It's difficult not to be impressed by Sebastian Faulks, who, for me at any rate, occupies a place among the must-read British authors of the moment. I haven't read everything he has written, but what I have - Birdsong, Charlotte Gray, On Green Dolphin Street and Engleby - convinced me to pick up a copy of "A Week in December" when I happened on it some time ago. It stayed on the shelf for a while, perhaps because, though he is always good, I sneakingly felt he had never quite repeated what he did in Birdsong - a book which would be hard for anyone to surpass. Nonetheless, "A Week in Deecember" made it into the box of holiday books.
I'm very glad it did. Again, it is not Birdsong, nor does it try to be. This is an altogether different tone, a satirical, occasionally very funny, occasionally mordant, occasionally very engaging, occasionally powerful, state-of-the-nation (or maybe state-of-its-capital) novel, in which Faulks self-consciously takes on some big themes. The device at the heart of the novel is to take a miscellany of diverse characters, linked - directly and by various forms of association - by an invitation to a ambitious Conservative MP's dinner party - and to follow their progress over a week in pre-Christmas London. The key characters are a devilishly clever hedge-fund manager, his disengaged Anglo-American wife and pot-smoking son; a cynical jobbing literary critic; a Pakistani pickle tycoon, his anxiously supportive wife and jihadist son; a bookish and insufficiently driven barrister (Faulks' mouthpiece on many matters one feels) and his improbable sweetheart, a Circle Line underground driver with a liking for undemanding books and a virtual reality online game. There are more, less central characters: a Polish footballer, new to the UK and the Premier league, and his Russian girlfriend, with a past in "glamour" photography, but neither of them an airhead; an Iranian student of Muslim background but atheist convictions who quietly contests a jihadist world view; and many more.
Weaving that lot together into something coherent and readable takes some masterful writing skills, but Faulks is a master and pulls off the trick, moving us between characters and narrative threads with skill. Sure, the characters are to some extent sketched rather than fully deepened, but the sketching is done extraordinarily well and for maximium effect. The overall picture of the nation is pretty grim, it has to be said, with a feeling of pervasive shallowness, human isolation, cynicism and money-grubbing greed coming to the fore. Faulks' targets are many: to varying degrees he has a go at the financial industry, with its amoral, semi-legal ethics and wanton disdain for real people's lives; Islamic fundamentalism, indeed to an extent Islam itself, but also, paradoxically, British irreligiousness; the internet, and the flight from intellectual rigour, substantive knowledge and indeed reality it engenders; so-called "soft" drugs, which combined with parental disengagement provoke the greatest personal misery in this book; educational standards in a world where the essential notion that each generation should know what its predecessor knew, plus a bit more, has been discarded and no-one can spell any more; and a familiar range of reality TV shows, opportunistic politicians, alcoholic businessmen and their consumerist wives, the book business (a personal gripe or too there, no doubt) and, as a teasing leitmotiv which does not ultimately seem to be more than what it simply is, daredevil cyclists running red lights and mounting pavements - generally without lights.
The barbs are many and often delightful, and there are frequent sentences you pause over to savour, but the big themes are undoubtedly finance, Muslim fundamentalism and loss of human contact. It is the former that Faulks spends most heavily researched time on. The hedge fund manager protagonist, John Veals, is clearly the baddiest baddie in the novel, not because he is evil, but because he is dehumanised, self-dehumanising indeed, to the extent that he fully understands the harm he is doing, but consistently dismisses any scruples, on principle as it were, to pursue profit as the only valid end, even when the amount of money he already possesses already massively exceeds any conceivable use he might have for it - indeed, pervervsely, John Veals has no interest in what money can buy.Veals sins by omission too, notably in respect of his son, Kim, whose very presence he finds awkward and embarrassing. In this he is like his wife Vanessa, whose refuge is in copious quantities of good chardonnay; but ultimately she proves able to learn a lesson, he does not.
While Faulks is much exercised about the financial indsutry, one might also expect some heat in the parts dealing with Hassan Al-Rashid, son of the OBE-receiving "Knocker" Al-Rashid, pickle tycoon, and his brush with jihadism. Here too, Faulks wears his research on his sleeve, with pronouncements on the Koran and on Islam in general which will do little to endear him to radical Muslims, but which are arguably no more critical or hostile than the kind of stuff hurled at Christianity and the Bible daily. Hassan, whose road towards a suicide bombing might well be considered as at least on a par with John Veals' amoral trading, is however actually treated more sympathetically and he is ultimately spared by his UK-indigenous relativism and disrespectful sense of humour. Some might feel that Faulks is slightly less effective on this subject than he is on others, with less confidence and "bite" in his satire.
