My favourite book (and goodbye)

I’ve been trying to write about Rules of Civility for quite some time. I first read it the summer before university, and it has stuck with me since. Last year, in a reading rut, I asked our former Editor-in-Chief and Books Editor, Mo, what to do. He said to reread something I loved; this was an obvious choice. As I made my way through the novel, I jotted down notes that never quite formalised into an article. Yet it feels wrong to leave the Books section as editor after two years without  nally putting something together.

It is built on the foundations of Katey’s relationships and how she navigates their dynamicity

When I do recommend this book and people ask what it’s about, I can never quite do it justice. I start off by saying it’s about a young woman, Katey Kontent, in her mid-twenties simply living her life in 1930s New York. But that makes it sound more flippant than it is. Rules of Civility doesn’t have a particular plot; it is built on the foundations of Katey’s relationships, with others and herself, and how she navigates their dynamicity. These life lessons are wrapped in the silks of Amor Towles’ prose – whose brilliance is worthy of an article in its own right.

What I love about Rules of Civility is the various ways I have applied it, and it seems to apply itself, to my life. I picked up my first martini – Katey’s drink of choice – because of the novel and now it is mine too. Her favourite book is Walden, which inspired me to give it a try (and which I wrote about back in Issue #1871). She also aspires to enter the world of publishing, an interest I have recently realised, somewhat sheepishly, we also hold in common.

Beyond the silly enjoyment of projecting myself onto her, the novel ends with a deck-of-cards metaphor that is Sylvia-Plath-fig-tree reminiscent. It reminds me to pay attention to life in the present; about the arbitrariness of decisions that hold weight beyond our control; and to take each day one at a time. As I reach the end of my tenure as Books Editor and at university more broadly, I find myself returning to its lessons on goodbyes.

Part of the novel’s ingenuity is that it is narrated in hindsight: Katey looks back on 1937 as a year that shaped her from a distance and that makes its significance anew. She reflects on the people who once meant everything but were eventually lost to time and circumstance; on those whose importance she overlooked yet who seemed to reappear. Perhaps it is me just projecting again, but I find myself wondering who these characters might be years down the line.

So anyways, what a long-winded goodbye. If there’s anything I can leave you with, it’ll be a recommendation to read Rules of Civility. It’s been a pleasure.

- Aditi <3