Do you remember Michael Apted’s documentary Seven Up! He follows fourteen kids from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds and poses (to the viewers) a simple question: is there truth in the Jesuit dictum “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” But the exercise proves not to be a simple matter of observation. While the documentary does have a narrative arc, nevertheless the kids interrupt it and engage the camera in conversation. We become aware that the kids are developing a relationship with an unseen narrator who cannot possibly remain neutral towards the subject of his observations.
Julian Barnes‘ 2000 novel, Love, etc. has precisely that feel. It’s as if the narrator has arranged periodic interviews with an array of characters, has sat each of them down in their familiar environs—home, work, the local restaurant — and has encouraged them to chat about themselves. While the narrator remains silent and has no role in the narrative, nevertheless the characters sometimes interrupt the story’s unfolding to engage the narrator directly. It is a deliberately self-conscious novel, one in which the characters are vaguely aware of being watched, and the reader feels a bit like a voyeur.
The novel considers one of the oldest stories there is: the classic love triangle. There’s Gillian, the art restorer who presents as effective and strong. There’s Stuart, her first husband, who speaks with a straight-forward voice but is perhaps both a bit uninspired and a bit uninspiring. Finally we have Oliver, the most interesting of the characters, quixotic, verbose, intellectual, sometimes obnoxious. Oliver and Stuart were best friends, but Oliver contrived to “steal” Gillian. The novel opens ten years into Gillian’s second marriage, now with two daughters by Oliver, who is unemployed, has vague artistic aspirations, but has been thwarted by an episode of major depression and sits on the verge of a second episode. Stuart reappears after a ten year sojourn in America where he had established himself as a successful restaurateur and green grocer. His second marriage also failed and, realizing that he has never stopped loving Gillian, he is determined to “steal” her back.
Along the way, we gain further insight into this trio through “interviews” with a range of subordinates. There is Ellie, a twenty-something apprentice to Gillian who develops a casual relationship with Stuart. There is the elderly Mme Wyatt, Gillian’s mother, who views the relative merits of both her daughter’s husbands/lovers through the lens of her own failed marriage to a man who simply up and left. There is Terri, Stuart’s American wife, whose views of life all seem to be mediated by metaphorical anecdotes about crabbing on the east coast. There’s the senile neighbour, Mrs. Dyer, who hasn’t a clue. And there are the daughters, Sophie and Marie, who offer their own childlike take on the mysterious workings of adult relationships.
Pivotal to the novel is the manner of the thefts. It turns out that the first theft was less a theft than a conspiracy. Oliver and Gillian staged a scene, knowing that Stuart would be looking down into the street from his hotel window. It was a public display that deliberately hinted at an abusive relationship, with Gillian holding her infant, screaming at Oliver, blood dripping onto the child. As with their relationship to the novel’s narrator, Oliver and Gillian were conscious of being watched and tried to manipulate that fact. They had hoped that the presentation of a passionate, even dangerous, relationship, would drive Stuart away. Instead, its memory haunts him and ultimately draws him back to rescue Gillian. By implication, we are left to presume that their relationship to the narrator is equally unstable. Perhaps things aren’t as presented.
Indeed that becomes apparent as Stuart begins to execute the novel’s second “theft” by stealing Gillian away from the deeply depressed, ineffectual and seemingly unlovable Oliver. While the first theft was rooted in a self-conscious passion, the second is rooted in an equally self-conscious acquisitiveness. Stuart reinserts himself into Gillian’s life under the guise of a charitable concern. Nevertheless, as he observes early on, “virtue needs to be marketed.” But as a pivotal chapter titled “Wanting” makes clear, this novel doesn’t concern matters of charity and virtue; it concerns matters of desire. This is one of the etceteras of Love, etc. Stuart cannot express his desire except in the terminology of what he knows best: the machinations of the free market. He purchases a second-rate painting which requires cleaning so he can use it as a pretense to learn more about Gillian. He orchestrates the eviction of three tenants from a house he owns so that he can offer it as a home for Gillian’s family. He offers to Oliver a job as a driver, then sends him on the longest runs to get him out of the way. His charity is instrumental and his relationships have become as much commodities as the produce he sells. When it comes time to complete his “theft,” he simply tries to take. Ironically, the result of the theft rationalized by his brand of virtue proves more violent than the staged violence of the first theft rationalized by deceit.
By the end of the novel, it’s unclear whether Stuart has any insight into the inadequacies of his plan, but it’s certainly clear to the reader. Some things can never be taken or purchased or stolen. The past remains irretrievably in the past and, as the pitiable Mrs. Dyer reminds us, even its memory can become irretrievable. As contemptible and as helpless as Oliver may appear, he at least has the present with Gillian and his daughters in it. For all his adroitness in the present, Stuart’s grasping after the past makes him the more contemptible of the two men.
This is a beautiful novel. Each of the characters speaks with a distinctive voice. The narrator shifts from one to the other with a compassionate eye. The result, though unsettling, is deeply authentic.
****1/2