Bite is there a-plenty in the story of Kim Veals, John and Vanessa Veals' son, whose life, though based in the same house as his parents, is essentially one of isolation, filled with reality TV, social networking sites, fantasy football, over-easy access to his father's money and increasing powerful doses of skunk, which ultimately leads him into a powerfully evoked psychotic episode, a psychiatric ward and a possible slide into long term schizophrenia. For me at least, the passion and anger in the writing of the latter stages of Kim's descent stood out in the book as a whole, and are likely to affect anyone's views on so-called "harmless" drugs.
So is this all just a blast against contemporary society, written with an acid pen? No. This is not unredeemed or even unambiguous. Several of the characters are painted sympathetically, and seem genuinely positive forces in the world. The Al-Rashids, père and mère, are likeable, hardworking but slightly naive, caring individuals, and the business of actually making something, even exotic pickle, contrasts very obviously with the way most of the very rich in this book make their money. Their loss of touch with their son, Hassan, is not laid at their door as in the Veals' case, and his redemption probably has as much to do with his groundedness as with the wisdom of his almost-girlfriend, a postgrad literature student with an interest in Eluard. In fact, it has to do with the fact that, unlike Kim, he is never completely cut off, either from other people or from the better aspects of the culture of the country he grew up in. But the key redemptive couple in the book is constituted by the unlikely combination of a lucklustre, short-of-work barrister, Gabriel Northwood, and Tube driver Jenni Fortune, whose court case (involving a Tube suicide) happens to fall to him. He is knowledgeable, bookish and unable successfully to live up to his high-flying colleagues in chambers, while she is smart but a victim of an uninterested education system, rather withdrawn and philosophical, but addicted to a Second Life-style virtual reality game called Parallax. Gabriel and Jenni are bound by having more than a vestige of humanity left in them and by finding motivation outside money and "success". Their affair is cautious and understated, still latent as the book ends, an antidote to the money-driven instant gratification and/or the abstraction-based ideologies which drive other characters.
So there you are. This is not Birdsong, but it is the work of a master craftsman who has something worthwhile to say, and says it entertainingly, effectively and at times with genuine passion. You may finish this feeling a tad depressed about contemporary British culture, but Faulks is too smart to write unambivalently - humanity and hope are always there.
Recommendation?: definitely.
I'm very glad it did. Again, it is not Birdsong, nor does it try to be. This is an altogether different tone, a satirical, occasionally very funny, occasionally mordant, occasionally very engaging, occasionally powerful, state-of-the-nation (or maybe state-of-its-capital) novel, in which Faulks self-consciously takes on some big themes. The device at the heart of the novel is to take a miscellany of diverse characters, linked - directly and by various forms of association - by an invitation to a ambitious Conservative MP's dinner party - and to follow their progress over a week in pre-Christmas London. The key characters are a devilishly clever hedge-fund manager, his disengaged Anglo-American wife and pot-smoking son; a cynical jobbing literary critic; a Pakistani pickle tycoon, his anxiously supportive wife and jihadist son; a bookish and insufficiently driven barrister (Faulks' mouthpiece on many matters one feels) and his improbable sweetheart, a Circle Line underground driver with a liking for undemanding books and a virtual reality online game. There are more, less central characters: a Polish footballer, new to the UK and the Premier league, and his Russian girlfriend, with a past in "glamour" photography, but neither of them an airhead; an Iranian student of Muslim background but atheist convictions who quietly contests a jihadist world view; and many more.
Weaving that lot together into something coherent and readable takes some masterful writing skills, but Faulks is a master and pulls off the trick, moving us between characters and narrative threads with skill. Sure, the characters are to some extent sketched rather than fully deepened, but the sketching is done extraordinarily well and for maximium effect. The overall picture of the nation is pretty grim, it has to be said, with a feeling of pervasive shallowness, human isolation, cynicism and money-grubbing greed coming to the fore. Faulks' targets are many: to varying degrees he has a go at the financial industry, with its amoral, semi-legal ethics and wanton disdain for real people's lives; Islamic fundamentalism, indeed to an extent Islam itself, but also, paradoxically, British irreligiousness; the internet, and the flight from intellectual rigour, substantive knowledge and indeed reality it engenders; so-called "soft" drugs, which combined with parental disengagement provoke the greatest personal misery in this book; educational standards in a world where the essential notion that each generation should know what its predecessor knew, plus a bit more, has been discarded and no-one can spell any more; and a familiar range of reality TV shows, opportunistic politicians, alcoholic businessmen and their consumerist wives, the book business (a personal gripe or too there, no doubt) and, as a teasing leitmotiv which does not ultimately seem to be more than what it simply is, daredevil cyclists running red lights and mounting pavements - generally without lights.
