Never Never – David Gaffney

Late Jan 2009 (double header with Engleby)

Unusually it received a range of opinions, and I think was unique as a book if only in its ability to move Mark Th to passionate dislike; I would go as far as to say it annoyed him. A rare thing. Equally rare was Richard's disliking and his score. Despite these firsts, the general opinion was that there was little merit in his writing abilities: unbelievable characters, unlinked plot lines, sneering in the place of humour.

On the positive side, he definitely captured West Cumbria, for those of you who have been. And he provoked a lively debate amongst us about debt, its management, and its power to alter and destroy relationships. The general feeling, however, was that instead of a sympathetic dealing of people with genuine interesting dilemmas, he created absurd one's and invited us to 'enjoy'.

From RG: 'Never Never' didn't really do a lot for me. Despite being fairly easy reading in some ways, I found it difficult to get into in a chunky way and neither the characters nor the story line really grabbed me. What struck me after a while was that the style was strangely reminiscent of Tom Sharpe novels i.e. taking a largely realistic scenario and then applying unbelievable and extreme occurrences to it, with an amount of attached slapstick. However, he didn't take this as far as Sharpe and thus failed to genuinely get into the surreal humour, whilst by stepping beyond the realistic he blew it on both counts. I ended up not knowing whether he was trying to present a realistic account of what happens or not. I was surprised to read at the end he was once a debt counsellor in Moss Side as I had assumed that the debt counselling materials were an extreme parody (maybe they were not) - though I could see some parallels between the people and settings from the advice centre with those whom I met and worked with in my days of developing and funding the voluntary/charitable sector. Talking of which, he finally blew any credentials to be writing an informed story when he did the grant application bit - completely divorced from what really happens. Similarly the Bennett character was totally unbelievable - people like that just don't exist and operate in the field he was supposed to be in.

3.73

Engleby – Sebastian Faulks

Was an 'extra' book and was very well received by all. Faulks has amazing versatility and may have found his comfort zone with abnormal psychology (we read Human Traces a while ago). His portrayal of Engleby's detachment and general lack of social judgement and empathy, coupled with partial insight and intelligence was for me alarmingly accurate. In general the whodunit plot was well received with most people thinking he did it, and some arguing it was one more fantasy, perhaps his biggest fantasy. Perhaps, someone suggested, the whole story was his fantasy.

His description, and the humour, from 80's London was enjoyable and accurate, and sparked a discussion about how difficult it is to capture events in recent memory and the relative merit of introducing real characters in fiction (eg., Archer, Mandelson).

The highlights for Rob, who hadn't finished it at the time of the meeting, were his brilliant description of Engleby's (first?) breakdown and the references to both the music and the culture of that period when I was a late teenager/student. Very evocative. The tirade about ELP was wonderful.

7.61