Paul Torday’s third novel continues with his familiar literary style, blending elements of the ghost story into an engaging psychological study of a man losing his grip on the world. Chapters are narrated by a man and his wife, the former sinking into a strange perception of reality whilst the latter attempts to make sense of what’s happening to him.
Michael and Elizabeth have a rather dull marriage, one where the prospect of a new sudoku puzzle is the pinnacle of excitement. Comfortably well off, Michael only dabbles in work and administers a “gentleman’s club”, a rather old fashioned establishment that hasn’t really changed much, and hasn’t wanted to, since the days of the Empire. Michael also owns a run down country pile in Scotland, convenient for hunting trips, although somewhat inhospitable. All a dull premise for a novel perhaps, until Michael begins to change…
The novel begins with Michael and Elizabeth on holiday in Ireland, where Michael spots an arresting painting on a landing where they are staying. He sees, or thinks he sees, a woman in the picture and later begins to meet the same strange woman, although it becomes clear that nobody else can see her. Elizabeth notices a change in Michael in that he is no longer the dull and almost lifeless man she’s been married to for ten years. To her surprise (and growing horror), she discovers that her husband has been taking anti-psychotic drugs; he’s decided to stop taking them resulting in delusions, erratic behaviour and hallucinatory episodes.
The Girl on the Landing works very well with its shared narration; Torday only slowly and carefully allows the reader to realise that something isn’t quite right with Michael. Similarly, he writes very well from the point of view of a woman, and the two remain distinct and individual throughout. Elizabeth’s growing unease is also handled very well. What lets it down is that it is somewhat overlong. At a hundred pages less this would be a very tight and effective read. Like Torday’s previous book, The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce, this one outstays its welcome.
Torday also takes a few dangerous risks with this novel. The reader must accept that Elizabeth is totally unaware of Michael’s past (he is nearly placed in an institution as a child) and that he has been on medication for the whole of his adult life. The reader must also accept Torday’s understanding of schizophrenia, which is sketchy to say the least, and the shock revelations that come later in the book about the deaths of Michael’s parents. The link between the Empire mentality of the gentleman’s club, Michael’s “refreshed” outlook on the world and how it links to him an a possible evolutionary anomaly doesn’t quite fit together that neatly either.
Perhaps I was expecting more of a ghost story, and certainly this is how the opening chapter appears to set things up, although things unfortunately don’t go in the direction of a recent (and much better) book about a ghostly painting, Susan Hill’s The Man in the Picture. The Girl on the Landing is still worth reading, especially for the ending which, although not particularly original, was certainly a satisfactory one. But of course you could do one better and read the Susan Hill novel instead.
Anarchy in the UK: The World of David Peace
For dark, disturbing and complex fiction I prescribe David Peace. I’ve recently completed a mammoth reading session comprising of the four Red Riding novels. 1974, 1977, 1980 and 1983. The books require sequential and successive reading because they span an interlinking series of crimes and characters, moving back and forth over the years and switching between a variety of first person narratives. Dealing with police corruption, injustice and brutal murder, the novels are at times very disturbing, but Peace is an incredibly intelligent writer worth attention.
The four novels were recently turned into three television films by Channel 4, and I have already written about the adaptation of the first novel. Channel 4 changed quite a lot, so I’m concentrating on the novels only from hereon. And if you’ve seen the tv versions and thought them grim and harrowing then look away now, Peace’s original novels are far bleaker and far less straightforward in their construction.
1974 sets the scene for events that will echo throughout the books and across the years. The murder of a child and the (possibly wrong) incarceration of Michael Myshkin, a mentally disabled man; bent coppers and drunken journalists, seeds of corruption in Yorkshire slowly being uncovered. The novel is told from the perspective of Edward Dunford, a reporter who seals the novel’s close with unexpected events. 1974 is great reading but somewhat undisciplined, Peace finding his feet in his first novel.
1977 picks up the story with a dual narration from two of the previous novel’s minor characters and is a maturer piece, although possibly darker still in tone. Jack Whitehead (a former colleague of Dunford) and Bob Fraser (a policeman) are similar voices fearing similar demons and it becomes difficult at times to tell them apart, and there is a jarring and almost surreal scene when they briefly meet. 1977 begins to merge with real events as a series of attacks on prostitutes are linked to a “Yorkshire Ripper” (a name coined by Whitehead) and continues leading the reader into a brutally hellish world.
