Punishingly funny wordplay
Benjamin Yarde-Buller
ALTAR EGO by Kathy Lette Picador, E12.99, pp. 353 Altar Ego should, one gathers from the blurb, be approached with some cau- tion; Kathy Lette's novels have a strange effect on readers. Jilly Cooper, on reading Foetal Attraction (virtuoso word-play is something of a Lettemotif, it seems), mere- ly 'squirmed and laughed and cried', but Company magazine's reviewer found it necessary to change underpants in mid- perusal, and Richard E. Grant was 'left with two broken funny-bones' for his pains. There was, evidently, a dual risk: both per- sonal hygiene and physical safety were at stake.
Rebecca, the main character and narra- tor, is faced with a dilemma. It is the day of her wedding, to long-term boyfriend and human rights lawyer Julian. But at the last moment, when all the guests are already in church (Lette has a feeling for drama), her hitherto concrete resolve crumbles. She escapes from a toilet window, lands in a dustbin and then steps in a dog turd. Only the most resilient reader, surely, will remain continent after this sequence. As for the rest of the book, Rebecca has an affair with Zack, a black rock star ten years her junior, Julian has an affair with her best friend, and finally the two are reunited.
To be fair, bits of Altar Ego are quite funny. Isolated images and jokes show a vivid comic imagination — a fake eyelash dangles 'like a suicidal caterpillar'; a diaphragm is described as 'a rubber yarmulka for a tiny Jewish doll'. For most of the book, though, both elbows and bladders remain mercifully unthreatened.
One problem with this novel is that character and situation are subservient to purely verbal comedy, which means that the book reads like a string of jokes, puns and witty one-liners. The characters are full of what is presumably meant to be `feisty' talk, even in absurdly inappropriat- ed contexts. These snippets are from a dialogue between Julian and Rebecca which takes place at 3 am on the day when he has caught her in flagrante with Zach: J: `Where's your self-respect?' R: 'I don't know. You're the one who puts everything away'. . . R: 'Like me, he likes to share his feelings.' J: 'The only thing he'll share with you, you'll need penicillin for.' Their con- versation reads like a mediocre joke book. Witty repartee, one might conclude, is enjoyable only in real life.
Lette's obsession with making every sen- tence funny ruins more than just the come- dy. To have any idea what Rebecca is about, we might at least understand the physical appeal of Zack, for the sake of whom she deserts her betrothed:
Each bicep was the size of a guest bedroom. This guy wasn't just sexy, he was a crotch- moistener. A mammary-achingly take-me- now-you-brute, drop-dead dreamy hunk of spunk.
This description isn't just dreadful, it's a noose-tightener.
There are a few serious sentences towards the end, but not quite enough of them to make you laugh. Salman Rushdie commented that The Llama Parlour, a past Lette creation, 'cheered [him] up'. Well, even this, probably, is better than a fatwah.
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