Someone told me that the opening passages of this book contained the most beautiful prose they’ve ever read. This wasn’t the case for me and, reflecting on this idea, I thought that perhaps the most potent passages come further into a book when the ideas or characters have been more fully developed. Nonetheless, the author’s ability to conjure up powerful and instantly recognisable scenes, sensations and emotional landscapes is undeniable. This first struck me at the end of chapter nine, where an argument is described between the two main protagonists, Clarissa and Joe. It is vivid and recalls much of the chaotic, visceral immediacy of verbal sparring with those close to you. Thoughts, threats and accusations seems to be formed and spoken simultaneously without any conscious reflection or planned strategy. Nevertheless, despite this lack of planning, they can often be more hurtful than considered comments. As if you’re responding instinctively, like closing your eyes or putting up your arms when physical objects fly towards you. It’s a reflex and can be all the more apposite because of this. Another example of his skill is the crescendo of suspense that is built up in chapter nineteen by throwing the reader’s attention forward to a crucial event that has yet to happen before returning to the chronology of the narrative. For instance, “a day or so later it became a temptation to invent or elaborate details about the table next to ours” where the reader is aware that something seismic is about to happen but is left wondering what it could be. Juxtaposed with the smooth, finely rendered description of a birthday celebration in a busy restaurant it creates a powerful feeling of anticipation and anxiety.
The characters are depicted with more intellectual detail than physical. I felt close and connected to the scientific musings of Joe and his crisis about abandoning his career as a popular science writer and returning to ‘real science’. The flowing prose was occasionally inlaid with captivating ideas that inspired the character with greater vivacity and brought me closer to them. Joe opines, “so the meanderings of narrative had given way to an aesthetics of form, as in art, so in science” or “if you lived in a group, like humans have always done, persuading others of your own needs and interests would be fundamental to your own well being. Sometimes you had to use cunning. Clearly you would be at your most convincing if you persuaded yourself first and did not even have to pretend to believe what you were saying. The kind of self-deluding individuals who tended to do this flourished, as did their genes”. In other places the details and specifics are less convincing. I often found these clumsier touches to be physical. The grieving widow of the hot air balloon hero looks “a long way off, out on her own in unspeakable weather, like a lone Arctic explorer”. The mien of someone facing extreme weather rarely looks detached in my experience and imagination it is more a countenance of resolve and determination. The phrase certainly didn’t aid the depiction and actually jarred somewhat. Again, the physical description of the same character’s house provoked more confusion than animation. “Facing the poisonous fire, set opposite the sofa were two chairs”, how can the chairs both face the fire and be opposite the sofa, I thought? The fire must be contained by a wall and short of the sofa being beside the fire, against the wall, or in front of the fire meaning the fire was largely obscured. It seemed to me the chairs must face the sofa perpendicular to the wall where the fire’s located.
However, the worst aspect of the book was some of the character’s behaviour in the story. Clarissa, who is depicted as a caring, compassionate and intelligent woman, transforms from a loving partner into a suspicious, dismissive narcissist when Joe acquires a stalker. Her behaviour seems unlikely, unbelievable and unreasonable in equal measure given the previous information we have been given about her. Her actions are so strange it made me think that Joe has gone mad and that it would turn out that he had invented the stalker, as Clarissa seems to suspect. One could argue this tension is part of the plot but the this line of thinking strikes me as full of gaping holes. Clarissa was at the accident and would have seen Parry, the stalker, herself. Joe also could have shown her Parry standing watch outside their house. Joe, inexplicably, deletes the 30 answerphone messages Parry leaves and never presents Clarissa with this type of evidence for no apparent reason . She dismisses the extremely numerous letters as possibly written by Joe on the pretext that the handwriting is the similar, which seems very odd and summarily dismissive for a caring partner not to mention improbable from a purely technical perspective. Furthermore, where is Joe finding the time to write such voluminous missives!? Equally, if he was in fact writing himself hundreds of letters wouldn’t Clarissa be more seriously concerned about his mental health and therefore take more concentrated actions to find out if Parry did in fact exist? Her position is an inconceivable one for the character we are presented with earlier: She cares about Joe, sees that something is having a very profound effect on him but can’t be bothered to conduct even the most precursory investigation into its veracity and decides he is mad but not actually mad enough to get him to talk to a psychologist or doctor! However, and in my opinion conclusively, the fact that Parry does exist makes this entire portion of the plot weak and only supportable in a very flimsy and half-hearted way. The letter of justification that Clarissa writes in chapter twenty-three represents an incredibly generous self-assessment. Again, it was not in keeping with her presentation as a character earlier in the book, and was, for me, the nail in the coffin for this portion of the storyline. It is simply too unreasonable and far-fetched to warrant any real interest. Another problem I had with the plot is Joe’s acquisition of the gun and its subsequent use. Again, good, convincing prose and description is diluted by wholly unbelievable narrative developments on Joe’s trip to buy a gun from some retired coke dealers. Why would he break down in uncontrollable fits of laughter halfway through the deal? It spoils the otherwise well-crafted depiction of their living environment and conservation needlessly. Finally, Joe’s shooting of Parry when he has kidnapped Clarissa also seems unlikely and melodramatic. Would he have such confidence in his aim after one practice shot that probably wasn’t accurate given it took him a long time to find the hole in the tree trunk? I think not, especially given the proximity of Clarissa to the target. Why not just attack him without a gun? Parry has already been described as small and, at the time of the shooting, was only going to stab himself and not Clarissa! The whole episode struck me as forced and unnecessarily melodramatic and, combined with Clarissa’s incongruous and scarcely credible behaviour, it ruined the other considerable merits of the book. It also formed a stark contrast with the other parts of the plot. The ballooning incident, its aftermath for Clarissa and Joe and the story of the hero’s widow were all sensitively and believably handled throwing the more pantomime themes into garrish relief.
