You Are Here

“This was not seclusion or solitude or aloneness, this was the real thing, and the realization came with shame, because if popularity was the reward of being smart, cool, attractive, successful, then what did loneliness signify?”

Marnie’s thoughts further explore the impact of loneliness as she experiences shame. This passage conveys the stigma associated with social isolation in a world where “popularity” frequently equates to individual worth. Consequently, Marnie perceives her lack of friends as a negative reflection of her character and achievements.

“She was observing the hell out of things, remembering the power of a train journey to turn life into montage, a sequence conveying change. Why hadn’t she done this before? What had she been so scared of? Would she care for anything on the trolley? She would care for everything.”

This excerpt highlights the transformative power of travel as Marnie’s anxiety subsides and she begins to enjoy the train journey to the Lake District. After leaving the confines of her London apartment, she feels her interior life expanding with the changing landscape. Marnie’s assertion that she “would care for everything” signals a new desire to experience whatever life offers.

“Whether it was the fresh air or the paraphernalia of wipe-clean trousers and cling-filmed cheese rolls, there was something powerfully anti-aphrodisiac about the English countryside.”

This quote subverts the conventions of romantic fiction by highlighting the prosaic and unerotic aspects of walking in the English countryside, from unflattering apparel to uninspiring food. The novel humorously emphasizes the non-romantic aspects of the journey yet later undercuts this depiction. Ultimately, the English landscape plays a key role in the protagonists’ love story.

“‘Walking it off,’ that was the phrase, and though it was more usually applied to indigestion or rage, it was worth a try.”

Michael initially perceives the Coast to Coast Walk as therapy. He hopes that the journey will help him come to terms with the failure of his marriage and residual anxiety as a victim of an assault. Significantly, Michael anticipates that he’ll feel the transformative effects of the walk only after his companions have left him to complete the route alone. He hasn’t yet acknowledged his need for human connection.

“The threshold of her flat seemed like a high diving board, too big a leap, too many people watching, and even when she made it out, what did she have to say?”

In exploring the theme of loneliness, the novel addresses the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on contemporary society. Already inclined to solitude due to working from home, Marnie’s world narrows to complete isolation. Her social anxiety reflects many people’s experiences in the pandemic’s aftermath. The simile comparing leaving her apartment to jumping off a high diving board conveys the daunting prospect of reintegrating into society.

“Like a Regency novel, the etiquette of walking required that she spend time in conversation with each of the guests, and now that it was nearly over, it seemed a good time to mark the card of the man who’d spoilt her joke.”

This reference to a Regency novel is one of several humorous nods to the influence of Jane Austen’s novels on You Are Here. Marnie’s analogy compares the demands of behaving politely on the walk to the etiquette of dancing at a Regency ball. Although her romantic focus is on Conrad, Marnie recognizes that civility requires her to socialize with the group’s other members, including Michael. Marnie’s ironic failure to recognize the partner she’s most compatible with recalls Elizabeth Bennet’s reluctance to dance with Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.

“People who said they were separated, not divorced, were like people who insisted that a tomato was a fruit, not a vegetable: technically correct, but on shaky ground. No one ate tomato ice-cream.”

While Marnie openly states that she’s divorced, Michael describes his marital status as “separated.” Her reflection on the pedantic nature of this distinction highlights Michael’s state of denial about the end of his marriage. While he remains officially married, this is a meaningless technicality. Marnie’s analogy of insisting a tomato is a vegetable thematically underscores The Balance of Humor and Melancholy. Her statement reflects the absurdity of Michael’s stance while recognizing that his denial stems from deep-seated pain.

“Trying to picture himself on a date now was like trying to imagine himself bungee-jumping, theoretically possible but under what circumstances?”

Michael’s figurative comparison of dating to bungee jumping emphasizes the vulnerability and exposure that romantic love requires. While he acknowledges that both activities are physically achievable, the element of risk makes both seem equally daunting.

“While his injuries had largely healed, he still felt cracked and vulnerable, like a cup with a glued-on handle. Apparently there was meant to be beauty in cracks, cracks were how the light gets in but, more importantly, they were how the liquid gets out. No one really wants a leaky cup.”

This passage emphasizes the effect of past trauma on Michael. His figurative comparison of himself to a broken cup that has been glued together highlights his sense of fragility. Physically and emotionally wounded by an assault and the failure of his marriage, he has survived but feels irreversibly damaged, like “a leaky cup.” Michael dismisses the concept that there is “beauty in cracks,” a reference to Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. However, the novel contradicts Michael’s negative perception of himself as damaged, celebrating the characters’ imperfections. The protagonists’ past experiences of pain make them more endearing and relatable as individuals.

“Nothing in her glib, flippant account had conveyed the pain of pretending her wedding had been the best day of her life, her marriage anything but a mistake. She had not lied except about the most important thing: how it had all felt.”

This passage explores The Balance Between Humor and Melancholy through Marnie’s character. One of her key traits is her tendency to use humor and wit to mask emotional pain. However, after telling Michael about her disastrous marriage, she recognizes that her converting the experience into a lighthearted anecdote was a form of emotional dishonesty. Although the facts were true, her failure to admit her distress was a missed opportunity for honest communication.

“The bright, gaudy turquoise of the sky gave a clarity to water that yesterday had seemed leaden and sinister, an ocean on a distant planet.”

This depiction of the changing landscape on the Coast to Coast Walk is an integral element of the novel. Here, Michael emphasizes the chameleon-like nature of the Lake District, which can appear idyllic, gloomy, or sinister depending on the weather. The novel uses the area’s changing landscape and unpredictable weather conditions as a literary device to echo the shifts in Marnie and Michael’s relationship. In this passage, the sunshine and glorious view reflect Marnie’s optimism and growing belief that she and Michael share a meaningful connection.

“Another landmark, she thought, this ease in silence, and it occurred to her how far they’d travelled in just three days.”

Marnie’s reflection on their progress along the walk thematically emphasizes The Transformative Power of Travel and Nature. The impressive distance she and Michael have traveled in a few days symbolizes their growing intimacy within a short time. Comfortable silences in their conversations indicate a growing ease in each other’s company.

“Each approach he made came paired with a nervous withdrawal, like someone returning to a sputtering firework. Was her company a pleasant surprise or was she the party guest who won’t go home? If only there was something humans could do, a system of mutually comprehended sounds and gestures to express thoughts and feelings.”

One obstacle to Marnie and Michael’s romance in the novel is their difficulty in honestly communicating their feelings. Consequently, Marnie remains unsure whether Michael desires her continued company on the walk. The analogy of nervously “returning to a sputtering firework” reflects the protagonists’ mutual fear of being hurt if they expose too much of themselves. Marnie’s wish for a common system of communication is ironic, suggesting that while humans have developed language for this purpose, emotional barriers often prevent individuals from using it effectively.

“A single woman in her late thirties must be in want of a child.”

This quote plays on the opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” The line draws attention to the influence of Austen’s novel on You Are Here and comments on the values of contemporary society. While Austen’s opening sentence highlights the centrality of marriage to 19th-century English society, this novel’s version illustrates modern perceptions of parenthood and the pressures of conformity. Marnie is irritated that others define her by her childlessness, perceiving it as an omission she must want to rectify.

“She was reaching for her phone and it occurred to her how intimate, how significant it was, to take someone’s photograph for the first time and add them to your library, like a book that you’ve read or at least started reading. Why else use the word ‘library’? The morning embrace, the nude wrestling, now the photography. The order was off but the point remained: she wanted to see his face when he wasn’t around.”

As Marnie prepares to take Michael’s photograph, the novel returns to the concept of photographs as symbols of human connection. The analogy of adding books one has read to a library implies that retaining an image of another person demonstrates an interior knowledge of them. Marnie’s decision to add Michael to her photographic “library” marks a crucial point in her character’s development and the couple’s progressing relationship.

“He still felt the pull of solitude, but he’d grown sceptical of his ability to make conversation with himself, unsurprised, unamused, unchallenged, caught in familiar rhythms, like bouncing a tennis ball off a wall.”

