It's the same the whole world over
Amit Chaudhuri
THESE ENCHANTED WOODS by Allan Massie Hutchinson, £14.99, pp. 207 When one thinks of modern Scottish fiction, one recalls George Mackay Brown's stories, summoning up a world of enchant- ment and myth with the 20th century still at its edges, tasting of brine and weathered by cold sea breezes. These days, there is James Kelman, with his ventriloquist's gift of entering the lives of his characters and making them speak in a sparse but musical Glasgow dialect that somehow enlivens the boredom and dereliction of the modern city. What both these writers do, by explor- ing specific locales, is extend the bound- aries of modern British fiction, which was once all about, some say (perhaps unfairly), goings-on in Hampstead.
Allan Massie's new novel, however, can- not be accused of adhering to easy dichotomies such as Scottishness/English- ness; although the novel is ostensibly set in Scotland, its characters, in the way they think, talk, dress, and, in general, live, are no different from characters one might find in a conventional English novel about adul- tery set in one of the more respectable areas in the south-east of the island. While this is disappointing, because one expects from the Scottish novel something that is different from the middle-class English novel, it is also unsettling and interesting, in that it belies our expectations.
Three or four stories, about a group of people linked by friendship, by being relat-
ed to each other, and, most importantly, by class, unfold in the course of the narrative. The main story, however, is about Fiona, who has just had an unhappy affair with a 'stud' called Kevin, her mother's former lover, to spite the latter (strange and com- plicated as this may sound), and is now being exhorted by an old flame, Tony Lub- bock, a London financier of Ukrainian ori- gin who possesses a mobile telephone, to marry him. Fiona hesitates to do this, how- ever, because she is already married to a person called Sir Gavin, whom she does not love but, in an old-fashioned way, pities for being in a perpetually befuddled state.
Sir Gavin's malodorous lawyer, Maconochie (one notices in this striking name an apt echo of 'machination), informs him that his financial affairs are in disarray; Lubbock comes to the rescue and offers to 'buy' his wife; everyone is dis- mayed. By the end of the novel, Sir Gavin is sent to jail for drinking and driving and running over a little girl; Lubbock is about to be sent to jail for making some rash financial decisions; but briefly, and beauti- fully, Fiona and Lubbock fall in love. All through the novel, other stories about other couples alternate with the main one; moreover, conversations between the male characters are held in pubs, with people calling each other 'old boy' and telling each other even more stories.
Several parties are thrown, in one of which a woman is raped by a politician called Mansie Niven who says shocking things like, 'You might as well try to per- suade them to send all the nig-nogs back to nig-nog land.' Although the party scenes remind us of Mrs Dalloway, in that here too there is plenty of excitement and prepara- tion and thwarted romantic interest, they do not quite manage to come to life in the same way. Instead, they provide a space for sophisticated but stereotypical homosexual experiences to abound; Andrew Meldrum, Fiona's brother, is always squeezing a boyfriend's knee or clutching a waist. There is a lot of dialogue and sex in the book, and some action and humour, but lit- tle detail except in the vein of: `Liz's festi- val opened with a concert followed by a champagne and lobster supper (tickets £35 a pair).' Scotland, a little sadly, is for the most part reduced to stage-scenery: 'It was a beautiful afternoon. The country was lush, still a score of shades of green.' In the end, what is all this supposed to cohere into? It is Fiona who gives us a clue to what might have been the author's intentions: 'If this was a romantic novel', she said, 'if only it was... '
And at another point:
She smiled. That was pure Hollywood. Could life be Hollywood?
The question remains unanswered, however, and the author's wishes unclear.
Afternoon Raag by Amit Chaudhuri was published by Heinemann in June at £13.99.
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