| Product: |
The Dumb House - John Burnside |
| Date: |
31/05/03 (61 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: They're in the op
Disadvantages: Very few, but they're in the op too
Getting on for a year ago, theediscerning was doing his dooyoo duty and opping poetry books on the database that hadn't seen the light of any other reviewer's days. He dutifully read a poetry book by John Burnside, and found it to be piffle. It really didn't bode well for the same author's debut novel, The Dumb House, which he has finally got round to reading.
And what a delight to find it is so much better, and can be really highly recommended.
It's the first person narrative of a rather peculiar chap. It begins with an advanced warning of two dead twins. What is the story behind them, and our narrator?
Out of 200 pages we only find his first name out on page 181, so for this op he will remain nameless as well. He's grown up, and still lives, in a secluded house, ten miles from a town, Weston, and thus has been able to experience silence, and a close family bond with his mother.
The two are linked in flashes back to his childhood as he reports of how distant and inadequate his father was, and how warmly he accepted the company of his Mum. This includes the story-telling sessions she gave him at bedtime, stories which first got him hooked on the tales of Akbar the Great, and his Gang Mahal.
Instead of being some takeaway dish, the Gang Mahal was Akbar's great theosophical experiment. Take humans at birth, and bring them up in a house full of luxury and stimulation, but peopled only by mutes and surrounded by the highest walls and distance. Will they begin to speak language? ~ and surely the result would be the Ur-language, that spoken by God and Adam as he named the animals in the Garden of Eden, before the Fall.
This is just a passing shot in the stories~at~bedtime, but the fascination begins to grow in our narrator, until the contemporary events his narrative (confession?) cover. He also has some more disturbing interests left over from childhood.
Said errant father
was in the habit of just leaving around as a present anything the young narrator desired, and one day the unquestioning donor left a dissecting kit. Oh dear. We later hear of an attempt at stealing a cat's soul, but the dissecting of live animals that is covered in the first part is a bit grim.
Still want to hear more of this character? You should, as he continues to be fully interesting. The language he uses is so erudite, and although there is some repetitive language - many, many uses of the word "unconscious" on one spread of a few pages sprang out as notable, he clearly is an intelligent human being. However the words Burnside has put into his mind are worryingly convincing.
The book is in three parts, the first, seemingly too long, concerning much background material, and a very peculiar arrangement/relationship with Mrs Olerud and Jeremy. By this time the "hero" is in his thirties, and his interest in repeating the Dumb House experiment in his own style is of much concern to him. We never learn of any real career concerns, merely his own philosophical musings, and slightly worrying preoccupations... His parents have both died by now, and he still lives in the secluded house at the end of the country lane, with secluded garden, and basement... oh dear...
As such he advertises in the local paper to find mute children, as research material for his own considerations on life. The search brings to his attention The Oleruds, living in a dump of a house in Weston. Mrs Olerud is a faded glory, although she is still in her thirties, and of considerable figure. She seems, to our narrator's first reckoning, to be afraid of Jeremy, who seems a bit simple, and is mute.
Far be it for theediscerning to say what happens between the three ~ there is a lot more of the plot he would like to give away, but any revelations would spoil the read. But it turns into one of the more peculiar relationships the
ediscerning has read about for a long time ~ all the while, however, remaining perfectly believable.
The second part concerns a young lass, Lillian, "rescued" from some tramp-like Weston vagrants' abuses, and secured as live-in maid and lover. The sexual elements of the book in the first half have already made this book at least a certificate 15, though. But they bring up the biggest flaw - although practically the only one - in the psychology of our narrator. We see very little of his school days (unhappy, though, of course!) and practically nothing of his teens and twenties. As a result we don't learn how he ever became adept at sex, or even got his first clues. If we do, theediscerning missed it when he blinked once.
What the first part and the story of Lillian have in relation to the plans for The Dumb House he plans, is up to you to discover. But theediscerning can assure you you will fully enjoy the discovery.
The style of the book is superlative throughout. Clear, concise but mature language is used all along, proving that although this chap probably scores more than 5 on the Jeffrey Dahmer-scale, he is still a mature, considerate, and probably charmingly intelligent man. Of course we can see where his opinions deviate from the norm, but at the same time his narration is very exact ~ he could so easily have been one of those post-modern, unreliable narrators, and the book would have sunk in a mire of irony and pointlessness.
Instead there are a lot of philosophical considerations to consider, as when he sees a released hostage on TV. He had been in a dumb house of his own, of course, while he was being forced to keep mute, hooded, and at the lower end of luxury.
That and many more details, such as the way ~ when you piece the childhood narrative back into chronological order ~ the "problems" worsen, just go to show how authoritative Burnside is here in this narrative. Again, th
is is a bit worrying, but we feel safe to presume he is fully distanced from his "hero" in behaviour, if not erudition.
The more gory scenes are portrayed in a perfectly matter-of-fact matter, but are not dwelt on, so do not churn the stomach that much. Nor is the sex fully discussed, it is just mentioned as events on the day-to-day scale. This is worth mentioning to reassure that there is nothing to revolt the reader, or scare him. True, there is at least one chill moment in part three, but this is nothing like a horror novel.
Instead it is a greatly intelligent, highly readable and almost too compulsive read, which should take four hours one dark night (it's not a sitting in the back garden in the summer read!). As a consumer report, this should at least try to make comparisons, although with such a classy work these are difficult. However the early books of Iain Banks and Ian McEwan spring to mind, with the slightly hard-hitting masculinity of a home-counties James Kelman, meeting a subject a bit similar to Jill Paton Walsh's Knowledge of Angels.
Hope that's clearly settled.
As hinted at earlier, there are very minor gripes with the main character's back story, and whatever allows him to have so much free time, as he clearly has lots of money. But what theediscerning wrote down as a flaw in his notes - that the first portion, while covering a lot of the back story in a very fluid and ever-clear style, seemed too long, was negated by the very good ending.
However, theediscerning has given this four stars ~ why? It is purely because The Dumb House provides so many perfectly clear pictures in your mind, of death and life and all in between, of reality and the narrator's mind, that he, at this moment in time, does not feel he will ever need to read it again.
But that is not to say that you should rush to amazon, or the local library, and seek out The Dumb House. It is a must-r
ead book, even if that only applies the once.
ISBN 0099582716. RRP £6.99, but currently on amazon at £2.50 second-hand. Not, however, theediscerning's edition ~ he's keeping his as a momento of the slightly grisly, disconcerting but excellent pleasure it gave.
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