Another book with a wide range of views and scores for the Club. Some really enjoyed it as a novel and looked forward to picking it up to read, others emitted an audible groan! For some, reading it was like wading through treacle, others through flour, light and easy.
For some, the structure of Yonas’ story interspersed with the perspectives of other characters in the story worked well, with Yonas told in the third person, Jude, the barrister in the second and the others in the first (as if in an interview). At first, Chris B (blonde beer please, in a straight glass) wondered if it was more a documentary than a novel but Richard (the ordinary in a jug please) liked the book because it was a novel with a plot and good characters (in contrast to the more factually based books read recently). Willm (a large glass of red please) saw the value of separating out the main character, the barrister and the other characters but wondered if it was necessary and found the use of “you” in Jude’s sections aggravating.
Richard liked the range of voices and felt that Ellen had ‘got’ most of them very clearly, and that many were very different to each other. Some were less convinced, for example with Joe the Binman: Andrew was not convinced by his voice, Willm by the singing of “Like a Rolling Stone”. And Steve thought it odd that there was no attempt to tell us how Yonas spoke, no accent, no use of English as a second language.
The book certainly tells the story of both the individual character, Yonas and many other illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. The fear, the likelihood of being driven into the hands of gang masters, the impossible choices of evading arrest or voluntarily submitting to a hostile system that will wilfully disbelieve your story, the choice of starving or stealing food, the miserable experience in a detention centre, the inability to work whilst waiting (often years) for a decision. The immigration official was all too believable in his prejudice and resentment and raises the issue not only of recruitment practices and training but also low pay and the risk that they will feel they are worse off than the successful asylum seeker. Some of us had just watched Sitting in Limbo, the BBC Windrush play which showed similar experiences with immigration officers and detention centres.
Richard felt that there was a fundamental ‘truth’ to this story – that Ellen got how it was, for people coming here as refugees, and the awfulness of having to prove all of the time that their lives had been so shitty and terrifying.
Richard found it quite gripping from the start. Ellen got the conflict between work and home very well:
“You were all set to leave chambers at 6 p.m., for once, when your clerk phoned. You so nearly didn’t pick up, but the receiver tugged at your hand like a magnet.”
And also, the problem with being a barrister rather than a solicitor:
“At least solicitors get to spend time with their clients, taking statements. Barristers barely get to meet them, usually.”
Andrew (yes, another pint of ordinary would be lovely) liked the themes of survival and sacrifice and bravery, destitution and hope, kindness and unkindness, groups and groupings, power and powerlessness, ordinary people doing extraordinary things - and human rights and human wrongs.
Willm saw that the author wanted to give a broad, or rounded, account of a refugee's, or more generally, refugees' experience, He found the chapters telling Yonas' personal story quite effective: the forced labour in the seafood factory, the wandering through London with no money or food, the work and living with the gang in Canning Town. The use of real newspaper headings at the beginning of each chapter illustrates the constant barrage of bad press refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants have to contend with.
The book tells the story very much from the viewpoint of Yonas and his friend, Gebre. The reasons for their escape from Eritrea are clear and persuasive, the horrors of the journey show what risks they are prepared to take and how tough it is to get to the UK. It is explicitly critical of the hostile environment created by Theresa May at the Home Office (“driven by UKIP”, observed John) and reflects the hostility in the clippings that Yonas collects from the right-wing press and which crown each chapter.
As such it does not try to offer how we should run our immigration policy, though the implication is that we should be more open and sympathetic to asylum seekers and refugees. Nor does it talk about wider attempts to support the countries from whom asylum seekers come. But then it is a novel not a policy report. It does highlight that those who represent asylum seekers and refugees are doing so out of huge commitment. They certainly do not earn the rewards of lawyers in other parts of the law.
The defence of a repressive regime chimed for Richard with our last book (about Israel and Palestine) This is the exact same narrative: “‘Hey hey, listen,’ I said, putting my hand onto his shoulder. ‘Melahaye, it sounds like you have had a hard time. I get that. I am sorry about your family. My father died in the struggle as well. And your girlfriend as well – that is really bad luck. But you have to remember the bigger picture. We would not even have our country if it was not for our President. He has been protecting it, despite all the strongest countries in the world being set against us.” This is the common narrative, that we should accept repression and crappy Government because as a country we are at risk and ‘they’ are protecting us.
Several of us were less engaged by the book. Chris W (a ginger beer, please, I’m driving) found it stereotypical, lacking in depth or credibility. For example, Yonas and Nina fall in love too easily. But he still found it good at showing the system and overall was a good yarn. John (a couple of pints of your special brew if you are ordering) felt it needed more editing, finding it too dense. The sentiments were right but he felt it didn’t work as a novel, perhaps due to the inexperience of the writer. But again, he found it a good insight into the system. Steve (another top up? Yes please) recognised the story as treating an important issue but “it didn’t carry me through”. He didn’t like the writing (not pithy, too many words and dialogue) or the characters (caricatured, ciphers Yonas has to overcome rather than characters in a novel). Andrew thought perhaps the contrasts between good and bad were too stark, too simplistic and some of the characters too black and white – Molly and Nina seemed too good and saintly, and Gavin too much of a stereotype. And the plot seemed contrived at times, with too many coincidences and Molly and Nina seeming to be too trusting and uncritical.
