Anxious People - Fredrick Backman

“He said that even if he knew that the world was going to hell tomorrow, he’d plant an apple tree today.”

Describe in one line:

A hostage drama, a bank robber and a bridge. 10 main characters whose lives are inexplicably tangled or will be, without conscious thought or intention. 

My thoughts and lots of feelings:

This book had my attention from the minute I started reading it. The premise of the book is that all human beings are idiots. We may be kind, intelligent and thoughtful but we are idiots. We may make mistakes, not know what we’re feeling, may not communicate our emotions well and that’s because we are all idiots. Most authors who call their readers and themselves idiots tend to annoy the reader but not Fredrick Backman. He doesn’t belittle our idiocy but normalizes it. By the end of the book, you are convinced. This book is about a group of people who interact when they unwillingly find themselves in a hostage situation. In this period, they realize how their lives are strangely distinct and yet a reflection of each other’s memories. As readers, we understand the complexity of parenting and maybe forgive our parents for messing up or remind ourselves to be kinder to ourselves right now if we are parents, or in the future if we want to be. We are each other, our strangeness, our curiosity and our helplessness as humans define us. Our lives are a collection of experiences and memories, and these experiences and memories are not individualized in our life. They intersect with other people’s experiences and memories and at the end of the day, humanity is a soup full of idiots.

Love the book for:

I love this book for its bluntness and its poetry in conveying that we are capable of love even in the direst of situations. I love Backman’s writing and each book I’ve read has always been better than the previous one. “Anxious people” is about our tiny anxieties that creates bubbles around us that merge with other bubbles as we walk down the street, have conversations, or observe while we sip coffee at the park. These anxieties that we felt alone in, the thoughts we thought could drown us in ways no would understand are anxieties that millions of people converge into. This book shows you that your mind is beautiful and every thought in it is capable of changing your life and has ramifications for alternate realities; but our current reality is chosen based on how we love and who we love. After all, only idiots would depend on love to survive.

Favorite quote:

“They say that a person’s personality is the sum of their experiences. But that isn’t true, at least not entirely, because if our past was all that defined us, we’d never be able to put up with ourselves. We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we’re more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”