Daisy Goodwin
THE author and broadcaster suggests key novels to help you through the trickier times in life. IF ANYONE wants a definition of the word ‘frenemy’, a look at recent political history should give a good idea.
A frenemy is someone you can’t live without, but who will stab you in the back at the first possible opportunity .
Possibly the greatest exploration of frenemyship is the 18th-century novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, adapted into an Oscar-winning 1988 film starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich.
The Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont are frenemies locked in a life-long struggle for power.
She dares him to defile the object of her ex-lover’s affections, the young virgin Cecile de Volanges, and also to prove he has bedded the devout Madame de Tourvel. In return, he insists the Marquise share his bed. They dislike each other, but also recognise in the other a ruthless quest for domination.
However, the Marquise’s plan goes wrong when Valmont discovers he is in love with Madame de Tourvel. The Marquise is devastated, her pain revealing that, sometimes, losing a frenemy can be every bit as painful as losing a friend.
Another novel about life-long frenemies is Anthony Powell’s 12-volume A Dance To The Music Of Time, which follows the narrator Nick Jenkins from school to middle age.
His frenemy, whom he first meets at school, is the unprepossessing, faintly ridiculous Widmerpool. As life goes on, it is Widmerpool who rises to the top.
When the two men meet again in the army during World War II, Widmerpool wastes no opportunity to remind Jenkins just how much he outranks him. They are horribly familiar to each other, as schoolfellows often are, but have nothing in common except a shared past.
Another classic frenemy relationship is that between Andy and Emily, who both work as assistants to the terrifying fashion editor Miranda Priestly in Lauren Weisberger’s glossy magazine satire The Devil Wears Prada.
To begin with, Emily goes out of her way to make life as unpleasant for the hapless Andy as she can, but when Andy realises they are both victims of ghastly Miranda, they reach a mutual respect.
The lesson is that bosses like Miranda only thrive if they can divide and rule — and if you can turn your frenemies into friends, then the bully always loses.