Happy All the Time

Hopkins recommended Happy All the Time to me lately--oh my goodness, what a delightful book! Definitely my favorite that I've read in a while! It is both the lightest, most charming book imaginable, while still being thoughtful and intelligent (it's filled with digs at philosophers and academics). Colwin is an incredibly witty and colorful writer, and so I've included below a ton of quotations from the book: they show just how clever her writing is.

I'd never heard of Colwin until Hopkins recommended this book. So of course I looked her up and came across this wonderful article (written by a friend of Colwin's after her death), which turns out to be what introduced Hopkins to Colwin in the first place.

Happy all the Time is about two couples who are best friends: Guido and Holly and Vincent and Misty. At the beginning, you think that the book is going to be about Guido and Holly, and it sort of is, but when Misty enters the story (which doesn't happen until a quarter of the way through), you find that all the rest of them are pretty boring. Vincent is good and almost childlike in his incredulity about the happiness of the world; Misty, on the other hand, is incredibly cynical about the world. The novel offers a reading of the world that is somewhere in the middle: it is aware that love involves pain and vulnerability, but, in the relationships of Guido and Holly and Vincent and Misty, it offers a hope that love can work.

Guido and Holly's relationship makes less sense to me: Holly is this unflappably calm and orderly, organized woman. She is almost incapable of communicating. Guido, on the other hand, can't for the life of him make sense of Holly. He is forced to just accept her as she is and love her--to accept her profound otherness from him.

Because the book is choc full of perfect, sarcastic descriptions, I feel compelled to share loads of them with you, in the hope that you'll get addicted and read it yourself:

"Being sweet meant that she did not attack him outright and it occurred to Vincent that perhaps he and Misty might be friends. He had never had a woman friend before. Of course, their dealings had not been precisely friendly, but then Vincent had never had a lunch partner like Misty, or any other sort of partner like her."
...
"'If you weren't so polite, you wouldn't have had to go out of your way to take me to dinner to apologize for your random behavior.'
Vincent looked up. Misty was smiling.
'You should be more like me,' she said.
'I should?' said Vincent. 'In what way?'
'I am the scourge of God.'"
...
"The water ran pleasantly down her back. There was something wonderful about having someone love you. Rapture does not spring up out of nowhere. Misty figured that time was running out. A few more weeks of this and she would be a replica of Vincent, announcing her state of love to strangers on the subway. She turned off the water and wrapped herself in a towel. In the steamy mirror, she confronted herself. Love made fools of everyone. It was man's fate."
...
"'My, my,' said Maria Teresa. 'I do admire your distance. If someone loved me, I'd probably pay him. You know what St. Theresa of Avila said? She said: "It must be in my nature, for anyone who gave me so much as a sardine could obtain anything from me.' What a pillar of strength you are.'" (Misty's friend is Maria Teresa, and Irish-Catholic who continually quotes Theresa of Avila.)
...
"There are going to be thousands of dinners like this, thought Misty. This is my place at the dinner table. This is my intended husband's best friend whom I am going to spend the rest of my life getting to know. Across the table, Vincent looked seraphically happy. How wonderful everything tasted, Misty thought. Everything had a sheen on it. Was that what love did, or was it merely the wine? She decided that it was love.
It was just as she suspected: love turned you into perfect mush."
...
"Holly did not believe that marriage was valid without cake."
...
After getting pretty tipsy on their wedding night, Vincent and Misty return home:
"'I want to make a speech,' said Vincent. 'Don't flinch. I make lovely speeches, as you know. Here's my speech. I am entirely happy. I am a prince. I have just gotten married and I am in love. Life is a banquet. Do you have anything to say to that?'
'Yes,' said Misty dreamily. 'I have married a sap.'"
...
"'Vincent,' said Misty. 'Sometimes I think you don't have the sense that God gave a chicken. Your family has been sleeping peacefully in Petrie since the beginning of time. I come from a family that fled the Czar's army, got their head broken on picket lines, and has never slept peacefully anywhere."
...
On Holly going on a religious retreat to get used to the idea of being pregnant: "'You don't have one ounce of religious feeling,' said Guido.
'I may not have religious feelings, but I like a religious atmosphere,' Holly said. 'Besides, the thought of being pregnant makes me feel medieval.'"
...
"'Friendship is not possible between two women one of whom is very well dressed,' said Misty."

(As you can see, this book is something like reading a sarcastic version of Proverbs.)


(picture)