‘Masterclass’ must be another novel
At the heart of the plot of New Zealandborn Kirsty Gunn’s ninth novel is Emily Stuart, who is asked by her friend, Evan Gordonston, to write about his love affair with Caroline Beresford. The pair meet when Gordonston returns to London from overseas and Stuart recommends he lodge with her friend.
Online reviews describe it as a “gorgeously intoxicating new novel” and Gunn’s writing as a “masterclass in the art of fiction”. I double-checked to see whether I’d picked up the wrong book by mistake because what I read was a self-involved rambling mess that wanders about in a dense thicket of sub-clauses and sentence fragments that I tried — I really, really tried — to get my head around and connect with.
Try as I might, I couldn’t engage with either Caroline or her bikini.
I started chapter one openminded enough and willing to accept the hiccupping phrases and inane observations in the hope that the action would start any minute. Any. Minute Now. It never did.
By chapter two, I had checked whether this was a first novel. No, it’s a ninth. I was still waiting for something to happen; for a plot to follow, for characters to engage with. For writing I could read.
By chapter three, I was gritting my teeth, sternly telling myself to be professional and do my job. But still nothing happened; my mind wandered off again. I let it go. Then I snarled at it, dragged it back and forced it to continue.
By chapter four, my irritation levels were so high I feared I might hurt myself or others. I skipped ahead a few chapters to see whether I could find a few paragraphs to give me the faith and the hope to carry on. I couldn’t.
Reading a novel shouldn’t be this difficult. Maybe I’m missing something here. Gunn’s previous novels (The Big Music, Rain) have been well received by critics but when I pick up a book, I’m looking to be carried out of my own life in the comforting arms of good, engaging writing and convincing plotting into the life and world of someone else.
But in Caroline’s Bikini all I found were a bewildering array of broken sentences and pages littered with ellipses, hyphens and confusion. I tried, dear reader, I really did. But I couldn’t make it past chapter five.
There are about 50 pages of “some further material” at the end of the book that makes me think maybe there’s a literary point here.
But if an author writes in the woods and no one is there to read her words, has she written a novel at all?