The Engagement - Orkney - Mr Bridge

Three books to take a quick look at, all involving couples, two of which are very unsettling and make amazing use of open spaces to create a sense of claustrophobia, the other a masterpiece from the underrated and, sadly, recently-departed Evan S Connell (August 17, 1924 – January 10, 2013).

The Engagement by Chloe Hooper

Liese Campbell is an English architect who has fled to the other side of the world in the wake of the financial crisis and begun work in her uncle's real estate business in Melbourne. It is through that work that she meets Alexander Colquhoun, a wealthy farmer looking to buy some property in the area. On one of many apartment viewings they find themselves beginning a game, sex in someone else's property and payment for Liese at the end of it. The game develops and becomes a regular thing, sex in new apartments, more money, and soon invented stories about Liese's other clients. When the novel begins it is at the outset of what she expects will be their final meeting, having announced her intention to leave the country and return to England, as Alexander takes her to his house in the bush for a final weekend with an envelope of cash at the end of it. But this is a novel of lies and confusion, where the reader appears to be in possession of the facts and an eloquent and honest narrator but as the pages slip your fingers you find yourself less and less certain about what is real, what fantasy, and who even to be worried about in a long weekend where a dangerous denouement seems only a page-turn away.

I struggled with this book to be honest and even after persevering and finishing it I remain not wholly convinced. The unreliable narrator is a common literary technique but actually surprisingly tricky to pull off. Notable successes include the deliciously villainous Tarquin Winot in John Lanchester's The Debt to Pleasure and the slowly revealed complexities behind the care and concern of the eponymous doctor in Patrick McGrath's Dr Haggard's Disease. I really struggled with the psychology of both Liese and Alexander when reading this novel perhaps because it is all coming through the filter of a character we will learn not to trust. I found too much of what they said hard to believe and the dialogue itself pretty clunky in places and even if this can be explained away by the unreliability of the narrator it strikes me that if the device interferes with the effectiveness of the prose then something isn't quite working. Too often I wanted to shake either one of them and get them to actually respond to what had actually been said to them rather than further continuing the ambiguities and confusion.

All of that said, it is an unnerving and thrilling read that creates tension, atmosphere and genuine fear. It could almost read as a metaphorical study of many relationships, the way in which couples do or don't deal with each other's pasts, the stories they tell one another of their lives in order to portray themselves in a certain light, and the way in which these images can be slowly eroded by the stories others tell about us or the gradual emergence of what I will term, with eyebrow raised and tongue firmly in cheek, the truth.

Published now by Jonathan Cape

Orkney by Amy Sackville

Amy Sackville garnered plenty of plaudits and prize nominations with her debut novel, The Still Point and managed to bag the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. I haven't read that and after 50 or so pages of her new novel I was beginning to think that might be a huge mistake but here is another novel of claustrophobic congress which followed a sort of reverse trajectory to the one above but left me with a similar feeling of admiration rather than love, a book I started off loving but which left me by the end feeling rather over-worked and exhausted.

A man and a woman arrive on Orkney for their honeymoon. He is an eminent professor, she a former student. They have come a long way from the scene of their infamous relationship but even on this remote island they are regarded by everyone as a strange couple. Through the professor's narration we soon realise how little he really knows about the woman who has so enchanted him but there is no doubting the spell she has cast on him. Sackville's writing is extraordinary in places and the opening pages create an evocative atmosphere that swept me along with the fervour of his feeling. This kind of writing is hard to sustain however, or rather it is hard to sustain a reading of, by which I mean that some people may find it a bit too much like consciously 'beautiful writing' and even those like me who found the style to be entirely fitting for a literature professor who has had his heart beguiled by a pale and otherworldly creature may find after a while that the novel gets a bit repetitive.

Described rather optimistically as a single sitting read, it is exactly the kind of book that may well benefit from being read in that way (if you happen to have enough time to read 250 pages in one go), the kind of novel that if it has you the reader in its spell, like our poor professor, will probably fly by as a richly engrossing account of love, fantasy and the enchantment and danger of the natural world. There will be just as many readers however who fail to fully fall for its charms and therefore find it a relatively short read that feels overwritten, overwrought and in danger of being suffocated by its own atmosphere.