The barbs are many and often delightful, and there are frequent sentences you pause over to savour, but the big themes are undoubtedly finance, Muslim fundamentalism and loss of human contact. It is the former that Faulks spends most heavily researched time on. The hedge fund manager protagonist, John Veals, is clearly the baddiest baddie in the novel, not because he is evil, but because he is dehumanised, self-dehumanising indeed, to the extent that he fully understands the harm he is doing, but consistently dismisses any scruples, on principle as it were, to pursue profit as the only valid end, even when the amount of money he already possesses already massively exceeds any conceivable use he might have for it - indeed, pervervsely, John Veals has no interest in what money can buy.Veals sins by omission too, notably in respect of his son, Kim, whose very presence he finds awkward and embarrassing. In this he is like his wife Vanessa, whose refuge is in copious quantities of good chardonnay; but ultimately she proves able to learn a lesson, he does not.
While Faulks is much exercised about the financial indsutry, one might also expect some heat in the parts dealing with Hassan Al-Rashid, son of the OBE-receiving "Knocker" Al-Rashid, pickle tycoon, and his brush with jihadism. Here too, Faulks wears his research on his sleeve, with pronouncements on the Koran and on Islam in general which will do little to endear him to radical Muslims, but which are arguably no more critical or hostile than the kind of stuff hurled at Christianity and the Bible daily. Hassan, whose road towards a suicide bombing might well be considered as at least on a par with John Veals' amoral trading, is however actually treated more sympathetically and he is ultimately spared by his UK-indigenous relativism and disrespectful sense of humour. Some might feel that Faulks is slightly less effective on this subject than he is on others, with less confidence and "bite" in his satire.
Bite is there a-plenty in the story of Kim Veals, John and Vanessa Veals' son, whose life, though based in the same house as his parents, is essentially one of isolation, filled with reality TV, social networking sites, fantasy football, over-easy access to his father's money and increasing powerful doses of skunk, which ultimately leads him into a powerfully evoked psychotic episode, a psychiatric ward and a possible slide into long term schizophrenia. For me at least, the passion and anger in the writing of the latter stages of Kim's descent stood out in the book as a whole, and are likely to affect anyone's views on so-called "harmless" drugs.
So is this all just a blast against contemporary society, written with an acid pen? No. This is not unredeemed or even unambiguous. Several of the characters are painted sympathetically, and seem genuinely positive forces in the world. The Al-Rashids, père and mère, are likeable, hardworking but slightly naive, caring individuals, and the business of actually making something, even exotic pickle, contrasts very obviously with the way most of the very rich in this book make their money. Their loss of touch with their son, Hassan, is not laid at their door as in the Veals' case, and his redemption probably has as much to do with his groundedness as with the wisdom of his almost-girlfriend, a postgrad literature student with an interest in Eluard. In fact, it has to do with the fact that, unlike Kim, he is never completely cut off, either from other people or from the better aspects of the culture of the country he grew up in. But the key redemptive couple in the book is constituted by the unlikely combination of a lucklustre, short-of-work barrister, Gabriel Northwood, and Tube driver Jenni Fortune, whose court case (involving a Tube suicide) happens to fall to him. He is knowledgeable, bookish and unable successfully to live up to his high-flying colleagues in chambers, while she is smart but a victim of an uninterested education system, rather withdrawn and philosophical, but addicted to a Second Life-style virtual reality game called Parallax. Gabriel and Jenni are bound by having more than a vestige of humanity left in them and by finding motivation outside money and "success". Their affair is cautious and understated, still latent as the book ends, an antidote to the money-driven instant gratification and/or the abstraction-based ideologies which drive other characters.
So there you are. This is not Birdsong, but it is the work of a master craftsman who has something worthwhile to say, and says it entertainingly, effectively and at times with genuine passion. You may finish this feeling a tad depressed about contemporary British culture, but Faulks is too smart to write unambivalently - humanity and hope are always there.
Recommendation?: definitely.
Seven days in London 2007. Satire with hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment