Meeting 12/01/2023
For the first BBBC meeting of 2023 the book chosen was Something to Answer For by PH Newby, an author new to all of the book club members. The main reason for choosing this book was curiosity as it was the winner of the inaugural Booker Prize in 1969. The events of the book take place in Port Said around the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956. The author served in the Middle East with the British Army during the Second World War, but was released in 1942 and taught English Literature at King Fouad University in Cairo until 1946.From 1946 to 1978 he was employed by the BBC, going on to become Managing Director of BBC Radio.
A nice summary of the plot of this book was kindly provided by CB, whose selection this was:
The main character, Jack Townrow who tells the story is a likable rogue, looking for love and an angle to gain by and yet still wanting to do what is right by his friends (and enemies). He lives on the edge, often injured, tired, ill and in something of a dreamworld and yet ready to act decisively when needed. The other key characters include the attorney’s married daughter, Leah, the apparent “client” Mrs Khoury whose husband’s death leads to Townrow’s arrival in Port Said, Christos the fun bartender and gun runner and the fatalistic policemen, Amin. Everything happens though Townrow’s interaction with them.
Townrow gets a call from Mrs Khoury to come and help her discover who has killed her husband whom Townrow knew when he was a soldier in Egypt. Before he even gets to her house, he is beaten up, by persons unknown. This sets the tone for the book where Townrow is always in something of a state and yet carries on pursuing his own interests and gradually getting clearer about what might have happened to Mr Khoury. It is bound up with running guns to Cyprus to support the Greek Cypriots, but in the end Townrow seems to believe that Mr Khoury died of natural causes maybe brought on by stress. In between we have a romantic rough and tumble of a relationship with the married Leah, whose husband is in a mental hospital in the US, an interlude where Townrow escapes out onto the solitude of the lake, Townrow’s arrest and interrogation by Amin and the final chapters where the British are, much to Townrow’s disbelief and disgust invading Port Said.
Introducing the book Mark W added a brief bit of background on the Suez crisis, which he, and some of the book club, had heard about but knew very little of the detail.
The meeting itself was attended in person by seven of the nine members, although one (CB), came towards the end. In summary, the book was liked by two and disliked by seven, of which three didn’t finish it. Most found it to be a difficult and challenging book, even those who enjoyed it.
CB found it a rumbustious book, full of unexpected twists and turns with a mix of fantasy and fact, sliding morals and all based in a real time leading up to and including the Suez landings. It was fun and engaging to read. The plot seemed secondary to the development of the characters, except to stress them to the limit to see what they do, think and react. An incredibly rich mix of action novel, stream of consciousness and mix of realities (what is real e.g. when he loses Leah at the sailing club). Some nice reflections on life and relationships. Newby knows Egypt and paints a rich background of sounds, smells, sights and human behaviours as well as well -described interiors (the key characters’ homes, a prison cell, the changing rooms in the club). Some ideas: Things aren’t always what they seem, life is confusing and unexpected, morality ebbs and flows in individuals and in societies. Is Townrow just on the make or is he trying to help? Love is consuming and again ebbs and flows with people being kind and soft and then cold and aggressive The British invasion was wrong in principle and in practice.
MW found it an interesting, challenging, disconcerting novel, with an existential feel to it, not one that allowed him to ever feel comfortable and left him constantly questioning what he was reading. An almost Kafkaesque journey, in which one is never entirely sure what is reality and what is fantasy. The ‘disappearance’ of Leah at the Sailing Club was one of the more obvious examples.
Interesting characters, all seen though Townrow’s perspective, including the very weird Faint, with his ‘oddly prominent eyes’ apparently mistaking Townrow for someone called Ferris from which it was never really clear whether he really had been in Cornwall or in a bar in Le Havre. There was an allegorical element of Townrow trying to establish his role and place in an unfriendly world, much like Great Britain trying to find its place in the world post war and post empire. The ignominious withdrawal of troops from Egypt after the invasion effectively ended Great Britain’s role asone of the world’s great powers. In fact Townrow was very defensive any criticism of Great Britain’s behaviour, notably when challenged on the way to Egypt at the beginning of the book by a Greek and an Israeli about the government’s behaviour regarding the failure to warn the Jews about the death trains in World War 2.
There were a number of touches of dry humour (often politically incorrect) e.g. describing Faint:
'He might have been Armenian, because all Armenians had bulging eyes. Yet again, it might be a sign that the man was good at languages’.
