Fiction Over-Writing Peter Ackroyd
The Partners Bernard Kops (Secker and Warburg £3.25) Sun Child Angela Huth (Collins £2.95) Mr Kops's odd and apocalyptic novel begins very badly: Daniel Klayman (the surname is no doubt Biblical to a degree) is contemplating his crumbling life: "Who could believe that a man so apparently successful could feel himself to be such a failure?" The trite answer would be, of course, anyone who reads too many novels. And that unmistakable impression of deja lu is confirmed when Daniel turns to his especially lovely wife, Claire, and actually says: "You look ravishing this evening." But Mr Kops does not linger in the lands of Novelletta, and as his scene widens his writing acquires its own identity. Daniel and Claire have been mouthing nothings to each other at their house-warming party, and the Jewishness — Which Mr Kops can always set down so neatly — eventually shines through. Leonard Bernstein plays the Beatles as plump ladies down their cherry brandies, their diamond-studded specs vying with their blue rinses and creating a spectacle very rarely seen outside North London.
But in the midst of life, Mr Kops is about to tell us, there is death: Daniel's father, Lazarus, is about to turn the myth upside down. And in the midst of life there is also sex: Daniel's sister is sleeping with her Uncle Sally, Daniel's son is sleeping with a girl friend, and Daniel is sleeping with his wife. But these dreary reminders of mortality can drive men mad, and Mr Klayman meets a more solid version of himself in the garden. Together, they plan a life of crime. The narrative is more interesting than it sounds; Mr Kops uses a souped-up prose and his narrative has a silly, romantic grandeur as Daniel becomes the centre of his own sloppy universe and his emotions stride over everybody and everything. But after a while it becomes clear that Daniel doesn't quite have the chutzpah to become a myth, and his ruminations lose their apocalyptic glitter:
He was grieving for something unknown; something he had lost and not yet found. It was gnawing at him, clutching him from within constantly. If there was no way out and he had to survive, then all he could do Was make with the hands, to swim like this; the swimmer in the universe. The dreamer defying endlessness,
'I am a little tired of "universe" and "endless," and I'm tired of the sea and the sky for that matter. Mr Kops's excuse for dragging in these clichés must be the fact that they are part of a 'dream sequence.' But this is the most desultory and artificial of all technical devices, and one only used to impart informa
tion which for some reason cannot be used in the waking life of the novel. In other words, it is a bore. In this case, it turns out to be the whole history of Daniel Klayman, but not even his conventional rags-to-riches story is enough to make his actions suitable or even credible: he smells burning everywhere, he strangles a dog and he eventually murders his son — not all the seas and universes in the Thesaurus, nor all the fervour in the Books of Job and Revelations, can save a character like that.
So The Partners is forced to become self-indulgent, with dreams and allegories and analogies piling on top of each other until they eventually suffocate the narrative. There is no doubt that Mr Kops can be a very fine writer, and that some sections of the novel have an imaginative strength which lifts them above the ordinary, but his bright idea has failed to catch fire. Daniel Klayman becomes a merely romantic figure, attracting a great many clichés and solemnities; the account of his madness becomes mechanical and uninteresting.
Angela Huth takes a separate path and never strays beyond her competence. Sun Child is the story of a small girl in a world which has suddenly grown too large for her. Her parents, with the unfortunate and unlikely names of Fen and Idle, are steadily growing apart and poor Emily is left holding the baby — which happens to be herself. It is, of course, easier for a novelist to write a three-volume history than it is to get through the eye of a child, but Miss Huth has taken the measure of her little Emily amidst a prospect of people:
'I only really like stories by Untie Tom and Papa. Papa tells me all about Africa, real things that happen to him when he goes there. Uncle Tom does very funny voices for all the different animals and people and everything.' She paused, taking in the slight look of disappointment on Kevin's face. 'Thank you very much all the same,' she said. 'Perhaps another time, if you're going to come again. Will You get over first and jump me down?'
Miss Huth has got either a very good memory or a very acute ear, since she has preserved those tiny leaps and flourishes in the child's speech. It would be grotesque if it had been done self-indulgently, but Miss Huth has a precise and quiet prose which allows Emily to stay just as odd and incomprehensible as the adults. And by employing a child's eye view, she can keep things on that calm but colourful surface where they actually belong.
This could, of course, be just another slick way of getting through a novel, but Miss Huth is actually a very resourceful writer. She speads patterns of warmth and cold through the narrative, as the bright world of childhood slowly makes way for the distinct and distant perceptions of the adults. But it is always a case of the children getting the best lines: the friendship of Emily and her little friend Wolf (which is not, incidentally, without a hint of more mature problems to come) has such an accurate and pleasing tone that the adults only take on warmth and shape in relation to it. This may be because adults only reveal themselves to children, with a language untouched by the games of maturity, but it must also have something to do with the fact that when Miss Huth steps out of Emily's character and becomes objective, the prose falters. When adults are caught speaking to each other, for example, they become incurably novelettish:
'Why do I have to destroy the thing I love best? Why do I sit watching myself doing things I have no wish to do? Caught up in a sort of terrible compulsion. And there's a nice bit of self-pity for you ...'
And there's also a nice bit of over-writing. It is only in the relations between mother and daughter, or father and daughter, that the romance disappears and something like credibility takes over. It is fortunate that this includes most of the narrative. Sun Child is a remarkably good novel.
Previous page