Published today by Granta Books

Mr Bridge by Evan S Connell

Ah, the Bridges. How wonderful to be able to engage again with Evan S Connell's remarkable couple in Kansas City. You may remember I read and loved Connell's 1959 novel Mrs Bridge last year and at least I didn't have to wait as long as those at the time for its companion piece originally published in 1969. The man who remained a fairly enigmatic presence in the novel bearing his wife's name is now thrust to the forefront and we get to learn what Walter Bridge was thinking during all those hours spent working away from his family and indeed in the small amount of time he spent with them.

Mr Bridge uses the same technique as the earlier novel; short chapters with their own titles, small moments of life that slowly assemble into a rounded portrait of suburban America in the 1930's and 40's. Walter Bridge is a lawyer, the kind of man who works long hours and even brings his work home occasionally. Described by another character as a 'consummate puritan' Walter is a man almost of another time, his morals apparently very fixed, but one of the joys of this book are the ways in which we will come to see that perception altered as we learn more and more about what makes this man tick. Walter likes things that are tangible and dependable. In one early scene we see the genuine joy he gets from opening his safety deposit box and simply leafing through and holding the stocks and shares that are his investments for the future. His love of these is made all the more hilarious later in the novel when we see him making a proud gift of them to his family at Christmas and encouraging them to buy more when they all receive a bequest.

Walter is often baffled by his family, particularly his wife, whose infrequent emotional outbursts leave him completely at a loss and resorting to the only course of action he can imagine which is to gloss over them and pretend they have never happened at all. Walter is also a contradictory man, it is very hard to pin down exactly where he stands with regards to certain prejudices, seeming at times to be anti-semitic or racist and then confounding those thoughts with a secretive action that we will only learn about much later. And this is where the real joy of Connell's writing lies. His prose is measured and unadorned but most importantly as a novelist his is completely non-judgemental. First India and now Walter Bridge are shown to us as they are, without any authorial comment or guidance as to how we are supposed to react to their thoughts, feelings and actions. It is left entirely up to the reader to decide whether to admire, despise or love them (or indeed all of the above) and that kind of writing makes for an involving, moving and complicated read that will make the characters live with you long after finishing the last page.

Published now by Penguin Modern Classics

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Mrs Bridge - Evan S Connell

'exquisite idleness'

You may remember my enthusiastic review for Chris Bachelder's Abbott Awaits back in March, but if you don't then one of the joys of that book was its structure. Short chapters, often of only a page or so,  revealed little nuggets of insight. One of that novel's own images was of a window segmented into many panes so that the view outside was separated into many distinct pictures - 'There is not one pane that is not beautiful'. Whether Bachelder had read this novel from 1959 before writing his own I have no idea but it shares that same structure: short chapters with their own titles, snapshots of a life lived (and here it is much more of a life, Abbott was only granted three months but we get to see the entire marriage of Mrs Bridge), which come together to create a 'pointillist portrait' of a woman and an era that is very much in the past and yet so easy for us to connect to thanks to Connell's sensitive handling of his creation.

All I can do in writing this post is to say quite simply that the book deserves its title of modern classic, tell you that it's an immensely enjoyable read and then give you extract after extract to demonstrate my point; so if you want to skip all that and just go and order yourself a copy then I won't be offended at all. It is a brilliant book, you won't regret it, but if you're still unconvinced then please read on. Mrs Bridge was Connell's first novel, originally published in 1959, and provides an acutely observed portrait of a suburban wife in the inter-war years. Her husband works long hours that provide a comfortable life for her and her three children, she is connected to her community (by which I mean those parts of it that are mirror-images of her own background and class) and it would be quite simple for her to sleep-walk through life with the small joys that it brings but Connell slowly allows her to question how happy an existence that might be and to let her keep asking questions about what her purpose might be. In fact it is her friend Grace Barron who articulates early on the questions that will come to dominate her life too.

'India, I've never been anywhere or done anything or seen anything. I don't know how other people live, or think, or even how they believe. Are we right? Do we believe the right things?'

