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 PrintableVersion The seaNo need to slit your throat!‘Slit your throat novel wins Booker’ was how some papers heralded the achievement of Irishman John Banville in winning the 2005 Mann Booker Prize with his novel The Sea. I bet he wasn't pleased, but he did get £50,000 out of it, as well as a new status in the literary world. And now that the bets have been taken and the headlines are over, does it matter? Unlike The Turner Prize for Modern Art, which now receives similar media attention, the Mann Booker Fest will actually affect the lives of many people. When you next travel on public transport, watch what everyone is reading, note the interviews in the weekend papers, even ask what will be set on A-level English syllabi in a couple of years; these six shortlisted authors' names will figure prominently. The world of contemporary fiction doesn't just impact on the lives of those who like a challenging read, but has a trickle-down effect through our journalists, politicians and film makers on the attitudes of us all. What’s going on in The Sea?The Sea is a book about identity, youth and age. The central character, Max Morden, is an art critic, who travels back to the seaside village he visited in his childhood as he grieves over the death of his wife. The whole book is narrated by Morden, everything is seen from his perspective and described in very beautiful, precise, if at times very precious, prose. We move between his intense memories of growing up one summer, the recent past of his wife's death, and descriptions of Morden’s present pain and dislocation. At the heart of the novel is his relationship with the Graces, an affluent family he refers to frequently as ‘Gods’. They are self-assured and arrogant, and seem to play with him and his feelings of inadequacy. The memories move towards a climax as our narrator reveals a trauma which links past and present. DisillusionmentSo you see why it was described as ‘slit your throat’! Max Morden is depicted as a man thoroughly self-absorbed and thoroughly disillusioned. He talks about the ‘continuous rehearsal which is my life’ and says ‘I knew myself, all too well, and did not like what I knew’. Don’t you recognise this reality? If our non-Christian friends don't speak like that, they certainly sometimes feel like that. And just as in the novel the main character finds no true resolution to his pain, so neither do our friends outside of Christ. Sex features in this novel, not often explicitly, but still in a debased form. And as all is seen from Morden’s point of view, this squalid pubescent sex is neither critiqued nor examined, just remembered; as true postmoderns, we are not to judge, just to experience. This didn’t shock me - I guess I’ve read enough modern novels to expect and skim over this kind of material. But I was sadly aware of how the nonchalance of this kind of novel legitimises perversion. The reviews that I read of The Sea were divided, some full of praise, others crushing, but all concentrated on style not substance, perhaps because this novel is actually so insubstantial. Yet, as Christians, we do have to talk about substance, about values and meaning. We need to raise the questions which our secular friends shy away from, about goodness and evil. Modern lostnessThis is the character of much contemporary fiction; disordered and sordid lives, with limited self-discovery. And what do we see around us? Our friends with disordered lives needing revelation. Depressing as reading many of these novels is, they are a reminder to us of the urgency of the gospel. We mustn’t fear these seeming intellectuals, for the hollowness of their best efforts to make sense of life is clear. Instead, let us use such books to help us understand the real dislocation that life without God is and let us pray for help to articulate the gospel to the readers around us. Jesus really does bring life. Sarah Allen © Evangelicals Now - November 2005 |
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