JH found the book hard work – he struggled with it. At best you could call it surreal fantasy with the main character, Townrow, an unreliable narrator; or maybe it was just an allegorical stream of consciousness built around the fag-end of empire? Aat worst it was just a muddle of a book marked by a rather dense, convoluted style (which the publishers, Faber, called “beautifully intricate”…. tad OTT me thinks). It was built on a rather odd and unappealing cast of characters lead by Townrow (a conman/dodgy dealer who had been in the business of defrauding the Lydney disaster fund he ran) – cynical and unattractive. His dark side was well captured in the description of his rather sordid attempt to get into Leah’s bed and her attempts to get him off her (was it rape or what he described as “trying to make love to a dough-mixing machine”). This rather grotesque assault only ended with his discovery of bed bugs – two huge ones and a crowd of little ones. The character who seemed to shine out was the bar owner, gun runner Christou – helped by a wonderful vignette of him dressed as a woman sailing to Elie’s island. He also liked the description of the expat pilots sitting in the yacht club drinking themselves silly in the expectation of the failure of the Egyptians to run the canal convoys successfully – it had a real ring of truth to it. For John the most interesting aspect of this novel was, yet again, the way it shed a light on the fraught topic of what makes a great book. How come this odd muddle of a book won the first Booker Prize? Why did the judges pick this book? What did they get out of it? How come it stood out from all the others published in 1968? In fact, 1968 wasn’t that bad a year for new books – everything from le Carre’s Little Town in Germany, Barry Hines’ Kes, Quentin Crisp’s Naked Civil Servant to Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward or even Arthur Hailey’s Airport…… How come this book, which seems to have sunk without trace, won this prestigious prize?????
SC found it an odd and puzzling book that was deceptively easy to start but harder and harder to finish. From the point at which Townrow is hit over the head it becomes increasingly dream-like, so that it’s hard to tell what’s really happening, and to follow the multiple time frames and narrative layers that Newby indulges in. Gradually as the book progresses, some of the strands start to come back together as Townrow perhaps starts to re-invent himself, but by that time Steve had lost any real interest he had at the start in Townrow’s future wellbeing. For Steve what was most interesting about this book was its historical perspective, both in respect of the Suez crisis, given that it happened in his lifetime (just!) – and also culturally in respect of the era in which it was published. In 1968, the arts were in the grip of the 60‘s post-war ‘release’: psychedelia, revolution, a general anti-establishment freedom to say what you like in the way you wanted – perhaps even the MD of BBC Radio wasn’t immune?!
Townrow’s interactions with Leah initially bring to mind the seedier side of early Bond films; later his unpleasant behaviour verges on the downright abusive – though perhaps more commonplace in the ‘50s. Mrs K’s racist outbursts perhaps underline how fresh British colonial experience was for everyone in the ‘50s. Both she and Townrow express their bigotry with shocking casualness: “Unusually prominent eyes like this indicated some disease. Either that or the man was an Armenian (because all Armenians had bulging eyes).” On the plus side it’s beautifully written in places with some vivid descriptions of people, places and situations that stay firmly in the memory, e.g. “Townrow remembered driving through a tiny Cornish port handling china clay. The trucks and the railway stock, the sheds, the cranes, the derricks, were covered with the stuff. The ground was white and the dockers went about like millers. Out in the Channel the water might be turquoise. It was easy to think of some battered coaster, looking as though it had been dipped in flour and breadcrumbs, swimming into that turquoise water and making for the French coast with this gooseberry-eye soak in the galley."
Steve appreciated the book’s oddness and the insights into a time he didn’t know much about, but it was almost impenetrable at times and didn’t carry him with it – he had to work hard at it, and not in a way that he particularly enjoyed. How did it win the Booker? He imagined it stood out as being ‘of its time’. It even felt somewhat Joycean in the way it presented a very personal perspective on events – almost a stream of consciousness. And it was written by the Managing Director of BBC Radio, no less. That wouldn’t have swayed the judges at all… would it?