These nagging doubts keep nipping away throughout a book in which life nevertheless ticks away. A novel made up of fleeting moments even includes a section in which Mrs Bridge reads a book containing a passage that observes that some people skim through life without ever seeing 'all it may contain.' She is interrupted in her reading, places the book on the mantel and whilst meaning to return to it, never does. As her life passes by she cannot 'get over the feeling that something was drawing steadily away from her.' She resolves to ask her husband whether he feels the same way at all when he returns from work one evening whilst also recalling the dreams they used to share, her not caring so much what his ambitions were but caring only for him. Then comes the realisation that his busy work life, which she had always thought of as a 'temporary condition', will in fact mean that she never sees very much of her husband.

They had started off together to explore something that promised to be wonderful, and, of course, there had been wonderful times. And yet, thought Mrs Bridge, why is it that we haven't - that nothing has - that whatever we - ?

The relationship between husband and wife is brilliantly observed despite the fact that their interactions are limited by his busy working life. On her 48th birthday her husband takes her to the club for dinner and announces that they will be going on a trip to Europe. Whilst he talks excitedly about all the places they will visit she remembers a similar conversation when he had promised that they would undertake this very trip, a conversation that seemed to have taken place 'eight or ten years ago, but it was more than twenty, and on this day she was forty-eight years old.' Growing sad at this thought she gazes out of the window at a gathering storm 'and the distant thunder seemed to be warning her that one day this world she knew and loved would be annihilated.' What then follows is the approach of a tornado which sends other diners down to the basement for safety but Mr Bridge refuses to be moved from his steak and continues eating. Despite her anxieties Mrs Bridge remains at his side. 'For nearly a quarter of a century she had done as he told her, and what he had said would happen had indeed come to pass, and what he had said would not occur had not occurred. Why, then, should she not believe him now?' They both remain and the tornado does indeed pass, 'whether impressed by his intransigence or touched by her devotion.'

Connell knows that the smallest things can set a mind racing and it is whilst on that trip to Paris that she spots her husband dwelling by a shop window and sees that what held his attention was a black lace bra 'with the tips cut off.' Why had he stood there looking so serious? She then remembers the time he revealed that as a child he had wanted to be a great composer, what other secrets might there be? 'Who was he really?' This territory is familiar from reading K Arnold Price's The New Perspective (recently enjoyed and reviewed by Trevor over here) and that questioning of the very basis of all that seems solid is what makes this novel grow in power and interest as it develops. Mrs Bridge becomes more and more fascinating as the short chapters progress, she is simply a more interesting person than we might have given her credit for at the outset. There is also something perversely gratifying about watching a privileged character struggling with the very aspects of their life that others might term comfortable, and I'll confess to a sort of morbid curiosity as to whether she could ever 'explain how the leisure of her life - that exquisite idleness he had created by giving her everything - was driving her insane?'

Sitting at her dressing table applying cold cream she suddenly asks who she is, how she got here, who the man undressing in the same room might be. She is gratified as she applies her white mask of 'sweetly scented anonymity' but when she looks in the mirror she realises that the smile she feels is nowhere to be seen. 'All the same, being committed, there was nothing to do but proceed.'

At the same time as her relationship with her husband has had distance added to it, the relationship with her children, one of the factors that altered her married life of course, slowly alters as they grow up and another form of distance comes into play. In one brilliant section her son builds a tower out of rubbish on a vacant lot. As it gets bigger and more solid, and the need to tackle him about taking it down more urgent she recognises that her reticence in doing so is because she realises the time has come for her to talk with him like an adult and she is not sure sure she is equal to it.

There are wonderful flashes of humour of course, quite often from puncturing outdated notions or unfashionable or prejudiced opinions. Looking at the varying Christmas decorations in the neighbourhood for example they stumble upon a bungalow with 'a life-size cut-out of Santa Claus on the roof, six reindeer in the front yard, candles in every window, and by the front door an enormous cardboard birthday cake with one candle. '

On the cake was this message:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR JESUS.
'My word, how extreme,' said Mrs Bridge thoughtfully. 'Some Italians must live there.'

Little giggles like that combine with stunning observations of our closest relationships, the gestures that we make in order to show love (including the ones that fail like an out-of-practice Mrs Bridge's attempt to make a loaf of pineapple bread whose failure is met at first with a stoical 'Never mind' from her husband who then buys her a dozen roses the next day), to produce a novel that delights with its humanity, its sympathy, and its belief that even with all our flaws there is a part of us that wants to be better. It also has one of the best endings to a novel that I can remember. Unlike this review. Like I said: just go read the damn thing. You can thank me later.

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