DanWilde1966
New Member
Has anyone read any work by Patrick McGrath?
My ex-flatmate moved out over a year ago, taking his section of our library with him, but he left a pile of Patrick McGrath books. I am working my way through them.
McGrath's first novel, and the one I have read this afternoon, is The Grotesque (1989). Reading it has been an extraordinary experience. It is an example of what McGrath has himself termed "New Gothic. The Literary Sojourn website writes: "What... sets McGrath apart is his unconventional style and genre. He suggests that the gothic sensibility, which he sees in part as a fascination with ideas of transgression and decay, is alive and well even if the "furniture" of the 19th century gothic writers is no longer employed." (http://www.literarysojourn.org/partauthorsmcgrath.html)
The Grotesque is all about "transgression and decay". It is a first-person narrative, told by the perversely anti-social Sir Hugo Coal, who tells the story while paralysed, in a wheelchair. How he articulates is never made clear (he cannot speak, make signals or write... he is a sensibility trapped within a body that has ceased to work), but this does not matter: it's one of the unexplaineds of magical realism, perhaps. From his static position, he charts the decay of his own rural, Berkshire household as it appears to be taken over by the seemingly-malevolent and lascivious butler, "Fledge".
I say "appears", because one of the central points of interest in the novel, is that it's a textbook example of unreliable narration, alongside work by people like Poe, Lovecraft and Gunter Grass. The reader receives all narrative details through the lens of Coal's embittered and judgmental consciousness; no other perspective gets a look-in. And it fast becomes clear that a great deal of what he fears to be happening in his house, is confabulated by him on the basis of very little evidence. Glorious passages abound, in which Coal's imagination hijacks the narrative in place of hard fact. In one section, for instance, he imagines his butler Fledge attempting to seduce his wife Harriet. He fantasises about a tryst in the walk-in larder, in which Fledge attempts seduction whilst Harriet is working on an inventory of the house's jams (p.77). None of this is based on anything witnessed; it is all in Coal's mind. In another passage later on, he imagines his wife feeling guilty about the affair, and pictures the conversation between her and the priest to whom, (in his imagination), she has turned for counsel and advice (p.105). The line between fantasy and reality is skilfully managed by McGrath, and the reader would be naïve to take anything Coal says on trust. Of course, in the time-honoured tradition of unreliable narrators, he spends a proportion of his time, trying to persuade the reader that he is not only reliable, but objective and scientific -something he palpably isn't.
Though this work is gothic and frequently macabre, I often found myself laughing out-loud whilst reading. The writing is sharp and precise; the wit is hilarious. There is something deeply amusing about reading the forensically-worded judgments of a curmudgeon. It's a first-person, 20th century "Fall of the House of Usher". It's a compelling read, and I'm looking forward to beginning 1990's Spider later this evening. Interestingly, McGrath's second novel begins thus: "I've always found it odd that I can recall incidents from my boyhood with clarity and precision, and yet events that happened yesterday are blurred, and I have no confidence in my ability to remember them at all." The theme of unreliability persists, clearly - I can't wait...
My ex-flatmate moved out over a year ago, taking his section of our library with him, but he left a pile of Patrick McGrath books. I am working my way through them.
McGrath's first novel, and the one I have read this afternoon, is The Grotesque (1989). Reading it has been an extraordinary experience. It is an example of what McGrath has himself termed "New Gothic. The Literary Sojourn website writes: "What... sets McGrath apart is his unconventional style and genre. He suggests that the gothic sensibility, which he sees in part as a fascination with ideas of transgression and decay, is alive and well even if the "furniture" of the 19th century gothic writers is no longer employed." (http://www.literarysojourn.org/partauthorsmcgrath.html)
The Grotesque is all about "transgression and decay". It is a first-person narrative, told by the perversely anti-social Sir Hugo Coal, who tells the story while paralysed, in a wheelchair. How he articulates is never made clear (he cannot speak, make signals or write... he is a sensibility trapped within a body that has ceased to work), but this does not matter: it's one of the unexplaineds of magical realism, perhaps. From his static position, he charts the decay of his own rural, Berkshire household as it appears to be taken over by the seemingly-malevolent and lascivious butler, "Fledge".
I say "appears", because one of the central points of interest in the novel, is that it's a textbook example of unreliable narration, alongside work by people like Poe, Lovecraft and Gunter Grass. The reader receives all narrative details through the lens of Coal's embittered and judgmental consciousness; no other perspective gets a look-in. And it fast becomes clear that a great deal of what he fears to be happening in his house, is confabulated by him on the basis of very little evidence. Glorious passages abound, in which Coal's imagination hijacks the narrative in place of hard fact. In one section, for instance, he imagines his butler Fledge attempting to seduce his wife Harriet. He fantasises about a tryst in the walk-in larder, in which Fledge attempts seduction whilst Harriet is working on an inventory of the house's jams (p.77). None of this is based on anything witnessed; it is all in Coal's mind. In another passage later on, he imagines his wife feeling guilty about the affair, and pictures the conversation between her and the priest to whom, (in his imagination), she has turned for counsel and advice (p.105). The line between fantasy and reality is skilfully managed by McGrath, and the reader would be naïve to take anything Coal says on trust. Of course, in the time-honoured tradition of unreliable narrators, he spends a proportion of his time, trying to persuade the reader that he is not only reliable, but objective and scientific -something he palpably isn't.
Though this work is gothic and frequently macabre, I often found myself laughing out-loud whilst reading. The writing is sharp and precise; the wit is hilarious. There is something deeply amusing about reading the forensically-worded judgments of a curmudgeon. It's a first-person, 20th century "Fall of the House of Usher". It's a compelling read, and I'm looking forward to beginning 1990's Spider later this evening. Interestingly, McGrath's second novel begins thus: "I've always found it odd that I can recall incidents from my boyhood with clarity and precision, and yet events that happened yesterday are blurred, and I have no confidence in my ability to remember them at all." The theme of unreliability persists, clearly - I can't wait...