The third book, 1980, is narrated by Peter Hunter, an officer brought into the Ripper investigation to uncover the incompetency of the Yorkshire police in handling the case. 1980 is the most conventional of the series so far, taking it easy on the stream of consciousness and dreamlike narrative that at times threatened to swamp the first two novels. Hunter begins to uncover more of the background to the crimes of 1974-1980, realising that the face of the law is no less corrupt or depraved than the man they are seeking. It’s a strong allegation from Peace, but 1980 is a brilliant achievement. Although Hunter is a flawed character, I found his voice almost addictive. When his world begins to crumble it’s compelling and faultless writing. 1980 is the most unusual of the series in how it directly references real murder cases, providing a grim link in the timline between Hindley and Sutcliffe. Incidentally, however, Peace chooses to change the name of The Yorkshire Ripper and allows himself to blur fact and fiction and avoid recrimination. Similarly, the Michael Myshkin character reminds of the tragic case of Stefan Kishko, the Rochdale man wrongly imprisoned for many years.
1983 concludes the series by attempting to bring all of the multiple threads together. John Pigott is a lawyer representing Michael Myshkin’s appeal. Maurice Jobson, a senior policeman, and “B.J” ,a shadowy figure who has appeared throughout the series, share the narrative that switches as far back as 1969 as the story unfolds further. 1983, the longest novel in the series, at first appears to be the most lucid, although it’s almost if this book is haunted by its predecessors and begins to slip into vague and staccato type narrative as the ghosts refuse to fade. This novel is possibly the cleverest in the series, and exploits the reader’s familiarity with the story by placing new characters in old settings. Pigott and Jobson visit locations eerily familiar from the earlier books; the missing halves of previous conversations are finally heard. Peace also delights in repetitive narrative, further hammering his imagery home.
After finishing the Red Riding series I was still confused, but rather that Peace not giving all of the answers I do think they are there; it’s just that he makes the conclusion and his smattering of clues hard for the reader. This is a difficult and exhausting body of work to take on but ultimately a very satisfying one. It’s bold and challenging crime fiction. You’ll really read nothing else like it.
He brought the gun down upon my head:
“THIS IS THE NORTH. WE DO WHAT WE WANT!”
It’s likely that you are probably in police custody if you haven’t noticed the excitement currently being generated around David Peace and Channel 4’s Red Riding adaptations of his novels. Having recently finished 1974 I was interested in seeing the television version, but approached it with a little more reserve than those who are hailing this as the tv event of the decade.
Peace’s world is a brutal one. Yorkshire in the 1970s where corruption and police brutality are rife. Reading the novels I am surprised just how debased the police were and do question the authenticity of the work, although the author maintains his belief that this is a true depiction of the depths the police found themselves in at the time. In 1974, a newspaper reporter is threatened by the police for being too nosy about a murder investigation. When he keeps digging, he is brutally attacked and his hand is broken in a car door. Later in the novel he is subjected to a vicious physical and verbal interrogation (this is nothing; in another Peace novel, 1977, a black murder suspect is beaten and humiliated into giving a semen sample by a group of jeering white officers). It’s a nasty and gruesome world, and it doesn’t help that Peace periodically slips into vivid dream sequences in his narrative and there are almost poetic sections that attempt to tie together his appalling imagery. So why is he so good?
I’m still deciding on an answer. Although 1974 has some flaws with a far from seamless plot, I’ve concluded that Peace is a talented writer with his breadth of vision. His writing is at times both hackneyed and remarkably fresh, weaving a tired noirish voiceover together with an almost Biblical vision of hell, corruption and horrible pain. With this in mind, I did wonder how Channel 4 would cope with him. 1974 is a sickening novel, and its voice – the reporter Edward Dunford – spends a lot of time getting sick. Often it’s the drink he consumes, but more so the seedy and terrible world he begins to peel apart. Dunford is a fascinating creation, going beyond the usual journalistic type you might expect from this type of fiction. The novel begins with his father’s funeral, and Dunford refers to his father’s watch and his father’s car in the early chapters, a young man inheriting his father’s artefacts. Is he ready for such an awful initiation into manhood that’s to come? Having shown the family and whatever values it might represent, Peace destroys them in the unfolding story of a terrible crime and the ruin of several lives and families. It’s an appalling, yet fascinating, chain of events that Dunford slips into.
Channel 4’s adaptation looked promising, with an impressive cast including Warren Clarke, David Morrissey and Sean Bean (who was simply a revelation). The film started very impressively, depicting the boozy and masculine ruled world that Dunford inhabits. For me, the problems started with the liberties taken with Peace’s original novel. Whilst I accept that changes have to be made when adapting from page to screen I did find them quite brutal, and began to suspect that the adaptation was making changes in the arrogant stance that it was improving upon the original, which is always a dangerous stance to take. Characters were merged (three into one at one point), critical sequences were dropped when other less important ones were retained. Most alarmingly, the ending was changed, and although the Channel 4 adaptation retained the essence of the original it was too different from Peace’s unique vision.
