Tale of bookish romance satisfies
A new novel by C K Stead is always a treat. This is a special one, writes Steve Walker.
Part insight into the arcane world of literary academics, part tale of infidelity, part mystery and part illumination of a Parisian demi-monde, The
Necessary Angel operates on many levels. At its heart is a story with, appropriately, books at its centre.
Set in Paris’ university, the Sorbonne, in 2014, the novel weaves the lives of four academics into one piece. Their studies, their conversations, their lives all centre on the words of others.The novel crackles with the expected wit and erudition of Stead. Authors, titles and quotations abound, but the novel does not wear its learning heavily. Stead riffs with language, playing with words as he searches for le mot juste. The result is amusing and intoxicating – and complimentary. Stead expects his readers to understand the allusions, to get the puns, to decode the names.
Max Jackson is a professor of Literature at the Sorbonne. A Kiwi, his name is not too distant from that of a recent Auckland professor of English. He is the semi-estranged, or ‘‘decommissioned’’, husband of Louise, a patrician Parisian who also teaches at the Sorbonne. She is working on an edition of L’Education
Sentimentale by Flaubert, that other stylist with an obsession for verbal accuracy. He is working on a conference on World War I poetry.
One of Max’s collaborators is Sylvie Renard, a cunning, ‘‘beautiful, clever, intuitive’’ woman. He has his eyes set on her but she is unfortunately partnered by a German director, Bertholdt Volker. Volker is, ironically, not a people’s man. That does not deter Max.
The fourth participant in this love rectangle is the Anglo-Saxon Helen White. She is entranced by a poem Max wrote in his ‘‘disconsolate days’’ when he first arrived in Paris. She is his ‘‘necessary angel’’, in a phrase from Wallace Stevens.
It is Helen who takes Max to the home of the cult sage, Gurdjeff, at Fontainebleau. Katherine Mansfield is buried there. That visit is the pivot to the novel, cementing Max and Helen’s relationship, with disastrous consequences.
This small world, for all its complex emotional entanglements, is set against the political turmoil sweeping the world in 2014. It is a world of Isis beheadings, Brexit arguments, a France under the adulterous Hollande with an ambitious Sarkozy waiting in the wings for a triumphant return.
It was also the year of the bloody attack on Charlie Hebdo. In some ways surprisingly, given the multi-levels of the novel, it really works. As a mystery, introduced partway through, it has us guessing. As a tale of infidelity, it echoes with the real world outside. As an insider’s view of the academy, it clearly resonates. As a story of Parisian lives, it is detailed and credible. On all levels, it will send you on a rewarding reference hunt. Satisfying from all perspectives.