Forget book clubs, this is how you unravel a novel
Described as a “warped literature” series, The Exploding Library (Radio 4, Tuesday) is one of those radio shows that, once tried, is impossible to resist. The format is simple: a comedian is invited to explore a cult novel they’re obsessed with and, alongside fellow fans and experts, get to the root of its appeal.
Last time round I hugely enjoyed Mark Watson’s edition on Flann O’brien’s The Third Policeman,
which picked me up and carried me back to a time when, as a student in the 1980s, the more wilfully obscure a book was, the more delightful I would find it.
I can’t say that’s often the case now, but I was just as swept up by comedy writer Natasha Hodgson’s sparkling opening episode of the second series, in which she threw herself enthusiastically down the rabbit hole of Kazuo Ishiguro’s famously difficult 1995 novel, The Unconsoled.
This is a book that divides opinion more than most; a state of affairs Hodgson neatly summed up with Marmite-dripping clips from a 1995 edition of The Late Show, in which one Allison Pearson said “I’ve heard it said life’s too short to read this book; actually, I think death’s too short to read this book”, Tony Parsons quipped “Burning’s too good for it” and Professor John Carey declared it an unalloyed “masterpiece”. All in the space of five minutes.
Hodgson herself didn’t exactly flag up The Unconsoled’s likeability either, characterising it from the outset as “a 500-page anxiety dream” and a book that left an unwanted “residue on the brain”. And yet, as the half-hour progressed, I found myself warming to her depiction of it as a book that ingeniously, if bafflingly at times, fleshes out the intense pressures and demands of the creative life.
In doing so, just as Josie Long did in a superb edition devoted to Jean Rhys’s Good Morning, Midnight last December, Hodgson went a world beyond explaining the content and context of the book. She really made the most of radio’s imaginationpiquing possibilities – checking into an imaginary hotel, reliving the fear of a childhood panto appearance, getting fellow fans and academics to teasingly play along with her – to recreate the paranoid dreamscape inhabited by the book.
As a result, and without yet reading a word of it, I found myself drawn to the idea of this book in a way you just don’t experience reading a book-jacket blurb or a review. It was more like being convinced by an enthusiastic (and very funny) book club member to have a go at something you’d previously ruled out, because of their infectious enthusiasm for it. Admittedly, that hasn’t always worked out well for me in the past, but I’m determined to take on its 500-page pain-pleasure challenge over the Christmas break.
Bafflement is also very much in the air in Hennikay (Radio 4, Tuesday), a comedy in which the ever-likeable Bill Bailey plays games designer Guy, whose dull, predictable life is turned upside down when his childhood imaginary friend, Hennikay, reappears 45 years on.
Written by David Spicer it’s a comedy in the mould of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, with Guy in the role of disillusioned creative worn down by his soulless corporate existence, and his boss Tony (Dave Lamb) a thunder-voiced vacuum whose relentless motivational sloganeering marks him out as a Perrin CJ for the 21st century.
When the pilot episode aired last year as the world was emerging from lockdown, the fact that it never quite fired on all cylinders seemed forgivable. That the stilted delivery style made all the characters sound like they had been recorded separately seemed understandable. But that really doesn’t wash now.
Beyond that, the real problem is Hennikay himself, who however much novelty he had in the pilot episode, doesn’t make an effective sitcom character, not even an imaginary one. In this week’s episode, his sole function seemed to be providing opportunities for misunderstanding, when Guy blurts out something to someone no one else can see. A device that quickly wears thin when there’s no jeopardy or consequence to the blunder.
No doubt Hennikay represents the childlike wonder that most of us lose in adulthood, forced to turn our thoughts to work, mortgages, career progression and parenthood. But so far, there’s no sense of him bringing any joy whatsoever back to Guy – and, more importantly, to us listeners who could really do with some. It’s no fun at all when your imaginary friend turns out to be just another monkey on your back.