Despite the fact that
there are probably more reasons for writing a work of fiction as
there are actual works of fiction it seems to be the case that there
is one thing they all must possess to be successful in any meaningful
sense: an audience. This isn't to say that fiction becomes better or
somehow more fictional as more people read it, rather it's simply to
state the commonplace that a writer is always writing in the belief
that someone else will be reading what he's written. Even in cases
where the writer aims to create the most obscure work imaginable he
or she is still conscious of the fact that they are responsible for
what someone else will encounter on the page or screen. This is as
true of Ulysees as
it is of The
Twits.
How
then are writers of “literary” fiction to balance this obligation
to make some kind of sense (or non-sense) to their audience against
the imperative to preserve their artistic integrity? Having recently
read Kevin Barry's There
are Little Kingdoms and
Paul Murray's Skippy
Dies (and knowing that
both have amassed relatively large audiences for their work)
I thought it might be
interesting to compare the two in terms of their likely appeal to
their respective audiences.
The
first thing that strikes you is that both writers are preoccupied by
youth.
In comparison with works by the likes of Sebastian Barry or Colm
Tobin you'll not find any elderly women here. The closest you'll get
to old age is one cruelly vital old priest and drunken Freddie Bliss,
fondly recalling better days while his daughter tears apart his home.
After that the oldest people we encounter are middle aged types
refusing to recognise that they're rapidly approaching the point when
youth culture will be completely alien to them. Youth, in all its
conceited self obsession, reigns supreme and this illuminates part of
the appeal of Barry and Murray: readers of “literary” fiction
tend to be slightly more sceptical of youth culture than other
consumers.
Another point of kinship between the two is their tentative embrace
of post modernism. One never gets the sense that the narrative is
unreliable beyond there being a strong sense that most of the
characters (especially in Barry's work, a short story collection) are
only interested in perpetuating some kind of self-deluding fantasy.
This is most obvious in Barry's short story To The Hills, a
tale of three single fortysomethings on a hiking trip:
Teresa decided that she was having a terrific time. This intimacy,
she felt, was powerful stuff. Yes, she was greatly enjoying the whole
experience but she would enjoy it al the more when she was at home on
her couch, alone except for the cat, with the lights dimmed and a
glass full to the brim and the late programme on Lyric playing low on
the radio. Then she would savour it all truly.
Indeed, this fate of being dominated by the useless tendency to
self-mythologise has already marked the cool-as-fuck Galwegian
students in Party at Helen's, the doomed teenage hero of the
“breeze-block” arcade in Atlantic City, and the randy
farmer unable to help himself in Animal Needs. In recounting
it all Barry adopts the tone of a sardonic pulp fiction narrator,
despairing over the stupidity of his fictional charges but never
doubting the ultimate worth of the story being told. Indeed, one of
Barry's major assets as a storyteller is to ensure that the coolness
of his stories is never in doubt; we're confident we can sneer smugly
at his characters because they wouldn't understand the interest of
their predicament if they encountered somebody else enduring it.
If it can be fairly said that Barry's aversion to post modernism
arises from his contempt for his characters Murray's reticence
concerning the unreliable narrator trope seems to come from a desire
to be sincere. Like There Are Little Kingdoms, Skippy Dies
features a doomed teenager (named Skippy, unsurprisingly). Unlike
Kingdoms however, Murray's work explores in detail (it is not
a concise work) the reasons for this death. In doing so, Skippy
Dies makes clear what Kingdoms only implies: that
meaningful communication between generations is impossible when
youthfulness becomes a sovereign ideal. Murray explores this theme
fully and the effect is that the teenagers resemble the kids in South
Park: they're the only vaguely reasonable characters on display.
Thus, we have the Howard “the coward” Fallon, a teacher working
at his old secondary school who effectively endures a never ending
adolescence because of a grisly teenage accident, the childishly
ambitious school principal nicknamed “The Automator”, and Coach
Roche, a former captain of the school rugby trading on his aura of
faded glory. While not actively conniving in the propagation of
teenage misery, the other adult characters seem completely ignorant
of the mental and material well-being of their charges.
It's in this void of mutual comprehension where Murray differs most
strongly from Barry: he seems to have a faint hope that literature
might have some relevant role in the lives of these characters. And
so Fallon goes on a voyage of discovery concerning the lives and
works of Robert Graves and Rudyard Kipling, a journey which concludes
with him echoing Alyosha Karamazov in trying to explain to his pupils
why people suffer. This is probably the loveliest section of the
whole book and shows that at least some of Barry's characters are
trying to understand their predicament. Alas though, the hope
that literature mattes was faint indeed and Murray ultimately
achieves the rare distinction of being bleaker than Dostoevsky by
implicating Fallon in the grotesque cover up surrounding poor
Skippy's death. Despite the abundance of teenage humour in Skippy
Dies it's really about as grim a read as you would expect from a
book dealing with teenage suicide.
It's not hard to understand the appeal of Barry and Murray for their
audiences: both deal with a theme that is a natural fit for literary
fiction, namely the unhealthy and unhelpful appeal of youth culture.
By their lights it purveys, at best, self-deluding fantasies while at
worst it can bring about a lethal sense of alienation in those who
place too much faith in its promises and suggestions. In assuming
fairly conventional narrative voices they manage to tell new stories
through old forms, and broaden their appeal even further
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