Generally speaking I appreciate black humour. Generally speaking I get that especially dry, uniquely British style of humour. Generally speaking any book that’s described as witty, much less as “a masterpiece of wit”, is right up my alley. Generally a book that makes excellent use of metaphoric commentary to satirize and skewer political systems, the general public, and the interaction between the two, is something I would greatly enjoy. Generally speaking when a book is reviewed as an outstanding work by many, many major reviewers that means there’s something good in there for me, even if I have to work a bit to get it.
But I’ve got tell you, I have struggled my way through Hilary Mantel‘s Beyond Black, and even with all that, I feel like I’m never getting that time back.
Reading the reviews, I am forced to wonder if any of the reviewers actually read the last half of the book. They all refer to the lead character’s arc, but don’t mention at all the story of the second lead, or the fact that the ending of the book is entirely at odds with the thematic structure built up through the whole novel. Unless, of course, you believe that admitting your own sins is enough to lift them from you, or maybe more pointedly that facing the damage that was done to you is enough to heal you.
I’m left thinking that the book has all the elements of something I would find a work of genius, if they had all gelled, but they didn’t, at least not for me, and what I’m left with in the absence of that coalescence is a lot of terribly dark, a lot of mean-spirited skewering (without the feeling of idealism under it that would make it palatable), and an utter lack of likable, or even vaguely relatable characters.
I need something I will really enjoy to clean my palate. Maybe one of the Vance books I haven’t read yet.
