The Opposite of Loneliness is a collection of short stories written by Marina Keegan. Marina Keegan was killed in a car crash five days after her graduation from Yale. This book is a collection of all her writing, both fiction and nonfiction, that was published after her passing. The first important writing lesson I learned from Keegan’s work was how to make a story meaningful in a short amount of time. I’ve been trying hard to work on my short story skills, but I struggle with keeping my stories concise. All of her stories were short enough to keep the reader’s interest the entire time right before introducing an entirely new topic. For example, her first nonfiction piece is titled, “Stability in Motion.” Although this chapter is only seven pages long, I feel as if I have a special connection with the story she’s telling. In this chapter, she describes her 1990 Toyota Camry. These seven pages detail everything there is to know about this car--who she got it from, memories in it, and who got it after she was done using it. My favorite excerpt from this chapter was, “Standing outside my newly vacuumed car, I wondered, if I tried hard enough, whether I could smell the Opium perfume again, or if I searched long enough, whether I’d find the matching umbrellas and the tiny sewing kit. My brother laughed at my nostalgia, reminding me that I could still drive the car when I came home. He didn’t understand that it wasn’t just the driving I’d miss. That it was the tinfoil balls, the New York Times, and the broken speaker; the fingernail marks, the stray cassettes, and the smell of chai” (149). By the time we get to the end of this chapter, she’s already detailed all the different experiences that created these many memories in her car. This way, readers understand the significance this car played in her life during this time. The second lesson I learned from this book was how to include important details of a scene without making the text overwhelming. In my own writing, I often find myself either overcomplicating a scene by including way too much detail or drying it out by not including enough. I found that Marina Keegan included just the right amount of detail in every story. I was able to vividly picture every story told without getting lost in the details. This is apparent in the chapter titled “Reading Aloud.” It’s about a woman who goes and reads to a blind man every week on doctor’s orders. When describing his apartment, she writes, “Clutter was more than an inconvenience--it was a hazard. Anna walked by the Bibles and Torahs and Korans convened with books on Indian cooking and music theory in alphabetized rows on Ikea shelving … Everything had a location. Every utensil had its hook and every coat had its hanger. Tiny blue dotted labels speckled the apartment like some kind of laboratory” (51). From this description, I got a clear picture of what this environment looked like to Anna. It helped me gain a deeper understanding of both the characters without it being overly complicated. The third and final lesson I learned from this book was the importance of writing overall. The fact that Marina Keegan’s legacy can live on through her writing is incredibly powerful. With over a million copies sold, her words have touched the lives of many even after her tragic death. I think this shows how influential our own thoughts and ideas are, so it’s incredibly important to write them down. The first chapter, titled “The Opposite of Loneliness” is a thought-provoking and relatable piece. Marina writes, “We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life” (1). This simple, yet powerful, statement is one shared by many across the globe. Even though she’s no longer with us, her writing has the power to change millions of people’s thinking. This shows just how important writing is in today’s world.
The first important writing lesson I learned from Keegan’s work was how to make a story meaningful in a short amount of time. I’ve been trying hard to work on my short story skills, but I struggle with keeping my stories concise. All of her stories were short enough to keep the reader’s interest the entire time right before introducing an entirely new topic. For example, her first nonfiction piece is titled, “Stability in Motion.” Although this chapter is only seven pages long, I feel as if I have a special connection with the story she’s telling. In this chapter, she describes her 1990 Toyota Camry. These seven pages detail everything there is to know about this car--who she got it from, memories in it, and who got it after she was done using it. My favorite excerpt from this chapter was, “Standing outside my newly vacuumed car, I wondered, if I tried hard enough, whether I could smell the Opium perfume again, or if I searched long enough, whether I’d find the matching umbrellas and the tiny sewing kit. My brother laughed at my nostalgia, reminding me that I could still drive the car when I came home. He didn’t understand that it wasn’t just the driving I’d miss. That it was the tinfoil balls, the New York Times, and the broken speaker; the fingernail marks, the stray cassettes, and the smell of chai” (149). By the time we get to the end of this chapter, she’s already detailed all the different experiences that created these many memories in her car. This way, readers understand the significance this car played in her life during this time.
The second lesson I learned from this book was how to include important details of a scene without making the text overwhelming. In my own writing, I often find myself either overcomplicating a scene by including way too much detail or drying it out by not including enough. I found that Marina Keegan included just the right amount of detail in every story. I was able to vividly picture every story told without getting lost in the details. This is apparent in the chapter titled “Reading Aloud.” It’s about a woman who goes and reads to a blind man every week on doctor’s orders. When describing his apartment, she writes, “Clutter was more than an inconvenience--it was a hazard. Anna walked by the Bibles and Torahs and Korans convened with books on Indian cooking and music theory in alphabetized rows on Ikea shelving … Everything had a location. Every utensil had its hook and every coat had its hanger. Tiny blue dotted labels speckled the apartment like some kind of laboratory” (51). From this description, I got a clear picture of what this environment looked like to Anna. It helped me gain a deeper understanding of both the characters without it being overly complicated.
The third and final lesson I learned from this book was the importance of writing overall. The fact that Marina Keegan’s legacy can live on through her writing is incredibly powerful. With over a million copies sold, her words have touched the lives of many even after her tragic death. I think this shows how influential our own thoughts and ideas are, so it’s incredibly important to write them down. The first chapter, titled “The Opposite of Loneliness” is a thought-provoking and relatable piece. Marina writes, “We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life” (1). This simple, yet powerful, statement is one shared by many across the globe. Even though she’s no longer with us, her writing has the power to change millions of people’s thinking. This shows just how important writing is in today’s world.