Pebbles and Sally
18 - 22 November, Week 8
“After eating, she entered her bedroom. Through the window, the street below was visible, and the slow swell of the river. She removed her jacket and shoes, took the clasp from her hair, and drew her curtains shut. The curtains were thin and yellow with a pattern of green rectangles. She took off her sweater and wriggled out of her trousers, leaving both items crumpled on the floor, the texture of the trousers a little shiny. Then she pulled on a cotton sweatshirt and a pair of grey leggings. Her hair, dark and falling loosely over her shoulders, looked clean and slightly dry. For some time, she scrolled through various media timelines, occasionally opening and half-reading long articles about elections overseas. Her face was wan and tired. Outside her room, two other people entered the apartment, having a conversation about ordering dinner. They passed her room, shadows visible briefly through the slit under the door, and then went through to the kitchen. Opening a private browser window on her laptop, the woman accessed a social media website and typed the words ‘aidan lavin’ into the search box. A list of results appeared, and without glancing at the other options, she clicked on the third result. A new profile opened on-screen, displaying the name ‘Aidan Lavin’ below a photograph of a man’s head and shoulder viewed from behind. The man’s hair was thick and dark, and he was wearing a denim jacket. Beneath the photograph, a text caption read: local sad boy. normal brain haver. check out the soundcloud. The user’s most recent update, posted three hours earlier, was a photograph of a pigeon in a gutter, its head buried inside a discarded crisp packet. The caption read: same. The post had 127 likes. In her bedroom, leaning against the headboard of the unmade bed, the woman clicked on this post, and replies appeared underneath. One reply from a user with the handle Actual Death Girl read: looks like you and all. The Aidan Lavin account had replied you’re right, insanely handsome. Actual Death Girl had liked this reply. The woman on her laptop clicked through to the profile of the Actual Death Girl account. After spending thirty-six minutes looking at a range of social media profiles associated with the Aidan Lavin account, the woman shut her laptop and lay back down on her bed.”
- From Beautiful World, Where are You by Sally Rooney, 2021; pages 25-26.
To say that in our lil PhD office we are Sally Rooney stans would be an understatement. Well, no, perhaps it’s just a statement. But we all bought Intermezzo the week it came out, and discussed it over pizza and arancini once we had finished reading it, and yes, we really are quite wholesome and lovely and etc.
This last week I’ve been writing something for my supervisors about why I’ve chosen to translate the book I’ve chosen to translate, 《如雪如山》 by 张天翼. There are many reasons I’ve chosen it - I’m completely head-over-heels for this book - but today I realized that perhaps one of the reasons this is true is because Zhang’s writing reminds me of Sally Rooney’s - in particular, this passage and other passages from Beautiful World, Where are You (my personal favorite, sorry Peter and Ivan). I was - am! - overjoyed to have realized this. Probably in large part because it made me feel intelligent, being able to make a connection between the writing in a book written in Chinese and a book written in English, but also because it re-re-reinforced my belief that 《如雪如山》 is worth translating. It’s so good. It’s so good that I can’t think of a more eloquent word to describe how good it is. And since I haven’t translated it yet, and since the majority of the audience of this weird little substack doesn’t read Chinese, I shall joyfully resort to using this passage from Beautiful World to show how great it is. Here we go:
Simply by narrating every small, unthinking action of this character, Rooney tells us exactly who she is. We know she lives with other people, probably a couple, and that she isn’t good friends with them, since she doesn’t go out to say hi when they get back. We can assume that she is single, because she doesn’t discuss dinner with anyone, as her housemates do. We know that she isn’t terribly type-A, since she leaves her clothes crumpled on the floor after she takes them off, and because her bed is unmade. I would presume that she’s fairly stylish, based on the sweater + slightly shiny trouser combination. We know that she is concerned about the world, since she half-reads stories about elections in other countries in her down time. We can reasonably guess she is attractive (“her hair, dark and falling loosely over her shoulders” - that’s how the hair of pretty, dark-haired girls is described) but doesn’t care overly about her appearance (the aforementioned hair is “clean and slightly dry”).
We know that her preferred way to unwind after work is to close herself off to the world, put on comfy clothes, and scroll. And who among us doesn’t do the same on a near-daily basis. The evil algorithm companies won, at least a little bit, because god do I love a good sweatpants and scroll, however wan and tired it may make my face.
We know that she is slightly ashamed of where her scrolling leads her, because she opens up a private browser once she’s finished half-reading long reads about elections.
Obviously, this is transcendently skillful writing (not a “thought verb” in sight), and the detail, the detail! That she types “aidan lavin” into the search bar, immediately chooses the third one down, which is capitalized, “Aidan Lavin.” YUM. Thirty-six minutes? I can almost hear her in her brain, looking at the clock and realizing she has been looking at strangers associated with her ex for over half an hour. YUM. The irony of the handle “Actual Death Girl” and the woman clicking on it because Actual Death Girl commented on Aidan’s sardonic picture of a pigeon? YUM. The contrast between her actions being done in what she assumes to be complete privacy (closed curtains, private browser), and the fact that Rooney has depicted every single minute detail for any random person who buys this book or is foolish enough to open this Substack — this contrast is what I see as the beauty of this passage. It makes me realize how unconscious my own actions are when I get home from anything - what do I do, thinking that it’s unimportant, insignificant, simply because no one will see what I’m doing?
Of course, if you’ve read any self-help books (think Atomic Habits) or let a wellness video run on your social media profiles long enough that your algorithm thinks you want more wellness content, you are aware that no second of your day is unimportant or insignificant because it can be utilized to turn yourself into a more efficient capitalist cog. And while I try to push back against the capitalization of my free time, I do also try to be cognizant of the way I spend the seconds as they pass in my life because the seconds do, famously, add up. This is what I appreciate about Rooney and about 张天翼 [Zhāng Tiānyì, the author of 《如雪如山》]: they write in a way that acknowledges the seconds, the things we click on, the things we notice about the places and people we find ourselves surrounded by. It’s like six-year-old Ramona Quimby in Ramona the Pest asking where Mike Mulligan went to the bathroom when he spent all day digging the hole for the town hall - toilets! matter! (As anyone who has lived in China knows all too well.)
张天翼 [Zhāng Tiānyì] actually says it best, I think:
“让人疲惫的不是高山，是鞋里的沙子，写高山的人很多了，我想写那一颗沙子，因为咱们在日常生活里感受到最多的还是沙子” / “What exhausts people isn’t big mountains, but the annoying little pebbles in their shoes. People write about big mountains all the time, and so I want to write about the pebble, the presence of which we are made to feel as we go about our daily lives” (my translation).
Now the only thing that I can hope is that I can do justice to Zhang’s brilliant meditations on the metaphorical pebbles in our shoes, reminding us of their presence with each step we take.