Inter-connected (?) reading: "A Possible Life" by Sebastian Faulks

Sebastian Faulks is a master of his art, no question. His range is famous; why, he recently even wrote a James Bond novel, dutifully in the style of Ian Fleming, Devil May Care. For me, he is in that select group of must-buy novelists, and he has not so far disappointed. I thought his last novel A Week in December was superb, one of the best state-of-the-nation books I have read. So when I saw A Possible Life displayed in Nottingham Waterstones, I grabbed it from the shelf.


First thing to say is that Faulk's writing is, well, masterly. He exudes confidence, and is enormously readable. The book draws you into its narratives. It is an absorbing and quick read. I say "narratives" because this is a book - the publishers call it a "novel in five parts" - which could equally be described as a collection of short stories, or possibly novellas. There are five stories in the book. Two are set in the nineteenth century: one featuring an uneducated peasant woman in France, bemused by the (albeit provincial) sophisticates around her; the other, an (ultimately) streetwise workhouse boy making his way in Victorian London. Another two are twentieth century: a wartime story of an ordinarily respectable cricket-loving middle class boy whose life unexpectedly brings him into contact with the most extreme experiences of the war; and a 60s-70s US counter-culture tale of a extraordinarily talented singer and her admiring English rockstar boyfriend (yes, that's a considerable oversimplification...). Finally - chronologically, though not in the book - there is a twenty-first century story, set in the Italy of the near future, in which a young girl prodigy grows up to discover the physiological seat of human consciousness in the brain, thus in effect abolishing the soul - though this does not, strangely, abolish the human feelings, love and anguish generated for her by her tortuous relationship with her adoptive brother.

Details and themes connect these stories. You have to be alert, but you notice connections as you go along, often physical locations and objects. Less tangibly, the stories centre of similar themes: the soul (or not, as the case may be), love of one who loves imperfectly back or cannot love back at all, overlapping loves where normal ideas of right and wrong don't seem relevant measures of behaviour, the dominant role of pure luck in life, the unbridgeable distance between individuals and the relentless, eternal renewal of matter, including that which makes up our minds and bodies.

So far, so good, but I have to be honest that, for me, these connections were somewhat incidental, tangential to the reading and digestion of the five stories, which can, I think, be read and appreciated in their own right. Looking at how other people have reacted to this book, it seems that that this is a prime discussion point, and source indeed of dissatisfaction for some, who appear to feel slightly cheated by a promise of a "novel in five parts" when what they get, in their eyes is a collection of five rather disparate, perhaps for some uneven stories.

On this, I am with one commenter to goodreads.com, Stephen, who says: "Can you not be sure of what's going on and still like a book?" and answers his own question in the affirmative. I also suspect that Faulks has been exceedingly clever and that the connections between these stories are slow burners, slightly impressionistic, working on the subconscious. This is probably a "novel in five parts" at that level, one that it is hard to detect.

What of the stories themselves? They diverge significantly in tone and voice and indeed in length. They didn't all have the same impact on me, to be sure. The first, which takes us into Auschwitz, or somewhere very like it, combines the utmost in real world horror with a kind of desperate English reserve. It makes a strong impression as you read it, perhaps leaves less behind. The tale of Victorian London, related in the voice of its uneducated narrator, seems a little more distant, a bit more emblematic. The near-future, post-financial collapse story of Italy strikes one as rather weird at first, and turns out to be the most intellectual and thought-experimental of the stories, combining science with an unusual human relationship which refuses to succumb to science. The brief story of provincial rural France perhaps engaged me the least, and, I felt, contributed least to the book (though it's doubtless in there right now working on my subconscious). The last story, on the other hand, is closely observed, passionate, both optimistic and sad and, in any case, constantly interesting. 

So my recommendation? It is positive, of course. This is a memorable and complex book. I am not sure I've fully worked it out, and many people seem to think that is because there is less to be worked out that it likes to pretend. Not so sure. Anyway, I wouldn't get hung up on that issue. Read the stories as stories, and see where they take you. In any case, they will stick in your mind.