Michael’s shifting thoughts about solitude highlight the transformative power of travel. His realization that Marnie’s company enriches his experience of the journey challenges his former conviction that he prefers to be alone. He begins to see the impoverished nature of a life that lacks surprises or stimulation from others, figuratively comparing the experience to playing a monotonous game against oneself.

“She had the illusion that they were walking not just across the country but through the seasons. The sky made her think of the phrase ‘robin’s egg blue,’ though she’d never seen a robin’s egg. The hazy blue of an airmail letter then, and soon there were hawthorn blossoms as white as A4 and gorse flowers in Post-it note yellow, and everywhere a bright highlighter green so vivid that it seemed to fizz.”

This passage illustrates the transformative impact of nature on Marnie. She’s struck by the landscape’s beauty and intense colors. As a city dweller, Marnie lacked disconnection from the natural world, as reflected in her realization that she has “never seen a robin’s egg.” Consequently, her frame of reference to describe the vivid colors she observes are office supplies (paper, sticky notes, and highlighter pens).

“If she hadn’t slept through her alarm, if the landlady had been more liberal, if today had turned out differently, if they’d talked of something else, if the tent wasn’t so cold, the precise circumstances required to get together were so specific that it seemed as unlikely as seeing a shooting star.”

The repetition of “if” in this lengthy sentence conveys Marnie’s frustration at the series of obstacles to a romance with Michael. The list of misfortunes playfully draws attention to the novel’s use of the tropes of romantic fiction. These impediments maintain dramatic tension until the story’s resolution.

“She’d have been hard-pushed to find it on the map but there must have been a point where she thought she was falling in love, somewhere between Marrick and Marske perhaps, in an area of woodland, shady, damp and pungent with wild garlic, where the path had started to rise once more above the river. No majestic vista, just a steep, muddy incline, dim and chilly on an overcast day.”

Drawing on the novel’s titular motif, You Are Here, Marnie tries to pinpoint exactly when in the journey she fell in love with Michael. Her thoughts draw a parallel between their developing relationship and the Coast to Coast Walk as she replays the journey in her mind. Her inability to identify a particular moment and reference to a hazy, gray day reflect the novel’s portrayal of love as a growing bond rather than a dramatic moment of epiphany.

“If forced to describe ‘a type,’ she would not automatically have gone for ‘middle-aged geography teacher.’ This was not love at first or even fourth sight and when she tried to recall his face on the train, it had a blurred quality, like something seen through a steamy window. Now she could see it when she closed her eyes.”

Throughout, the novel contrasts Marnie and Michael’s relationship with the tempestuous romance in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and the lustful passions in the erotic thriller, Twisted Night. Marnie’s reflection that Michael isn’t her ideal type and that she barely registered his presence on the train undermines the notion of love at first sight. However, Michael’s profound long-term impact on Marnie is evident in her conjuring his face when she closes her eyes.

“She felt suddenly overwhelmingly alone, and this was absolutely fine and might only be a problem if you’d been anticipating something else.”

As Michael and Marnie part ways, the novel returns to its thematic exploration of loneliness. The novel implies that the protagonists’ experience of meaningful connection with each other makes their return to solitude harder to bear. Marnie’s craving for social contact at the beginning of the novel becomes a sense of loss in the absence of one particular person.

“On that wretched New Year’s Day she’d promised to change the nature of her photographs and she’d done it, but even with the brightness turned up, the pictures lacked any hint of the sublime.”

Emphasizing Marnie’s character progression, her photographs of the Coast to Coast Walk provide evidence of both adventure and social companionship. However, she notes that the pictures don’t capture her experience of “the sublime.” Photographs can’t adequately capture the splendor of the landscape or the intensity of the emotions she experienced.

“One or two more people, that was all she really needed, one or two that she could love.”

Marnie’s realization that she needs only “one or two more people” in her life signals a change from her ambitions at the beginning of the novel. Rather than wishing to be photographed at the center of a crowd of friends, she recognizes her need for just a few truly meaningful connections. Her prioritizing social quality over quantity reflects her rare rapport with Michael.