Rating: 4/5
Review:
Brilliant writing
Hmmm. This is a
tricky one to review because I enjoyed
reading The Nothing, but I'm not really sure what it added up to in the end.
Hanif Kureishi's short novel is narrated by Waldo, an
elderly, dying, once-feted filmmaker who has had, shall we say, a colourful
past. He is now bed- and wheelchair
bound and begins to suspect that his younger wife is conducting an affair with
an old acquaintance who takes sanctuary in their flat. How things play out is a large part of the
pleasure of this book so to say more would be too much of a spoiler, but there
are some darkly humorous and sometimes shocking developments as suspicion and
plotting on all sides develop.
Kureishi writes brilliantly and the book is a pleasure to
read. Waldo's voice is completely
convincing as a self-absorbed, lubricious, often vengeful man who was plainly
both an extremely talented artist and often a deeply unpleasant person to work
with (…"one of my scribblers. A bastard I thrashed into talent,"
gives you an idea) and who is now facing his own death with something like
equanimity. The prose is very readable,
and scattered with neat observations, like "Drugs had given me a faux
bravery but they stopped me taking risks.
Every outrage has to be earned; you cannot cheat reality," and also dry humour like "After all, a
saint is only someone who has been under-researched." There is a great deal of very frank talk
about sex, both in the language used and what is said with it, which I found
completely in character but some readers may like to be warned. It's also a tale of a lot of pretty
unpleasant people doing pretty unpleasant things much of the time, but it still
made enjoyable and absorbing reading.
I'm not sure whether The Nothing really says a great deal
that is new or profound, but it's a brilliant character study, I found it a
very good read and I can recommend it with a little caution.
(I received an ARC via Netgalley.)
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