Sobre la amistad y la literatura

Les dejo unos breves comentarios de la escritora norteamericana Lucinda Rosenfeld, quien a raíz de su nuevo libro "I'm So Happy for You" reflexiona acerca del significado de las rupturas con amigos y del tratamiento que reciben hoy en día, en el sentido del poco atractivo que parece tener el tema para la mayoría de los escritores (y probablemente para otras ramas del arte), reflejándose así en esta curiosa ausencia de relatos un menosprecio por el vínculo…

“There's this whole social convention around the breakup of a romance, and how you're supposed to feel about it, and how you're supposed to behave. But there really isn't that for friendships. The breakup of a friendship is somehow more shocking.

Right. And I think that for women, some of these breakups can be absolutely devastating in the same way that a romance ending can be. I write a column about friendship for DoubleX, and I've covered some of this in there, but — I had a friend basically dump me in my 30s. And it was really devastating. I felt so hurt. And there aren't any established rituals around it.

There's something singularly upsetting when a friend blows you off or is angry at you. I don't know what it is in particular, but it can feel quite devastating when there's a nasty e-mail, and you can't just snap your fingers and make up in the same way that you can with a romantic partner, and just turn the fight into a smooch or something.

Do you have any theories about why it's been underexplored before? Why do you think there's not that much written about it?

I keep going back to "Sex and the City," and I think there were completely unrealistic pictures of friendship, but it brought to light the fact that in urban settings, in particular, friends have become de facto families. And so when you have de facto families you have fights and conflict and excitement in a way that you don't with friends you see three times a year. And also obviously people used to have kids younger, and children can make it more difficult to keep up these friendships. But obviously, the great plot of life is, there's war and there's love, and love is more dramatic than friendship. From a narrative point of view, friendship less lends itself to a novel than romance or war. I find it just as dramatic though. That's the thing.”

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2009/08/26/lucinda_rosenfeld/index.html?source=rss&aim=/books/int