On Friendship by Andrew O’Hagan, Radio 4
Writer Andrew O’Hagan sounds like a lovely friend. Anyone who has read his novel Mayflies can attest to his belief in the power of friendship, through high days and holidays and dark times as well.
In this series on the power of friendship, he proved a great choice.
He began talking about the importance of the pub or work – alliances with drinking buddies, raising a glass to friendship, all of us rogues with a cup of sack.
He confessed that he developed some of the greatest friendships of his adult life next to a photocopier.
Friendship, he said, is a series of kindnesses and adult friendships give you the conditions in which to thrive – a kind of love in the accumulation of gratitude.
O’Hagan is sincere, warm and intelligent. He said friendship is its own religion – a different language “of succour and independence”.
He talked about great literary friendships, like that between Henry James and Edith Wharton or Ezra Pound and T S Eliot.
And then he turned the spotlight on his own life and how a friend can be there to pick up the pieces.
Mayflies is about the freedom and joy of childhood friendship – laughter and music and shared history – and then how, 30 years later, an old friend suddenly grew ill and needed him in a way that he had never expected.
Friendship can hold the meaning of one’s soul, he said.
“You have to write about this... my old friend had said from his hospital bed,” said O’Hagan and when he did, the result was heartbreaking and beautiful.
“Did we ever expect that we’d have to help our friends over the line?” he asked.
Writer Edna O’Brien was another good friend – they’d set the world to rights over dinners down the years and he travelled back to Ireland with her shortly before she died, where she pointed out places from her childhood.
He painted a picture of her, 93 years old, sitting up in bed at her flat in London waiting for the end and how he handed her a glass of champagne.
“Oh Andrew,” she said, “the great enemy is prosecco,” and they burst out laughing.
Listen again on BBC Sounds, and walk away with a deeper understanding of friendship and love.
Friendship, he said, is a series of kindnesses and adult friendships give you the conditions in which to thrive