the steering wheel and follow the curve of the road.

"Only a mediocre person is always at his best." - W. Somerset Maugham

I am sat at the table, sleepily blinking at the animated faces of the people I have known for most of my adult life. These are people I have laughed with till tears streamed down my eyes, people who I have had screaming matches with, who I have slept with and who I slept alongside.  We knew each other through the scrawny, acne-ridden years of puberty, we fallen in love together, lost those loves and cried together. We have shared cars, homes and secrets; gotten degrees, jobs and bank accounts. We haven't spoken for months, only to return to this very same table and find that nothing much changes, really.

I am sat at this table. And I am bored.

I still find myself experiencing a smug sort of pity for people who claim they have lost touch with their school friends. "Not me", I smile. "We're closer than we ever were, and I love every minute I spend with them".
But at this very minute, I couldn't care less about their conversation. I force a smile as I dully ask about jobs and how they spent their New Years. I don't care about their love lives, I will forget what they tell me the minute it slips out from their lips. During these heavy, morbid 60 seconds, I re-evaluate the very essence of friendship; of all those wasted intimacies and emotional investments into a hedge fund that has no interest in returning profit.
I glance down at the beer-soaked wooden table and play with the salt shaker. The most frightening through of all occurs: "Only a boring person can be bored". I know this is not quite true, but years of conditioning have taught me otherwise. Boredom is the greatest sin of all, I have been told. To be bored is to lack the intelligence and motivation to NOT be bored, to find yourself work, play, anything...
And this deep rooted fear follows me to this very table, weighing down my shoulders and filling my mouth with heavy soil so that I cannot speak. I know this creature; he has been carving out a home for himself in the deeper corners of my mind for a good many years now and I have learnt to hear his footsteps and recognise his voice.

You're boring. Your friends only invite you out of pity because they feel sorry for you. You add absolutely nothing to their lives. They've all got paying jobs, meaningful relationships and they're doing something with their time. You have nothing to contribute and nothing to say for yourself. You are stagnation personified. You look like a miserable, boring wretch - sitting there, staring from one person to another with the silent idiocy of a mannequin. I can't believe you even chose that shirt tonight, did you HONESTLY think anyone gives a shit about what you wear and how you look? It's pretty pathetic, actually, how you still cling to friendships that have obviously been dead in the water a long while ago...

Other nights, my first choice of weapon against this voice is alcohol, but tonight I'm driving. So it's just me and him; face to face inside the arena of my own mind. He points out that I haven't said anything in a good while, he replays back to me the look my friend just gave me across the table, it sticks to the back on my skull like ice you have no choice but  scrape off the windscreen before you can start driving again. I blink past it, breathe deeply and put down the salt shaker. When I speak, I strain my voice to shout louder than him.

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes" - Oscar Wilde

'Unwind'; the luxurious verb copyrighted by yummy mummies everywhere to shrug away that second glass, that thrill when the cork pops out of the bottle, the light-headedness that comes from inhibiting all those ghastly nervous cell receptors that keep us towing the line. "Shhh", says the Sauvignon Blanc, "Take some time, put your feet up! INDULGE!"


I've been missing alcohol a lot in the evenings. In many ways, I still tick far too many of the boxes that 'responsible drinking' does not entail. Those boxes were ticked in ink the day I first opened a book by Evelyn Waugh, the day I watched Don Draper slinging back whiskey after whiskey and still being the most magnetic man in the room, the day I realized that little voice in my head could be made to disappear, and all it took was a glass.

'Enjoy responsibly', tells us the advert for Stolichnaya vodka, as beautiful people in beautiful surrounds drift across our line of vision. They're all having a fantastic time; more exciting, more dynamic, more romantic than anything my glass of watery Coca Cola can offer me.
'Drink sensibly', the college nurse tells us on our first day of university. I remember this bitterly as I'm sitting on the outside steps of the college bar later that evening, wondering why all of those strangers inside were having such a bloody FANTASTIC time, making the best of friends and living their Fresher's Week to the full.

The problem with unwinding a tightly coiled spring, is that some materials just don't return back to their former state once the tension has been released. They unravel and lose their shape, they get tangled and become utterly useless for the purpose they once proudly served. It takes but a tiny fraction of the effort to release a spring; allowing it to burst forth in a violent cascade of stored energy,  than it does to painstakingly wind it back, loop by loop.

3 and a half years later, I'm just managing to wind myself back up again. To find that line that I crossed many months ago and remember what it feels like to fall asleep sober.

Rule 1: Know when to stop drinking
Rule 1 (corrected): Know when to START drinking.
Do not start drinking because you can't fall asleep. Do not start drinking when you're anxious. Do not start drinking because it's 8.50am on a Tuesday morning and you're about to having a panic attack at the prospect of leaving your room and walking across town to sit in a crowded lecture theatre.

Rule 2:  Don't drink in secret
Rule 2 (corrected): It's still a secret if you're having a quiet drink with friends and you have to sneak off into the kitchen for stolen gulps of vodka because the amount everyone else is drinking isn't enough to even give you a slight buzz.

Have you ever felt guilty about your drinking?
Yes, doesn't everyone after a night out? You know what makes it go away? A drink.
Can they smell wine on my breath? I hope I remembered to take chewing gum with me. Am I blinking at a normal rate? Am I acting like I do when I'm sober? Better avert my eyes and say as little as possible.
Do they know?

Have you ever lied about the amount you were drinking?
Yeah, but only to health questionnaires. I mean, ask ANY normal student and their weekly average is WAY over the recommended units, right? And they all turn out fine...
Why is she drinking so slowly? Is it obvious that I've had most of the bottle we were going to 'share'? Oh shit, am I slurring? Is she having a good time? I can't tell..
Does she know?

Have you ever felt unable to stop drinking?
Nah, I mean, I'll stop when I want to, right? I just haven't reached the 'right' level of buzz yet. Look: everyone else is drinking too!
I have to stifle the gagging sensation of cheap vodka straight from the bottle. How is half of it gone already? This was supposed to last me the week! Well, tonight's the last night, then...
I don't know.

I can't say I enjoy falling asleep sober, I think that's where most of my nostalgia arises. I dream in colours too vivid to get any restful sleep. I toss and worry about things and people who probably don't think about me at all. My own drowsy brain embarrasses and frustrates me to the extent that I fall asleep with my face stuck deep into my pillow, eyes scrunched and hands covering my ears to block out the laughter and mocking sounds of voices that are already too deeply rooted in my brain.
No, I hate falling asleep sober.
But  I hate the look of my mother's broken face more. I hate not remembering what my best friend said to me last night. I hate my sister avoiding my glance. I hate the insects that run down my arms when I'm carrying a bottle I know I shouldn't have. I hate feeling the X-ray stare of shop cashiers, I hate feeling every gram of their disdain and pity for me (real or imagined). I hate counting coins and knowing how much own-brand alcohol costs in every store. I hate feeling my father's whiskery kiss on my forehead, a seal of approval that stings unworthy skin.

A friend of mine says she's gotten into the habit of enjoying a glass of wine after work most days. I want to cry and pray that she's made out of stronger spring than I am.