T'internet
Before we begin: I had a busy May (measurable in how little knitting I got done and the six week absence of this newsletter) but it was full of good news. (I got nice bits of encouragement around my fiction writing. )
I’m reading Aoife Barry’s new book Social Capital (in the shops rn, going to share the Books Upstairs link because they were v nice a few months ago about me paying for something across multiple cards and with coins).1 The book is a personal history of the internet alongside an account of how social media giants got their claws into our lives and country. I walk through Grand Canal Docka few days of the week, the original settlement site of many of these companies. The soulless concrete, the tall dead-eyed buildings and the noisy wind - it is all too metaphorical. On that topic, I recommend seeking out Roisin Kiberd’s essay The Night Gym (and her book The Disconnect).2
When reading about someone else’s (digital) youth, it is irresistible to revisit your own. My family were one of the first in the area to get a desktop computer. I sat in front of one machine doing Mavis Beacon exercises. Clicked through Encarta and learned about the ancient world. Worried about the noises coming from the PC tower as the Tomb Raider CD-ROM hummed. I asked for Sims expansion packs for birthdays. We must have been early adopters of the internet. I remember the pterodactyl screams of the dial-up and people booking RyanAir flights in our living room. I learned early on about clearing caches after reading so much fanfic and Star Wars forums. I thought I had broken the computer before I copped on. I never took part in chatrooms. They were full of bogeymen. I wasn’t on Bebo as a teen. I was terrified of having to compile a top 16 friends list. The only time I was ever in 16 people’s company back then was in a classroom.
Facebook was part of college. We all got accounts a few weeks into my first year. Typing into clunky, heavy Dells, we pushed acquaintanceships into something more. A friend recommended a novel which captures this awkward stretch but I don’t think I have the appetite for such a lashing. I don’t have an account on that platform anymore, but I’m sure somewhere on a server, despite my request to delete, my signature and username linger over a career-ending warrant. I wasted hours, days, probably months on the thing. Sometimes it was just really fun. Mischief. Cahoots. Other times, it was very lonely. (Another Roisin Kiberd recommendation is the essay ‘Tamagotchi Girls’ in The Disconnect. An earlier incarnation was published on Vice.)
When I studied abroad the internet became a lifeline to the side of the world I desperately missed. Zoom calls during the pandemic brought me back to those scheduled Skypes. There was so much to read and write in college that year, I needed the frivolity the internet is capable of to remind me that there was more out there than Lexis Nexis. I remember the women’s website Jezebel was huge during this time. I found as much to read in the comments as I did in the posts. Once, I spied a username referencing the same city I was in at the time. I clicked in and read their previous comments. In one thread, I saw the user describing a scene familiar to me, an incident that played out in a seminar I was taking. I knew who she was. I’m sure I gasped. Through more comments, I learned the truth behind a prickly dynamic between two people in the class. One of whom was the user. For the rest of the term, I sat in the same room as these two near strangers, knowing intimate details of their relationship. Typing out your problems and unburdening yourself is both relief and temptation. I’ve done a lot of it myself. But it comes with risks. Such as a nosy girl sitting in a library knowing your business.
It’s delicious, sometimes, knowing a secret about someone. But as I age, I wish I knew less about people. I wish us all some light mystery. Social media has brought me friends but I’m getting a taste for hearing news firsthand, in person, as opposed to from an algorithm.
P.S.
Rachel Connolly writes a lot about text-based communications and relationships. I find her thoughts feeding into my own at times.
I was reading Danielle McLaughlin’s novel The Art of Falling and it reminded me of other novels where a fictional artist’s life and their work propels the story.
Here is a small programme for you:
Eimear Ryan’s Holding Her Breath. A young woman fresh from abandoning her professional swimming career starts college and finds herself in the shadow of her famous poet grandfather. (Vibes and Scribes)
My Death by Lisa Tuttle. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this one before but I couldn’t work out how to search my archive. It's gothic, creepy, thrilling. A woman decides to write a biography of another writer who was also an artist’s muse. That’s all I’m giving you because it is so good you have to discover it yourself, page by page. Very hard to find, I think I got it on ebook during the pandemic when some people I follow online were recommending it. However, that version seems to have been pulled from the internet. There is a plan for a release in October with an introduction by the author Amy Gentry (Amazon).
Possession by A.S. Byatt. It won a Booker so you should be able source it in a decent secondhand bookshop. I read Possession years ago, decades ago, after seeing the movie (fairly different but has the same skeleton) with Aaron Ekhart and Gwyneth Paltrow, which I actually enjoyed. Plot: academics find some letters suggesting two Victorian writers had an affair. I remember it being a slow and challenging read - Byatt wrote poems in character - but I was into it and should probably revisit at some stage. Cool fact about A.S. Byatt: she tore into the wizard lady’s writing and fandom in the New York Times in 2003 so is kind of a legend.
If you can think of others on a similar theme, I’d be interested in hearing about them. I’ve packed The Shadow of the Sun by A.S. Byatt for a short holiday I’m taking this week. It’s about the teenage daughter of a male novelist. I’ll let you know how I get on.
Shops and businesses that are weird about taking money or breaking up a transaction, I remember you!
Another Irish woman writing about the internet and what it is doing to us is Dr Mary McGill, check out The Visibility Trap.