This is my review of Blow Your House Down (Virago Modern Classics) by Pat Barker.

Set in a rundown northern town, this short but dense, bleak yet gripping novel exposes the lives of a disparate group of working class prostitutes trying to contain their rising fear over the mounting evidence of a serial killer, unprotected by the police who seem to using them as bait to trap him. Understandably haunted by the murder of her female lover, one of the women decides to take control and avenge her death, but can she be sure she has found the right man? Each of Pat Barker’s novels seems to be triggered by specific real events, in this case the activities of the “Yorkshire Ripper”.

Her second novel, published in 1984 long before she hit the Booker jackpot, this is very different from her recent work, revealing the style of her early writing from which a more fragmented, stream of consciousness, perhaps more self-conscious and studied, sophisticated style has developed. Parts 1 and 2 in particular seem more straightforward than later work, with strong dialogue and clear narrative drive making the novel a page-turner. Without undue sentimentality, Pat Barker arouses our sympathy for the women who have often had a raw deal and support each other with earthy and stoical humour. You may of course feel that, along with the stereotyping, she tends to let them off too lightly as unfortunate victims in comparison with the men, all of whom appear to some degree weak, pathetic or abusive. Along with some disturbing graphic descriptions of violence, there is the unsettling image of the headless chickens on a conveyor belt, their feathers stained with blood as an analogy for the victimised prostitutes.

Although Pat Barker’s talent as a wordsmith is evident, her plot potentially powerful, I found the arguably original and daring change in point of view in Part 4 too abrupt and confusing, destroying the flow and tension built up previously. Feeling that I had been catapulted into another novel, I had to search back to see if any of what seemed like a new set of characters had appeared before. I think the author is trying to show that how “respectable” women who suffer attack are treated better than prostitutes but think that this thread needed to be woven in more skilfully from the outset rather than bolted on as an awkward coda.

This novel confirms my impression that Pat Barker is a distinctive and thoughtful writer, who does not flinch from the challenge of describing horrific events which neither she nor most of her readers have experienced, who switches perhaps too swiftly from well-observed social chat to the macabre, and whose talents lie in striking description and dialogue rather than constructing a plot.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of Noonday by Pat Barker.

Noonday is the third part of a trilogy based on the triangular relationship between three artists, whose lives are defined by World War 1 in their youth, and World War 2 in late middle age. This is Pat Barker’s second trilogy about war, which obviously fascinates her in both its arbitrary physical violence and more complex psychological effects on both soldiers and civilians. The prickly Elinor Brooke, perhaps not as independent as she seems, the talented, rambunctious but inwardly insecure Kit Neville, and introverted, somewhat enigmatic and troubled Paul seem to have become real and familiar people for her, providing endless scope to explore their thoughts and motivations.

This is not a stand-alone book, in that I think it is essential to have read the second novel “Toby’s Room” (and ideally Life Class as well) to know the circumstances of the death of Elinor’s brother Toby at the front, and Kit’s part in it. I realised when reading “Toby’s Room” that plot has become unimportant to Pat Barker over the years. I sympathise with readers who found the early chapters of “Noonday” a struggle, since they often seemed like padding or fillers to reach the next incident or situation of interest to her. A few points caught my attention: the sense of menace combined with unreality created by the German bomber planes “circling like gnats” over a Home Counties garden; the long shadow cast by the death of the mythically heroic Toby, to the extent that his grief-stricken mother finds a reluctant substitute for him in her grandson Alex, who has the misfortune of looking very like him.

Otherwise, I felt quite unengaged in disjointed events which may be realistic but do not feed any narrative drive – the slow death of the mother with whom Elinor never shared any mutual love or understanding, Paul’s obsessive flashback’s to his own mother’s sickness and death, the daily grind of Paul and Elinor’s lives in London as respectively an air-raid warden and an ambulance driver. It’s all fairly bleak but preferable to the implausible appearance of a medium who is clearly a fraud, yet it would seem haunted by a ghost from the trenches. As Paul paced the dark London streets rather than take refuge in a shelter “he found it easy to believe they were leading him to a secret chamber, right at the heart of the blacked-out city, where a white, bloated figure sat enthroned, a grotesque Persephone, claiming to speak for millions of the mouthless dead.”

I fear that the ludicrous Bertha Mason (shades of Jane Eyre) caused me to skip in despair, until I found Chapter 23, which is where Pat Barker reaches the culminating stage of the trilogy, the unresolved tension of Kit Neville’s unrequited love for Elinor, his subconscious hatred of Paul as a rival – in love and art, a powder key which can be sparked by the device of Paul’s betrayal of Elinor in the odd, disrupted limbo of London in the blitz, where “living outside time”, the old rules do not apply. At last, in the final hundred or so pages, I found the chain of dramatic events, ironic twists, expression of real emotion at last and strong dialogue I had been missing.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

 

This is my review of Toby’s Room by Pat Barker.

