"Specializing in someone" in "Elizabeth Finch" By Julian Barnes

Question

What is meant by "specialised in either the unattainable or the undesirable" in the following context from "Elizabeth Finch" by Julian Barnes:

‘EF wasn’t like that. She’d give you the conclusion but not the narrative. Why? The obvious, normal reason would be a sense of privacy, of discretion. But I decided that it was also perhaps something bigger: a sense that a life, much as we would like it to be, does not amount to a narrative – or not a narrative such as we understand and expect.’

‘So, um, could you give me an example of that?’

‘She once said to me, “I seem in my life to have specialised in either the unattainable or the undesirable.”’

Here she is talking about her lovers or beloved ones. Does she mean that all of them were unattainable or the undesirable?

Answer 1

She’d give you the conclusion but not the narrative.

i.e. This is an example of her telling you what she thinks about her life, but not what events led her to conclude that.

The narrator says, yes, this might just be EF being private about her love life, but he thinks it's suggestive of something more important. The meaning he suggests directly links back to 'narrative'. So, EF's meaning is unclear and more about connotations... But, yes, 'either the unattainable or undesirable' is very pointed, since it suggests that:

• EF pursued the unattainable, or the undesirable, it isn't clear which
• EF pursued only unattainable and undesirable, but never both at the same time

which lines up with the very academic 'specialised'. If you go into an academic specialty, you rarely have time for much else. Many historians are fascinated by most of history, but expertise (and a professorship) means focusing on one small subject rather than everything else.

The sentence, by itself, doesn't actually mention 'love', so, taken as worded, it allows for much more, including other pursuits.

I think that, when you post oddities in the book here, you're correctly identifying mystique, and so you're asking great questions :) The language of the book is ambiguous in order to allow for all kinds of meaning, including contradictions. A passage like this is meant to provoke curiosity; each word adds meaning, including your own.

Because of your readings, I realised after your last post that you might have been checking word usage, but your question was so insightful that I didn't realise; I apologise if my answer to it was a bit inappropriate! I would say that you have read the phrase perfectly here, though.

P.S. I like to approach these things by imagining how I would have written it myself. Then I think about what meaning would have changed, to me and in a given context, and I understand what other associations I'm making.

I think the word 'normal' is very important in the passage here, since you wouldn't really read into 'normal' English as much, right? :D