Lit. Match: ‘No One Is Talking about This’ & ‘Is It Really That Bad?’

Curating some fun pairings of literature and pop culture

Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This is one of the best novels I’ve read in a long time. I’d say that since reading Lockwood’s novel three years ago, I haven’t come across anything quite as contemporary in style or quite as impactful emotionally.

This is a style-forward work of writing — short sections, pithy language, minimal plot — which means it is not a book for everyone. But it is consistently interesting, probing questions about how the internet has shaped our sense of self in the 21st century and how being online, for many people, is an internalized state of being. That is definitely true of the first person protagonist who works as an influencer, taking speaking gigs around the world to comment on the internet. Her life — professional, intellectual, emotional — has been shaped by being online. If a person can think in memes, that’s this person.

There is a lot to say about the ideas in this book and about Lockwood’s stylistic achievements, but the most notable aspect of No One’s Talking About This is how it changes.

No One Is Talking About This is irreverent until it’s not. It’s fully involved in exploring the dearth of sincerity online until it suddenly erupts with sincerity. The juxtaposition between these poles doesn’t feel schismatic. It feels like the story leaps a synaptic gap.

This is a book for the internet age about the internet age but it manages to become something much more timeless than topical. Because it’s also about sisterhood and parenthood and loss.

The novel moves from a question of sincerity in the way we live online to a question of whether the internet has not just trained our brains to think in memes - to be reactionary, to be shallow - but has maybe also wrung our spirits of the ability to be sincere. And it takes us through and past these questions into a very deep sincerity. It’s great.

The podcast “Is It Really That Bad?” comes to mind as a nice companion to Lockwood’s novel. The podcast’s premise: Kathleen and Kadi look at online reviews (mostly Yelp) and parse the valid from the invalid. They develop standards and theories about what kinds of reviews you can trust and what kinds of reviews you can’t. It’s fun and funny.

But then they actually go to the places that have been reviewed. In the process, the show moves from a sharp and witty set of take-downs on internet behavior to something else. In a memorable episode about a gym, Kathleen and Kadi talk about their actual fitness goals, go to a class and reflect on the atmosphere they encounter, bringing the podcast to a place that ends up being about sisterhood and connection. It’s reminiscent of No One Is Talking About This. At least on one level.

And on the whole, the podcast’s compound set of relationships between content, style, and emotion is similar to No One Is Talking About This. I mean, it’s a podcast (an internet phenomenon) about Yelp reviews (an internet phenomenon) that uses this format to access real human stuff.

They aren’t making new episodes anymore. But Patricia Lockwood isn’t writing No One Is Talking About This anymore either. So, that seems fine.

If you try out this pairing, please let me know how it worked for you!