Although Toby’s Room may be read as a “stand-alone” novel, it is part of a trilogy best read in order, starting with “Life Class” which is based on real-life young artists studying at the Slade under the fearsome Professor Tonks just before the outbreak of World War One.

Pat Barker’s books seem to be triggered by specific real people and actual events, in this case the death of Virginia Woolf’s brother Thoby, prompting her novel “Jacob’s Room” and also by the death of Edward Brittain, brother of Vera, who is believed to have committed suicide by way of putting himself in danger at the Front, rather than face the disgrace of court-martial and prison.

A central character is the prickly and unconventional art student Elinor Brooke, who is faced with the disturbing realisation that her deep bond with her brother Toby is too close. Before there is time to resolve this issue, she learns that he is missing, presumed dead in the war. Knowing that brilliant but boorish artist Kit Neville was serving in Toby’s company so is most likely to know the truth about what occurred, she enlists the aid of Paul Tarrant, another artist and former lover, to extract the information from the reluctant Kit, even though he is undergoing painful surgery to restore his damaged nose.

This is a cue for the author to explore another aspect of wartime social history, the involvement of Tonks in recording the hideous wounds caused by shells and the development of plastic surgery. I had no idea that injured soldiers undergoing nose surgery had to endure temporary tubes called “pedicles”, sometimes as many as three, making them resemble squids (a sick joke on Kit’s part?) nor that anaesthesia was so rudimentary that the tube carrying the gas often got in the surgeon’s way, with the danger of making the operating staff themselves woozy if it was removed without due care.

Barker’s vivid prose, punctuated with original metaphors often veers into poetry as she describes Zeppelins over Hampstead Heath and coastal cottages at the mercy of tides and shingle in a storm. There are some strong scenes with lively dialogues, mostly involving Kit who is one of the most flesh-and-blood, fully developed characters: Kit wearing a Rupert Brooke mask on an outing to the Café Royal with Paul; Kit remembering his fraught relationship with medical officer Toby forcing him to take ludicrous risks to retrieve not only wounded men but corpses from no man’s land; Kit finally describing Toby’s last days to Paul, but these powerful passages which prove Pat Barker’s talent are too few.

I wanted to admire this novel, but it was often too disjointed and lacking in focus to engage me. I could not understand why the author tells us in detail about Elinor’s dissection of a corpse (to learn more about anatomy for artistic reasons), but avoids describing Kit’s wound and how their first sight of it affected Paul and Elinor. Why does Pat Barker include extracts of Elinor’s very contrived diaries, casually name-dropping visits to Virginia Woolf and Lady Ottoline Morrell without ever explaining her connection with them? Why is Toby so underdeveloped as a character? If he and Elinor are so close, why do they have such limited communication? Why are the most dramatic moments so often reported third hand after the event?

It could be that the author is deliberately disjointed and unfocused, because that is how real life often is, and she wants us to interpret the story for ourselves, but I think the book is weakened by the lack of a well-constructed plot and three-dimensional characters.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

 

This is my review of The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

Rachel’s morning commuter train often stops at a red signal near Euston, enabling her to fantasise over an attractive couple who live in a house backing onto the railway line. Its layout is familiar to Rachel, since she recently lived a few doors away from it in the house still occupied by ex-husband Tom, now with his new wife Anna and baby daughter. Her grief over this is driving Rachel into the downward spiral of an erratic, embarrassing alcoholic but when exactly did she begin to drink too much and why?

This is the starting point of a twisty psychological thriller which relies heavily on the way vital details are revealed. The viewpoint switches between Rachel and the object of her fantasy, Megan, at times also including Anna, to make a somewhat clunky dramatic triangle, as each recalls recent events in a kind of mental diary. It is often interesting to see how these different characters see the same events. Rachel’s personality is the most fully developed: probably an unreliable narrator, perhaps guilty of some dreadful act committed in a drunken haze, arousing contempt or frustrated pity mixed with despair in those who have to deal with her, she also evokes sympathy in the reader with her flashes of wry humour and self-knowledge. In contrast, Megan and Anna seem to speak with the same voice, shallow and unstable cyphers, in fact all the characters apart from Rachel tend to be portrayed as two-dimensional stereotypes. None of them is very likeable, although that does not bother me.

This book is not particularly well-written, it has clearly been over-hyped, a conscious attempt to recreate the success of “Gone Girl”. It is easy to guess the key to the mystery, and final chapters leading up to the climax seem more rushed and formulaic than the intriguing slow build of the first half. Although the highly visual descriptions pave the way for a film of the book, I shall not feel driven to watch it.

Despite this, the novel is definitely a page turner with a plot which is imaginative in detail if somewhat hackneyed in its main thrust. The ending was better than the let down I had expected. It fascinates me how brilliant, insightful wordsmiths are often hopeless at plots, or underestimate their importance, whereas those with a gift for constructing an intrigue cannot prevent themselves from slipping into banal, clichéd prose. The recent novels “I saw a man” and “Disclaimer” seem to me to achieve a stronger combination of good writing and intriguing plot.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars