Alex’s job is to make herself welcome in other people’s lives and spaces. As an attractive 22-year-old, she can get away with this.
Or rather, she can get away with it sometimes. At other times, her personality intervenes—almost without her knowledge or consent—and she inadvertently makes herself unwelcome.
Which is a problem when making yourself welcome is your profession.
I had read just over 60 pages of the 2023 novel The Guest, by Emma Cline, when I decided to stop reading. The book seemed too simplistic. It seemed to slip through my fingers like pudding.
But once I had put the book down, I could not stop thinking about it. The novel turned out to be wildly interesting in its simplicity.
Alex is interesting in her sheer inability to think about her own life. She functions on autopilot, all the time. Which gets her into situations. Sometimes she thinks to herself that she should stop to think to herself, but this is as far as she gets. The Guest is a character study in living in the moment. And reading the book turns into a game whereby you try to connect all of the dots that Alex is willfully failing to connect herself. (Note: the ending is fabulous in this regard.)
“There were many ways to keep knowledge from yourself, to not think too hard about things you didn’t want to confirm.”
Reading this novel was particularly interesting to me because I’m the opposite. I have spent years trying to learn how to live in the moment, because thinking too much about your life can be anxiety provoking. I suppose that Aristotle was right that it’s no good to go to extremes.
So anyway, I kept reading and let myself be drawn in. Cline, I realized, is a genius in writing the simplest of sentences that convey the maximum of information. For instance, Alex calls a man she knows. All she says is, “It’s Alex.” He responds nonverbally:
“He exhaled and let out a sharp laugh.”
Well, that’s telling.
Not the reception she was hoping for.
Are you a good guest?
Alex sounds charming, someone maybe Socrates would admonish, the unexamined life and all. But as long as she has some philosophy to follow, then she’s leading a good life, something Sennica would counter Socrates argument.
Sorry, but you introduced Aristotle and I ran with it. . .
I’m wondering if the character is a bit like Keiko Furukura in Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Girl – a character who I also found charming and unforgettable.
No, those characters are nothing alike. Though both are unforgettable….