Clearly demonstrating that it is never too late to embark on the career for which you were intended, Patrick McGrath's first novel, "The Grotesque," was released in May 1989, when its author was pushing 40 years old. Although the Englishman had come out with a volume of shorter pieces earlier that year ("Blood and Water and Other Tales"), "The Grotesque" was his first foray into the world of the longer form, and was, happily, a stunning success. As of 2013, and having just released his eighth novel, "Constance," McGrath is deemed one of our leading purveyors of what has come to be called "the new Gothic," and a look at his first novel will indicate that his considerable writing ability was already fully formed, right near the beginning. In the book, we meet a cranky, curmudgeonly, highly unlikable British squire--and professional paleontologist--named Sir Hugo Coal. Coal tells us his story several months after having suffered a paralyzing stroke. Now confined to a wheelchair, unable to move or speak, he thinks back on the events of the previous eight months or so at his Berkshire estate, Crook Manor. (The fact that Sir Hugo could not possibly have managed to write or dictate this memoir in his current state may be seen as an inherent flaw in McGrath's novel...or as just one more bit of head-scratching strangeness, in a book filled with so much.) Things had started to fall apart at Crook when his wife, Lady Harriet, had hired a new butler and maid, Mr. and Mrs. Fledge. As Sir Hugo tells us, Fledge had silently mocked his master, seduced his wife, and had even been spotted by Coal himself in the middle of a tryst with Sir Hugo's future son-in-law, Sidney Giblet. When Giblet (the book is replete with outlandish character names) went missing, Coal immediately suspected Fledge of foul play, and when Sidney's buried remains later turned up in the middle of nearby Ceck Marsh, our narrator became even more convinced of his butler's nefarious schemes. But how to prove his suspicions? Readers who thought that the members of TV's Addams family constituted a bizarre household will love reading Sir Hugo's account of his own domestic situation. He himself is a gloomy old coot who spends his days assembling dinosaur bones in the barn; Harriet is a prim and proper biddy who is nevertheless only too willing to give in to her butler's licentious advances; Cleo, the Coals' 18-year-old daughter, is a depressive, suicidal mess, especially after Sidney's remains are found; Mrs. Fledge is a, uh, full-fledged alcoholic; and Fledge himself...well, the man is a cipher of sorts, a blank slate on whom Coal manages to foist all his dark suspicions. As unreliable a narrator as has ever told an untrustworthy story, Sir Hugo himself reveals that his memory is faulty, that his paralyzed isolation has perforce limited his worldview, that he hallucinates frequently, and that he knows that he is telling his story in a faulty order. So ultimately, we don't quite know what to believe, and the solution of Sidney Giblet's murder remains somewhat nebulous. However, as author Peter H. Cannon writes, when discussing why he chose this novel for inclusion in the excellent overview volume "Horror: Another 100 Best Books," the resolution of the book's central crime "is ultimately of less interest than [McGrath's] memorable portrait of his unreliable narrator as well as of [the book's] minor characters...." In this book, atmosphere and characterization are paramount to everything except a love of language, and my goodness, what a remarkably great writer Patrick McGrath turns out to be! Offhand, I cannot recall a writer whose use of language has so impressed me since I read Mark Helprin's "Winter's Tale" several decades ago. To read this book (and yes, it HAS been my introduction to McGrath's work) is to want to devour many more by this terrific author. It is simply astonishing that "The Grotesque" was McGrath's first novel, and makes one wonder what the author had been doing with his life prior to 1989 (working in a north Ontario institution--which doubtlessly gave McGrath a great background for his psychological tales--and as a teacher in the Queen Charlotte Islands off British Columbia, as it turns out). McGrath always seems to know just the right word to use--his vocabulary is immense--and just the right macabre detail to throw in. In short, this is a masterly first novel; a most impressive debut. I was only able to detect one other minor flaw in the entire book: Coal tells us that he had first met his gardener, George Lecky, more than 25 years earlier (the tale takes place in 1949); so that would be 1924 or earlier, right? But a little later, Coal sets the date of their first meeting as 1926. But I am certainly willing to concede that this might be just another bit of unreliable detail on the part of our stroke-addled narrator. "The Grotesque" was turned into a film in 1995 and features what I would imagine to be a perfectly well-cast Alan Bates as Sir Hugo and Sting as the mysterious Fledge. Theresa Russell, an actress whom I greatly admire, would seem to be an unlikely choice for Lady Harriet, a plump redhead in McGrath's book, and I am now greatly interested in catching this film, to see if Theresa did indeed manage to pull this characterization off. The film does not enjoy a good reputation (unlike the filmization of McGrath's second novel, 1990's "Spider," as brought to life by David Cronenberg in 2002), and it would be difficult indeed to live up to McGrath's original conception, with its booklength interior monologue and gorgeous use of language...despite the fact that McGrath DID write the screenplay himself. Creepy, spooky, at times hilarious and beautiful, macabre and original, memorable and altogether winning, "The Grotesque" novel is certainly a tough act to follow....