Similarly, Willm felt there were just too many stereotypical side-characters and coffee shop meetings with different 'types' having different coffees whereas Andrew enjoyed the series of monologues and the way the story was layered with each new voice adding background, but also their own perspective and advancing the story.
Willm found some sections badly written with amateurish chapter links and endings. Mark W (just a small one, I am off early in the morning) liked the prologue the best! He felt there was nothing new in the book, the characters were caricatured and the writing irritating and obvious, naïve. Like Mark T (a large dry white, please), he found the coffee intros worked at first, but became annoying. He found the book amateurish in style and content.
Mark T did like the book: the characters, Yonas’ friendships, his love with his first girlfriend, terrible treatment meted out by the system (well researched). He liked the humour (like the exploding microwave chicken) and the description of post-natal depression was well done. It was interesting to hear the different views of Eritreans about their government. Some bits were less convincing: Gebre’s escape from the detention centre was unbelievable. Yonas seeing the suicide in paper so soon afterwards was unlikely. Nina’s arrival in Newcastle was too quick (or she was a super speedy driver). But it moved him, made him sad.
Chris B liked the development of the characters, especially Yonas. Ellen had perhaps made it easier for herself by making him a university educated, decent person, who we were more likely to sympathise with. But it made for a good story as Yonas can talk eloquently about his experience, his reflections on it and his relationships with family back home and the people he meets in the UK. Chris B found him a full character, convincing in his frailties and warmth and concern for others in the midst of his struggles. Richard and Andrew empathised with him. Even those who did not like the book liked the Yonas chapters.
There were good dramatic tensions in for example, Yonas’ attempts to escape the gang master, develop his relationship with Nina, escape with Gebre and run away to Newcastle. The relationship with Nina as both come to appreciate each other is well developed with the added tension of the Tory candidate, ex-husband. Andrew liked the Increasing drama and tension in the second half of the book – “a real page turner”.
Particularly vivid scenes for Andrew were
- the awful voucher experience in the supermarket which you could see coming but was still awful
- and the Yonas’ overcrowded accommodation, which some landlord was charging the government rent for
- and the pregnant client of Veata with morning sickness vomiting out of her shared bedroom window,
- And Gavin the disgruntled immigration worker who saw claimants as cases and not people
- And the kindness of Molly and Tesfay, and others in contrast
Chris B thought some of the minor characters were a little caricatured. But lots of nice touches: friendship and humour with his gay friend, Emil, the gradual unveiling of the tragic family history and its struggles in Eritrea, the development of the characters and lives of Nina, Jude and the one-time interviewees.
Richard liked lots of lovely touches in the writing:
· She captured very well the difficulties that doing anything raises under these circumstances – simply using a public library for example: “But the screen instructed him to enter his library pass number.”.
· There were some heartfelt thoughts about the sort of UK that (we at least) want to be living in: “The library came to seem to him like a beacon, like a symbol of all the different ways people could feel, live and think about the world, how everybody could be welcomed for free into a space, whoever they were, whatever they were interested in, however educated they were – just how the UK was supposed to be.”
· And the extended ‘cows’ joke was really very funny! – 3 pages, ranging from UK to Eritrea to Somalia to China to Italy to India to Russia
There was also a lovely section where Nina talked about art and described the very essence of art therapy – “And more practically, in terms of my anxiety, that series turned out to be a brilliant way of reconciling myself with randomness and uncertainty. You know? It was comforting to contain these little objects, to contextualize them, and give them a home in a piece of art.”
Andrew liked the terrific start with the migrants on the small boat crossing the channel, and then the pressured barrister-mum. And a moving end with the letter from Melat, Yonas’ flight to Newcastle and Bamburgh, the hearing - and the rooster.
Those who really enjoyed the book agreed that this had the signs of a first novel. Some things were not believable enough. Richard again: maybe too many good things happened to Yonas! Being so welcomed by Molly and then Nina changing her views so strongly and falling for him. The writing wasn’t as beautiful as some of the authors we’ve read recently, said Andrew but improved throughout the book, for example:
"It was not like prison back in Eritrea. I mean, you did not get tortured, and the food was okay, and you could drink as much water as you wanted – but it was still a prison. And so grey. Living there was like slowly drowning in greyness. Grey walls, grey sky outside, grey faces.
"Proper sunlight, I mean, the kind that puts out heat as well as light, that warms your bones, that transforms the sky into a blanket of blue and palm trees into emerald butterflies, and makes skin glow like honey, makes women’s clothes dance like flocks of parrots and bee-eaters in the urban jungle."
And some humour, here from Emil:
"so today we go to bank where all guys working there sniff coke in toilets, then later we go to gym where guys pump truckloads of iron and grunt like pigs, then tomorrow we have solicitor’s company where they work all hours in clock, and PR company with brainstorming area like pre-school art room for kids who need to roll on beanbags and draw with crayons."
Like the best books, the group had very different experiences of reading The Invisible Crowd but all appreciated the value of highlighting the plight of so many immigrants coming to settle in the UK.
