The Leeds Review - Issue #1Alan Hollinghurst scooped the Man Booker Prize for Fiction with his novel The Line of Beauty last year, whilst the hot favourite, David Mitchell, had yet again to be contented with his Cloud Atlas being one of the highly acclaimed runners up (his previous novel number9dream was short-listed for the prize in 2001).
The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst's fourth novel focuses on the years when Thatcherism was at its zenith and marks a significant departure for the author. As in his earlier The Swimming Pool Library, Hollinghurst deals with the subject of homosexuality, but his treatment of the issue is altogether more restrained; his graphic descriptions of gay sex are fewer with the author electing instead to concentrate on the developing relationships (both sexual and nonsexual) between the novel's central character, Nick Guest, and the glittering array of characters who form his immediate social circle.
As his name suggests, Nick is an interloper amongst the upper echelons of society, observing the goings on of the fictionalised MP Gerald Fedden and his family, with whom he lodges in their Kensington home for four years, from the perspective of an outsider.
The novel is reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisted, Anthony Powell's A Dance To The Music Of Time series, and even F. Scott FitzGerald's The Great Gatsby: the pleasure-seeking society in which Hollinghurst places his latest novel is a fitting counterpart to the Roaring Twenties in which these other novels are placed. Nick even appears to be named after the Powell's and FitzGerald's protagonists (Nicholas Jenkins and Nick Carraway): as in these all these novels, the behaviour of the wealthy elite is examined through the eyes of an individual who does not easily fit into their social scene.
Nick's development from a fairly naïve, ingenuous individual to a jaded cynic which forms the heart of the novel runs parallel to the feelings of disillusionment felt towards the Conservative party and its leader, who appears just once in the novel at the silver wedding anniversary of Gerald and Rachel Fedden. Nick seems to embody the 1980s itself: his growing disenchantment with the world and its inhabitants reflects the political climate in which the Prime Minister, so lauded by Fedden and his colleagues at the beginning of the novel, would be ousted just a few years later. As Nick's outlook becomes more and more pessimistic, the world around him becomes less frivolous; by the end of the novel, the partying, drug taking and carefree sex with which the book began have been replaced by political scandal and personal tragedy.
The difference between public image and private self is a recurring theme throughout The Line of Beauty: Nick's own class pretensions, his secret affair with a millionaire and the Feddens' domestic problems all highlight that in life, as in politics, all is not as it first seems. The closeted sexuality and secrets of many of the characters often serve as an analogy for the clandestine shenanigans of the politicians. The book is as much about Nick's own sexuality and personal relationships, as it is the hypocrisy and surreptitious goings on of the Tory party; a theme that becomes more explicit as the novel reaches its conclusion with the exposure of Gerald Fedden's affair with his secretary.
The Line of Beauty encapsulates the zeitgeist of the 80s, offering a satirical view of both politics and society in one of the twentieth century's formative eras. Whilst one complaint about the book may be that it and its main character are too superficial and lacks substance, this is simply a reflection upon the society it portrays. Nick's preoccupation with the ogee arch and a gorgeously photographed magazine which no one else will ever see echo not only emphasise his character's shallowness, but the superficiality of the politics of the time.
Cloud Atlas, dubbed by many as the book that should have won the 2004 Man Booker Prize, has enjoyed great popularity, winning Richard and Judy's Best Read of the Year award earlier this year, and is altogether different in style and tone from Hollinghurst's novel.
It is difficult to describe what Mitchell's novel is about or, indeed, define to what genre it belongs: Cloud Atlas is comprised of six individual stories ranging from the nineteenth century to the distant future. Mitchell's novel, like Hollinghurst's, sees a continuance of themes and the literary techniques evident in the author's previous novels: like his 1999 novel Ghostwritten, Cloud Atlas is fragmentary in style, leaving the reader wondering whether it is a novel or a collection of self-contained stories. However, whilst each story constitutes a tale in its own right in this novel they are interconnected, with great skill, by both themes and characters.
Cloud Atlas is comprised of six tales ranging from historical pastiche in the style of Melville and political thriller, to black comedy and dystopian tales set in the future. Each story has its own distinct style, demonstrating Mitchell's flexibility as a writer. Reincarnation, the passing of time, cloning (an issue explored in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, one of this year's nominees) and narratology are amongst the issues explored by throughout the novel.
The various connections between stories are often subtle: a birthmark in the shape of a comet shared by the main characters of each story, one individual resolving a conflict by cutting a man's throat whilst another restrains himself from the same action and Luisa Rey's feeling of déja vu as she listens to the Cloud Atlas Sextet are just a few examples of the way Mitchell connects the stories. Often the way the stories are linked feel slightly gimmicky: each central character of a story reads, or in some cases watches, the text of the preceding tale - Robert Frobisher the narrator of the second tale 'Letters from Zedelghem' finds 'The Pacific Diary of Adam Ewing', the first story the reader encounters, whilst the eponymous heroine of 'Half Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery' reads the letters sent by Frobisher to his friend Sixsmith that comprise the second section of the book. The idea is certainly an original one, but whilst Mitchell succeeds in linking the stories via a number of covert intertextual devices, the way in which he connects each story to the next seems a little too blatant and after the first two sections one is constantly looking for the connection to preceding and succeeding stories; a fact that often distracts one from enjoying each tale in its own right. That said Mitchell's novel is highly innovative, refreshing read and one that challenges the reader throughout whilst being eminently entertaining from beginning to end.
There will always be controversy as to which book really deserves to win this coveted literary prize. Ultimately, it down to the individual reader to decide: whilst Hollinghurst's novel draws upon the established traditions of twentieth century literature, Mitchell's book invents some new ones: his linking of each story to each other and his use of language are often highly original. However, Mitchell is clearly heavily influenced by some of the great novels of the last century: the lingo used by the narrators of 'Sloosha's Crossin' an Ev'rythin' After' and 'An Orison of Somni-451' is reminiscent of Orwell's Newspeak and the Nadsat speak employed by Alex in Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, whilst the soap eaten by Somni and her fellow fabricants are recalls the Soma taken by the characters who populate Huxley's Brave New World: Mitchell's book draws together a number of diverse, often disparate literary styles and links them together through one soul, the 'Cloud Atlas' of the novel's title. Both novels are beautifully written, challenging, thought provoking reads, whilst remaining very, very different. Perhaps it is the fact that the Booker judges short-listed two such diverse works that make this particular literary award so significant and illustrious.
Lindsey Rawes Info