Era da tempo che volevo leggere McGrath, ma mai come nell'ultimo periodo: una sorta di febbrilità non del tutto motivata e al limite del normale - del tutto plausibile però fra librofili, fortunatamente -, tanto che quando mi è capitata davvero l'occasione di leggerlo sono partita in una sorta di urlo interiore di esaltazione che manco avesse vinto l'Italia ai mondiali. (Tra l'altro, per essere barocchi come il protagonista di codesto libro e sviare dal discorso principale: io che esulto per i mondiali? No, non stavo sottintendendo che potrebbe capitarmi, né in questa vita né in questo corpo.)In realtà ho sempre avuto il desiderio conformista di prendere la strada principale con "Follia", ma il caso ha voluto che io m'imbattessi nel leggere questo e allora perché no? Tutto va bene, non ho particolari selezioni schifiltose nell'approciarmi ad un autore.Dopo tanto entusiasmo alla fine l'impatto con l'opera e l'autore varia a seconda dei tratti percorsi.All'inizio pensavo semplicemente "basta cazzeggiare": mi è sembrato che l'autore avesse bisogno di temporeggiare per capire esattamente che cosa aveva in mano quando scriveva i primi capitoli, così giustamente il protagonista principale - neanche fossi l'ospite malcapitato in una notte buia e tempestosa - pensa bene di passare da un discorso all'altro senza un punto focale, mi descrive l'architettura di ogni stanza della sua casa, e svirgola, e svirgola, e ghirigori su ghirigori - però intanto pensa bene di mantenermi buona promettendomi di rivelarmi "certe cose", in una sorta di suspence con la tecnica della procrastinazione. Ma okay, ho capito che la tua casa è bellissimissima, ma mi spiegheresti esattamente che funzione ha nella storia sapere quante piastrelle ha il tuo bagno? Infatti non ha nessuna particolare funzione, una volta che si ha quadro complessivo della narrazione. Che dire: mi sono fatta il depliant di casa Crook gratuitamente.(Ma chi te l'aveva chiesto.)Però nel frattempo McGrath sembra aver maturato una sorta di direzione più o meno diritta di cosa deve dire e non dire, così avvertendo il bisogno di tagliare, fortunatamente passa a cose più importanti: come, ad esempio, quello che è successo a Sir Hugo.E qui la tecnica del celare certi risvolti della vicenda per conservarli e far rosicare il lettore che si ritrova inevitabilmente avvinto e spinto ad andare avanti funziona, visto che effettivamente non si procrastina più nel vero senso della parola e si fanno passi avanti: pian piano si svelano episodi su episodi, in modo disordinato, con qualche interferenza da parte del nostro protagonista chiacchierone di cui McGrath deve comunque mantenere la caratterizzazione. Non importa in questo senso: quell'aria da Edgar Allan Poe dona al libro e a McGrath, se poi ci vogliamo aggiungere il lato "grottesco", "comico"..vince, forse non fa la standing ovation, ma vince. Io replico solo il fastidio iniziale dove il disorientamento continuo del lettore porta ad un certo nervosismo. Inoltre si sa che "ritmo serrato" e "Edgar Allan Poe" non erano proprio culo e camicia, il ritmo aveva un che di verboso, disteso, ma l'atmosfera creata era tale per cui difficilmente ci si annoiava. McGrath ha ben presente questo e lo ricalca bene: la sua aggiunta personale da forse a tutto il libro un'aria meno angosciosa e più in mezzo al divertito e vivamente curioso.Forse non è stato capace di mantenere la stessa altezza per tutto il tempo della storia: verso la fine, una volta esauriti i grandi punti di domanda, beh, qua mi giungono perplessità: non ho capito se McGrath non aveva di nuovo una chiara idea di cosa farne del finale, delle ultime pagine; oppure se ha optato consciamente per un finale del genere e con dei motivi solidi dietro che non siano "boh non sapevo più dove andare a parare e l'ho chiusa lì". Visto che per tutto il libro ha giocato molto sapientemente tra cos'era reale e cos'era immaginazione - fattore che il mio cervello ha apprezzato molto, bello girare la manovella - mi aspettavo una sorta di vero punto fermo, invece tutto ciò assomiglia molto ai tre puntini di sospensione lanciati nell'aria. Cioè: io mi sento sotto il dominio di un marameo assurdo.E non è che mi senta propriamente imbestialita, non ho voglia di prendere McGrath e trascinare il suo cadavere per tre giri mostrando il mio onore ferito, però ciò che mi rimane è solamente un senso di "mbé che vor' dì" con tanto di grattatina sul capo.Ma punto di domanda..?
Do You like book The Grotesque (1997)?
Great fun. The setting is a remote English manor and the characters are all just perverse. The master of the house is a deviant paleontologist; the lady of the house lusts after the butler; the butler may or may not have killed the daughter's fiance; the daughter turns mad after the fiance's bones are found fed to the estate pigs; the butler's wife drinks herself into a stupor nightly. And best of all, the novel is unreliably narrated by the master of the house who is now paralyzed and mute (very unreliably).
—scott
A gothic version of "The Sense of an Ending" that never reaches that book's mastery, Patrick McGrath's "The Grotesque" is still worth reading for its unreliable narrator, setting, and characters. Sir Hugo is of the Humbert Humbert/Charles Kinbote mold, but for the much of the novel he's in a vegetative state, thinking over how this set of circumstances came to be. It's through his eyes that we see his (perhaps) unfaithful wife, the (perhaps) menacing butler Fledge, the bumbling Sidney, the drunk but tender Doris Fledge, and the melancholy daughter Cleo. It's also through Hugo's eyes that we get the crumbling mansion called Crook, situated at the fringe of an ominous bog in the English countryside, where something terrible has happened. McGrath's language, filtered through Hugo's sharp vocabulary, meanders and second-guesses--the way great unreliable narration should--but it's rarely dull. And if the slim book perhaps could've been a bit shorter and it's last third doesn't match the rest, these are minor complaints. The pleasure of reading "The Grotesque" is not finding out how reliable Sir Hugo is or who's the culprit; it's letting Hugo's version of events supplant "what really happened," and for his voice's manipulations and acrobatics to run the show.
—Gabe
