The Northern Clemency - Philip Hensher

[NotQuiteCockney]

I'm nearly 300 pages into this, and really enjoying it. It's written with such a light touch, and he manages an omniscient viewpoint so very well ... anyone else read it?

I read it over the summer, really enjoyed it. Its not exactly handbag sized though, is it?

Noooo.

Good thing I haven't got a handbag.

I did take it with me on the tube today to read, even though my entire tube journey was with at least one child, so my reading opportunities were ... sparse ...

Hmm. I read it over the summer too. I really, really wanted to like it (unusual, as I often approach books determined to dislike them) but... I found the prevalence of unhinged characters a bit hard to take. And I thought his editor needed to be less deferential.
Sorry!

Oh, that's right, I've just remembered there were quite a few GLARING editorial oversights and inconsistencies, that threatened to ruin it on at least two occasions.

I can never get along with Hensher's stuff. I find him intellectually pretentious, as if he is writing to show off how clever he is. I have not tried this one though. Is it better than the others?

I haven't read his other stuff, hard to say. I wouldn't describe this book as intellectually pretentious, but maybe I wouldn't describe his other stuff that way, either? I'm sure I've read him in Granta, but not really noticed, iyswim.

Didn't want to face the GLARING oversights issue until I'd finished, but now that I have ... ack!

I had really thought the big oversight I noticed (re: the affair, was it just once, or was it many times?) was going to turn out to be a feature, an intentional thing, not a fuck up.

And then the business about when did Timothy get to Australia ... gah ...

Were these the things you meant, Cocodrillo? Or are there more?

i enjoyed this (& knocking people out with the hardback edition on public transport...). i do love a state of the nation novel. it was easy to read.i'm not super surprised it didn't win the booker though (white tiger was fab). another book i recently liked set around a similar time was crusaders.

Hoxty, have you read Blake Morrison's South of the River? That's a good old state of the nation novel, I'm reading it at the mo (alongside others, as ever).

yes coco! liked it too. i'm a bit indiscriminate really . what you do you think?

didn't get on with Crusaders

I have just borrowed The Northern Clemency from the library, it looks a bit daunting

NQC, I don't know that I was as aware of glaring inconistencies as you and Coco. I just felt that an awful lot of stuff could have been cut out without damaging the overall shape too much.

It also annoyed me that it didn't properly engage with the miners' strike either - seeing it all from "outsiders"' perspectives (in the sense that the only miner it got close to was a conscientious objector who couldn't wait to set up his ballroom dancing school...).

And I thought Tim was a complete waste of space, and far too weird for his own good. yuk.

I'm still impressed by the simple fact of its accomplishment though. Getting a monster like that published is surely no mean feat nowadays?

NQC unfortunately there are more. There were times when Hensher got a character's name wrong; there was on occasion towards the end of the book that really grated. On balance I did like the book though, but I was surprised it made the Booker list.

Agree with Hoxton that it was easy to read, so only daunting in terms of length I think Lurker.

Yes, Tim was weird, and without any good reason why, either. I mean ... ok ... his mother didn't like him, were we meant to think he was just born wrong?

What was the occasion near the end, Cocodrillo.

Yes, I'd agree it was easy to read. I liked his light touch, the fact we were never told exactly what was being smuggled, there were a few nice instances like that, which I enjoyed. But the gaps were marring.

I guess it is impressive to get something that big published, and I guess that checking for consistency is difficult - I'd assume the gaps happened because not enough fresh eyes were cast over it, it was written, changed a lot, changed some more, and nobody took the time to carefully read through the final draft? Frustrating, because the problems I spotted weren't that big, the changes to fix them weren't complicated ...

Oh, I also think that the remaining characters seemed to deal very easily with what happened to Tim, when surely they would be PROFOUNDLY effected by that? And not in a good way!

Can't remember the exact example NQC, something Daniel said/thought towards the end (too vague I know, sorry!), possibly in the lying around reading scene.

The whole 'Tim' thing was just kinda rubbish. I mean, they just accepted that they had this freaky little brother, who kept doing deeply fucked up stuff. I guess Daniel at least confronted Tim about his obsession with the dying boy ... but we never saw that.