This book with 680 pages is not as daunting as it appears. It is actually a compendium of four novels which can be read separately. It contains, "Never Mind," "Bad News, "Some Hope," and "Mother's Milk." The last title was short listed for the Booker Prize. I read it some years ago, and was delighted that the novels were now collected in one book. They should be read sequentially. Now that I have read the others, I more fully comprehended the Patrick Melrose of "Mother's Milk." There is now a fifth and final novel to complete the cycle called, "At Last."
St. Aubyn is an incredibly good writer, and you will not come away disappointed. The books are based on his own life and sad childhood. The early books, chronicling the abuse by his psychotically monstrous father and Patrick's heavy drug use and addiction to heroin, are not pleasant reading. In the final two novels, one gets the sense of Patrick's coming to terms (if that is possible) with his hideous past and moving on to a better place. This seems only possible with the death of his parents. The British upper class are presented as a pretty pathetic lot with more money than brains, but with weapons of words at their disposal that can wound, demolish and put away handily any poor soul who happens to step into their world uninvited. There is a funny (peculiar, not ha-ha) scene of a party in "Some Hope" attended by Princess Margaret. St. Aubyn puts her under the microscope for our enjoyment and horror. I highly recommend these books, but not for the squeamish.
No comments:
Post a Comment