Eleven

by Mark Watson

You might know Mark Watson as a comedian. That's fine, he's a very funny guy. But he's a novelist, if not first, then foremost.

His third novel, Eleven, is funny, but only when funny can be squeezed in between small and important events, unwisely forgotten moments, consequences in chain, and good, flawed people.

I nearly added 'clever prose' to that list, because there's a lot of that around as well. But I'm not sure it that's such a good thing.

The problem with clever, make-you-smile/make-you-think similes and metaphors is that they make you smile/think. Both of which are distancing states of mind when you're getting lost in a story. It's not worth being clever if it makes the reader forget what character he was reading about.

Watson is too smart a writer to fall into that trap, usually. He doesn't show off with his prose, and he doesn't outsmart you in references and allusions. But the threshold of reader-sensitivy (a real concept, from now on) is already heightened in Eleven, and so he can't get away with his normal inventiveness without drawing attention to it.

The TOR-S (threshold of reader-sensitivy. Keep up) is heightened because Eleven is written in the present tense. So the line -- quoted by Watson in his book-launch as a personal favourite -- the air is cold to the touch like cutlery in a forgotten drawer, doesn't wash past like it normally would, leaving an aftertaste of originality and an interesting picture half-submerged in the subconcious.

Instead, it makes you (me, anyway) stop for a moment, put the book down, and try to remember if I've ever touched cutlery in a forgotten drawer. Was it any colder than the cutlery in the kitchen drawer, which I usually remember?

If I wasn't already on less familiar ground because of the present tense, I think it would have slipped past. So why the present tense? It obviously comes at some cost, so does it need to be there at all?

Those weren't rhetorical questions, by the way. You can go ahead and answer them.

I'm waiting.

Okay, I'll tell you.

YES.

The present tense/clever prose combo might make it harder to get beyond the text and sink into the story at first, but you get there in the end. And when you do, the present tense nails it. To the nearest wooden surface.

Xavier Ireland (there's a reason for the idiot name) unknowingly triggers a chain of eleven events. These are mirrored by events in his own life, which cause and document the change in Xavier as he becomes more involved in his own and others' lives. These two chains race each other -- will Xavier become responsible for his actions in time to intercede in the spiralling chain he unwittingly kicked off?

I'm not going to tell you the answers, but I will tell you this: the past tense is fatalist. In the past tense, the result of the race would have been fixed from the start. That's the problem with books. But present-tensing hasn't decided yet.

That's not to say Watson ignores the past tense. Because there's a third narrative, alongside and in-between Xavier and his responsibility. Xavier's past, which is fatalist (we know it has a sad ending already). This third strand weaves in, sometimes encouraging the others, sometimes hindering, and... Aaah, it's just clever. You'll like it, I promise.

I mentioned that, despite the distracting cutlery, I got involved in this book early enough for it to count. That's because of the two relationships that make up the foreground. There's Xavier and his sweetly incompetent, we've-all-got-a-friend-like-that wingman, Murray. And then there's Xavier and his brash, more-personality-than-you-know-what-to-do-with cleaner, Pippa.

The spiralling consequences, the past he can no longer ignore, and the present he can no longer deny responsibility for are what make this story move. But I wouldn't even have been reading it if it wasn't for the charming, flawed, uneven and awkward friendship that it begins with.


Oh, also: my first Amazon review.

A Light-Hearted Look At Murder

Everyone has a few books the love. They are absolute favourites that should never be subjected to objective criticism, deserving only praise annd delight and some sort of book-cake. I've read hundreds of books, so I have a dozen or more (answer: more) of these cake-deservers.
I love to insist that my friends read them, but then I refuse to lend them my precious copy. My friends then get angry, and all sorts of problems arise.
Other than finding less irritable friends, there is only one possible solution: to set up a publishing company, buy the rights to my favourtie books, and reprint them by the thousand with swish new uniform covers. Some kind of 'best of' imprint.
I'd lose a lot of money, but that's not the point.

The point is, I can do a sort of small version of this, without the reprints, swish covers, or... the rest. But I can create a virtual imprint--Carroll Classics--and award my dearest books with the prestige and literary credibility that comes with being included under that discerning banner.

So, with only a little further ado, let my introduce to you the first book to be inducted into the Carroll Classics (I have not bought the rights to it, or bought it any cake):

Mark Watson's A Light-Hearted Look At Murder.

Andreas Honig used to be a Hitler lookalike, hosting commercial events, and even appearing on television. His lover was the fifth tallest woman in Britain. And Mark Watson is a comedian, when not writing. So why isn't this a comedy?
It's a funny book, but only incidentally. There's clever and original observations all over the place, a long hard look at the absurdities of lookalike entertainment, and--in more than one case--rather special interplay between characters. But despite the central premise of the story (I repeat: Hitler lookalike and fifth tallest woman) the focus of this novel is definitely not comic.

I read once that the essential difference between a comedy and a tragedy is that one has a happy ending. You can make any story a tragedy by giving it an unhappy ending: the same story with a happy ending would be, fundamentally, a comedy.
I don't know if I agree with that, but I mention it here because the point--endings matter--is responsible in part for the bittersweet feel that Murder has (a nicely uncomfortable abbreviation, I think.)

There are two stories here. The story at the centre of this book--the ten years ago story--has... well, I won't spoil the ending, but it's a tragedy. The peripheral story--the now story--has a happy ending. It is peripheral only because it is the story we look through, to the other. Neither one quite dominates the other.
That's because the peripheral story is only peripheral in terms of narrative geography, not importance. It is equally important, so the Happy Ending and the Sad Ending are of equal weight. Whatever you think about the comedy/tragedy distinction, the two opposing endings will inevitably colour the book with some kind of emotional ambiguity.

But my point is that, regardless of endings, this book is not a comedy. It comes down to one thing: it is much too convincing. Here's an arbitrary list of points:

1. The events at the heart of this book are not light-hearted, and are not dealt with as such. They are happening to very real people, who don't get up very easily after a slapstick prat-fall.
2. The absurdities built inherent in the central characters are not punchlines: they are convincingly real, with messy explanations and complex implications.
3.The world of light entertainment is not so light-hearted, either: it is gritty, questionable and bound to leave you inexplicably queasy.

It is something I love, and something that I am very wary to try: when funniness comes from a serious place. Comedy and tragedy can be ever closer than just a different eding: they need not be mutually exclusive at all. In Murder, they are interweaved so cleverly that they forge something independent of them both.
That's more ambitious than I want, yet. But here's a thought: if the book is convingingly real, you can get away with anything. You can make a Hitler lookalike fall for the fifth tallest woman in Britain. And you won't sound kooky or stupid or consciously surreal.


PS I'm trying to make my posts shorter. I'm not doing very well, yet. This little post-script isn't helping things, either. I'll shut up now.