RV found it to be a book that he did not enjoy very much; He did not like the main character; it was obviously deliberately confusing, but he did not enjoy that either, and did not really understand why Newby decided to do this (other than to demonstrate Townrow’s confusion – “Townrow felt exhausted by the efforts of hanging on to the real world” - As do we!). The politics of the period were interesting, but he knew a lot about this period already and he learnt nothing new from the book. One thing that he didn’t know about was the Lydney scouting disaster where 25 scouts died – but when he looked it up, nothing came up about it! One thing he did learn about was Townrow’s prejudices (although he thought he did not have any), which came through strongly, alongside many of the prejudices of others, especially Mrs K “Even so , I’d never’ve married him if he’d been a Jew or an Arab no matter how much money he’d got, but Lebanese is different, they’re almost European in a way.” And there was the very occasional good turn of phrase, such as: “A big woman in a dressing gown with sagging cheeks and boot-polish black hair came out of a door as they passed and Faint said, “We’ll be back in five minutes.” Overall, this was a book which was confusing and he was not interested in any of the characters; and frankly was quite bored by this book. It was not exactly badly written but it simply bored him and he was greatly relieved to finish it!
CW found it an Interesting book with a whole load of potential messages but so confusing that it was difficult to work out what the author was trying to say. He didn’t find it an enjoyable read because the story seemed to be extremely muddled in time and place with no new chapters defining the switches of scene. It seemed as though this confusion in time and place may have been the author’s way of portraying Townrow’s own confusion after having been attacked and left with concussion.
He was very interested in this period of British and world history and so from that point of view he enjoyed the book because it made him research more about what actually happened at the time particularly the attack,(arranged clandestinely with the UK and US), by the Israelis across the Sinai peninsula to create a diversion once Nasser had announced that he was nationalising the Suez Canal. Interesting that it was at this point in history that World power was ceded from the Europeans to the Americans who admonished the British and French for their invasion and told them to withdraw.
Townrow was a pretty unlikable character although he said he was not racially biased; he seemed to bring up the issue frequently. He refers to“Jewesses” who he says he actually quite likes but he seems to have quite a few racial dislikes underlying his character. I did not like this whole racial element to his character and the book which may have been appropriate for the time but reads very uncomfortably now.
He did not like being told that the British potentially did not react to information about the Holocaust and trains out of Hungary to the death camps. He believed the British to be above this sort of thing and behave correctly and properly unlike other nationalities -and yet here they are bombing the Egyptians indiscriminately.
Townrow’s misogynistic character is also pretty evident which reads uncomfortably in the book. He treats the woman he apparently loves very roughly almost raping her on one occasion and his attitudes are very much dated when read from the present day and so don’t make this a comfortable read.
Chris W’s uncle was in the army in Egypt in the Second World War, got blown up, recuperated and sent back and when talking to him in his older years you can see that this was the way British were at that time in history and that the problem reading this book now is that it is very much outdated and the attitudes expressed in the book jar with our current feelings and attitudes.
From that point of view it’s therefore good to have read this book because it just makes you realise how far we have come in the last 80 years.(and how far we still have to go).
But ultimately if asked if he would recommend this book to others it would be a no because the writing style and lack of depth of characters of all except Townrow meant that it was not a particularly enjoyable book and was often confusing and irritating to read too.
AA has been to Suez and Port Said and driven along the canal, and was interested to read this, but despite an intriguing start he found the writing a bit jerky and awkward and confusing so was neither enjoying reading it or looking forward to it after 15%. There were some nice sentences such as: To grasp his hand was like holding a bundle of pencils and some humour: He knew how to stalk and shoot a man. There must be some way of using skills like that and it’s reputedly a great novel by a great novelist so he pushed on, bored senseless, waiting to be drawn in, but by 23% was still finding it as tedious as stripping wallpaper so he called it a day as if it’s meant to take the reader on a confusing dreamy trip in the mind of a concussed crook, then he needed to be hooked into that journey in some way - a theme, a style, a setting, even a single character to care about none of these appeared to him except the atmosphere in Christou’s bar but he will end with a quote he enjoyed: There seemed altogether too much excitement, too many lights, too many big unshaven men in double-breasted suits rushing about and shouting. Unfortunately, the excitement didn’t reach him and he found it stultifyingly dull.
WM didn’t finish the book, and said that he could only blame the sixties for the story structure and the Booker jury decision. Apart from that, the author came up with some striking descriptive passages.
MT didn’t get very far with the book. In his opinion it was an atrocious book and reading it made him cross. He didn’t like the main character and gave up about 1/3 of the way through.
Scores: CB 7.0, MW 7.0, SC 4.5, JH 5.0, RV 4.0, CW 4.5, WM 2.0, MT 3.0, AA 4.0.
