Over the last few months, I have read three modern novels that have all had a similar effect on me. Here are some thoughts.
The problem for me with the modern novel is hype. Music is much worse for hype, but I guess you become used to it - even immune on occassion (hi there Ryan Adams). At the very least, you come to expect it, and if it fools you sometimes, you realise you only have yourself to blame.
For some reason I am much more suceptible to hype about books. A book is potentially a far more worthy work of art than music - the author has to work much harder to make his/her craft work and can't rely on making your foot tap to make you ignore other failings in the piece. So, I sometimes find myself believing what I'm reading about a book, when maybe I should remember the publishing merry-go-round is being serviced by the authors efforts.
I read White Teeth by Zadie Smith recently - jumping to it after being charmed by the first episode of the Channel 4 TV adaptation. That adaptation turned out to be spot on. Up to a certain point (for me when one of the twins is sent to live in India - sorry, I've now forgotten his name), it is exciting and interesting, we learn about the lives of a disparate bunch of people and the forces that are driving them, then it is all thrown into the air and the story enters Tom Sharpe territory - a fantastical plot about genetic engineering takes over and the characters and their motives became less and less interesting to me.
Dave Eggers' Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius had much the same effect. The hype (and if I'm honest, the title) seduced me into reading it, but the book didn't come up to scratch.
Initial chapters describing the events and emotions surrounding the authors mothers death, followed by how he became guardian to his younger brother were excellent. The self conscious style and honesty combined well with a refreshing approach to the subject. But... at some point it became the Dave Eggers show (this is me and my attempt to cop off with girl A, this is me and my arch magazine, this is me... - etc.). In the Notes & Corrections section, Eggers admits he could not revisit the early chapters because the events described were so hard to face again. Well, that implies to me that he found an honest voice. Unfortunately he then lost it.
Actually the Notes & Corrections is pretty awful (self-consciousness as art form?), but it does have this excellent digression on the word Irony, how it is mis-used and over-used. I enjoyed that out-pouring.
So to Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. In the end this was the biggest disappointment of the lot (though the best book by far). Now this book really has been hyped.
This is the story of the Lambert family and Enid Lambert's efforts to get them all together for 'one last Christmas'. There are three adult Lambert children, and we learn much about the recent past of all and parents Enid and Alfred. Some of the writing is excellent - early chapters on sons Chip and Gary are inventive and interesting, background stories of past family life are also strong. However, Franzen falls flat for me when he gets to only daughter Denise. She is well painted as a supporting character in other parts of the novel, but when she steps into the spotlight my toes started to curl. She becomes a lesbian seemingly without a moments conflict or thought. Her story becomes too fantastic compared to what has gone before, and for long periods I lost the feeling of being connected to the book.
We also get a strange sub plot in Lithuania which is not very diverting and seems to become a lame excuse to keep Chip away and pile on the tension that he won't make Christmas.
Similarly, Alfred falls from a cruise ship into the sea, and although the episode itself is rightly dream like, we don't properly get inside Alfred's head about it until a glimpse near the end of the book. It's as though we are given the Aslan wonder drug Enid stumbles on ourselves - things cruise by nicely, but they seem to loose their moorings and meanings after a while.
So this is not the book we are told it is, but it certainly has promise.
These join a long line of books that are nice enough, but I do hope people aren't reading them as Modern Classics in 20 years.
Neal - 07/03/03