Anxious People

by Fredrick Backman

(translated by Neil Smith)

Originally published in 2019

Date read: 01 May 2024

390 pages, paperback, 2021 edition.

Disclaimer: I'd like to apologize. It's been a while.

I would be lying if I say that I did not laugh in [partial] relatability at the author's dedication at the front the book. As a principle, when I am starting a book that I haven't read before, I always start with the acknowledgements. Followed, of course, by whatever comes first as I open the front cover. Which, in this case, happens to be the following dedication. A joy.

"This book is dedicated to the voices in my head, the most remarkable of my friends.

And to my wife, who lives with us."

---

I had so many things to think, and feel, and say, and share as I was pouring through page after page. Now, sitting in front of my computer, as I write this, with the book carefully placed near my right hand, I struggle to capture the warmth and the wonder I had felt. Vocabulary fails me. Or is it language? I wonder how it would be to actually know Swedish and read the book in the language that it was written in. The translator, Neil Smith, has done a masterful job.

---

Imagine a person. A whole, complete person. A person with a personality, a person with tics, a person with... you get my point, don't you? A complete person, anxiety and all.

Now imagine that person split into say 10 different people, such that each of those people has some characteristic trait or nuance of the original complete person amplified to max level. So, essentially, you get a deconstructed person. A person deconstructed into many different people. This all sounds horribly complex, but what I meant by putting it this way was that - I can relate to all the characters. Each and every single one of them. Perhaps some more than the others. Which is why it feels like if we were to combine all the nuances/ thoughts/ feelings of the individual characters, you would get one complete person. Ah, it still sounds complex. Believe me, it's much easier to understand this analogy when you hear me speak.

---

A short scribble by me on Pg. 159: "Makes me laugh! These transcripts are hilarious. What a stroke of genius to have them in this format, interspersed in the book. Enchanting."

---

"Life doesn't always turn out the way you expect." And neither does this book.

You'll like this book if

You will like this book.

No matter who you are. Or what you are. Or how old you are. Or what personality traits and preferences you have. It's hard not to like something so pure, wholesome, heartwarming. A veritable fluff ball.

Possible recipes (for those with the stomach to explore)

Have you tried Capricciosa pizza? I haven't. Perhaps it's worth a try.

A few of my favourite lines from the book (in order of appearance)

I'm afraid that I couldn't cut down on the number of lines included, any more than I already have. Try as I might. Or perhaps I didn't try at all. Because they were all so awesome. There are no spoilers. And I haven't even included the best bits - paragraphs and pages of beauty. Read all the way till the end.

"This story is a about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots."

"At the end of your career you're trying to find a point to it all, and at the start of it, you're looking for a purpose."

"The older man thinks the most important thing for a police officer to do is the right thing, the younger thinks it's more important to do things correctly."

"It's so hard to find the words when all you really want to say is: 'I can see you're hurting.'"

"... the boy tried to find the words to say how much there must be to live for, even if maybe it didn't feel that way right now."

"It's a drawing, produced by a child who is either extremely talented or completely devoid of talent for their age, depending entirely on what that age is."

"The estate agent takes a deep breath and says what women usually say to men who never seem to think that their lack of knowledge should get in the way of a confident opinion.

'I'm sure you're right.'"

"... that we don't want our children to pursue their own dreams or walk in our footsteps. We want to walk in their footsteps while they pursue our dreams."

"It's easier to talk about work when you haven't quite got the words to talk about the other things in life, but obviously those words apply to both things at the same time."

"It was a day completely devoid of weather."

"... because sometimes it's easier to live with your own anxieties if you know that no one else is happy, either."

Character A: "I have to confess that I hadn't thought of it like that."

Character B: "You should think more, have you ever thought about that?"

"I'm very sorry about that! I'm having quite a complicated day here."

"The only thing they really have in common is moral hazard."

"If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans."

[You must read the book to find out what it means. I'll be a little helpful. It's in chapter 18.]

"Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, that's probably because it's full of shit."

"Obviously that's neither logical or plausible, but if phobias were logical and plausible they wouldn't called phobias."

"'What do you want me to do?' Jim asked, because he needed to be needed."

"You need psychology if you think you're a dolphin. You need psychiatry if you've killed all the dolphins."

"The most expensive thing you can buy in the most densely populated places on this planet is distance."

"She didn't have any real plan, just a consequence."

"People don't want to buy a picture, they want to buy a frame."

"... because one of her most charming and simultaneously most infuriating characteristics was that no matter what they'd been arguing about, she could be in a wonderful mood in the blink of an eye if she thought about cheese."

"That was the moment she went from being hopelessly infatuated to being irrevocably in love."

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit."

"You'll manage it."

"Okay! I'll organize pizza."

"One of the most human things about anxiety is that we try to cure chaos wit chaos. Someone who has got themselves into a catastrophic situation rarely retreats from it, we're far more inclined to carry on even faster."

"Don't do anything silly."

"Because the people we argue with hardest of all are not the ones who are completely different from us, but the ones who are almost not different at all."

"The truth? It's hardly ever as complicated as we think. We just hope it is, because then we feel smarter if we can work it out in advance."

"... you'd probably think she was impatient. You need to see her face to understand that she was feeling fragile."

"She felt like saying all this, but by this point in her life she had got used to the fact that people either didn't understand or didn't want to understand. So she stood there in silence. And, deep down, wished she'd stayed silent the whole time."

"People needed to have a project."

"Are you going to raise it [your kid] so that it doesn't grow up to be one of those idiots who don't take their backpack off when they're on public transport?"

"She cracked, like thin ice on a puddle of water..."

"It was nicer than it sounded."

"They go and see something made up. Because people need stories, too, sometimes. In the darkness of the auditorium, they hold hands."

"Not knowing is a good place to start."

"This takes a matter of seconds, but she manages to live two lifetimes. Theirs."

"It helps to know that you're not alone when you've been left behind."

"But when you get home this evening, when this day is over and the night takes us, allow yourself a deep breath. Because we made it through this day as well.

There'll be another one along tomorrow."

PS: I did a terrible job at writing notes for this one. Most of those fleeting, solid emotions remain uncaptured. If you have read this, do reach out and say hello! Would enjoy hearing your thoughts (if you have or haven't read the book), which might spark a discussion, which might result in me updating this. It all sounds very wonderful.