The Red Riding series is still essential viewing, but I suspect that more essential is the books themselves. 1974 is difficult and hard to stomach, but considering the subject matter you can’t cut corners. David Peace has a point to make and a grim world to depict. You can only do this with a book.
Roberto Bolano died in 2004. As I sink further and further into his intriguing last novel 2666 I realise more and more what a loss this is. Bolano’s dying wish was for this huge and sprawling work to be published in five seperate instalments in as many years. His decision was never honoured and the novel is now available in full as the 900 page masterpiece it is shaping up to be. Whilst I can understand Bolano’s intention, I am glad I have the whole work in my grasp. And I say shaping up because I am only halfway through the book.
2666 is a difficult book. Its length, its voice and its intention. At times I am unclear, at others there’s a breakthrough and I begin to understand. Bolano’s view of the world is so unique that it’s often very difficult to keep in step with him. Reading 2666 is often like examining the world, as we all do, up close. Like Bolano, we need to take a step or two back in order to take in the whole view. And sometimes it’s hard to remove the blinkers.
The first section of the novel is called The Part About the Critics. Three academics from different corners of Europe become obsessed with an obscure writer called Archimboldi. Think of a German J.D. Salinger, but slightly more reclusive. During their travels between conferences they become friends and meet a third, female, Archimboldi enthusiast. Two of them embark on affairs with her, which strangely intersect, whilst her relationship with the third, who is disabled, also begins to deepen. Along the way they decamp to a fictional Mexican city called Santa Teresa, where a series of brutal and unsolved murders are taking place. So far the murders are merely on the periphery of the plot, and Bolano is keener to focus on dreams and the dark corners of the world.
The Part About Amalfitano is the second and more difficult section, which concerns a poet, his daughter and his estranged wife. It is mostly set in Santa Teresa, and Amalfitano has previously made an appearance with the academics in the first section. Again, the murder story has a brief mention. The Amalfitano section is confusing and obscure – this is a character who decides, in a moment of inspired obscurity, to hang a geometry book on his washing line. I can only presume it is setting the scene for later chapters, and Amalfitano’s daughter, Rosa, eventually does makes an appearance in the third section. The Part About Fate begins as a much more accessible chapter. Oscar Fate is a journalist sent along to cover a boxing match, who is drawn into the edges of the murder story and the seedy streets and lives of Santa Teresa. Each of Bolano’s characters, like the reader, is drawn into the black hole of his chosen setting.
2666 is a book that’s taken the wind out of me lately. I’ve been overworked and run down, so it’s possibly a foolish choice in my reading matter. Then again, Bolano is a writer who steps right in front of you and prods you in the chest with a demanding look in his eye. Never one to just let the mediocre wash over me, I accept the challenge.
What am I on about? More importantly, what is he on about? Stay tuned until I read some more…
I had high hopes for Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland. But whilst much of the book is very well written, I found the overall reading experience dull. For a relatively short novel, I struggled at times and was pleased to get it over with. I found the novel’s narrator, Hans van den Broek, unlikeable and consequently cared little for him. His wife, Rachel, was too sketchy, equally unlikeable. The third main character, Chuck, was equally sketchy, equally unlikeable. This is an incredibly, and annoyingly, overrated and pretentious novel.
I guess you’ve guessed that I didn’t like it very much, so I’d like to move on to The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry. This novel was nominated for last year’s Booker prize. It’s a very well written book, and the sort of book that at times suggests that it is going to turn into something rather special indeed.
The Secret Scripture is set in an institution in Ireland, the sort of place that was once called an asylum, and this way of thinking is at the heart of the novel. Long term inmate Roseanne, nearing one hundred years of age, looks back on her life in what has become a jumbled view of personal history. By her own admission, memory plays tricks and is deceitful, or can she not face the pain of the past? Why is she incarcerated and what, however misjudged, is the reason for it? Dr Grene, an apparently benign psychiatrist, attempts to piece her life together of the eve of the hospital’s closure. But are his motives really so kindly?
As I’ve said, at times I thought this novel was on the brink of brilliance. I liked the way that it played with memory and the reader’s trust in the narrator. The point of view switches betweeen that of Roseanne and Dr Grene, from her own take on events to Grene’s attempt at research into the cloudy past. For a moment I thought that The Secret Scripture was going to rival and possibly surpass Atonement in its examination of memory and how foolish choices can so affect the future with terrible consequences. And how it isn’t all as it seems, not all as it really happens.
But The Secret Scripture has a twist. And it’s a terrible twist, but alas not in the satisfactory sense. It’s a twist I saw coming but one I hoped I had wrong. It’s not a twist I’ll share to spoil the book, although it’s one that ultimately does ruin the novel. Another damn shame.
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