Basics first.

Who? Naomi Alderman, who wrote the book on which Sebastian Lelio's film Disobedience is based, and who contributed an interesting piece (God's Doorbell) to A Cage Went in Search of a Bird, a collection of "Kafkaesque" short stories. I've long felt she would be worth further investigation.

When? This one was published in 2010, and it's her second novel.

Why? Mostly because it was on Val McDermid's list of top 10 Oxford novels (our most recent Oxford visit was almost a year ago, but hey...) And partly because it fits into the "dark academia" genre that I found out about only quite recently when I read Babel.

How? I listened to the audio-version, which was really well read by Jot Davies.


Oxford, 2024

***

I enjoyed the story. It's narrated by one James Stieff, who arrives at Oxford only to find that while he was brilliant at school, he's not quite so brilliant here. And when he injures his knee running, misses a week of physics classes, and falls hopelessly behind, none of his teachers is that interested in helping him. (I'll note, in passing, that no university I've ever worked for has such diabolical pastoral care as the non-effort depicted here...)

Anyway, James isn't socially that confident either, and is by now deep into inferiority-complex and depression mode. Fortunately, he meets a really kind and understanding young woman, called Jess. They strike up a relationship (it has already been demonstrated that unattractiveness is not among James's problems). So that's very positive.

What's not so positive is that she introduces him to her coterie of wealthy friends, chief among whom is Mark Winters.

Mark is the quintessential golden boy. Uber-rich, gorgeous, generous, and easy-going, he eventually gathers five friends (James and Jess, plus budding politician Simon, Jewish intellectual Franny, and Spanish glamour-woman Emmanuella) to set up house together (rent-free) in a crumbling Oxford mansion that he has inherited from a handy aunt.

From here on in, we see quite a lot that indicates a glittering lifestyle (which is OK for the rich, who can keep up, and for the bright, who study on regardless, but not so helpful for James, who doesn't have much money at his disposal in the first place, and has even less when his father cuts him off for being spendthrift, and who continues to bump along the bottom academically).

Plus, we soon learn that not everything about Mark is sunny and gold-embossed. There have been spells of depression in the past, and when we meet his mother, and her ghastly dog, we think we can understand a bit of what that's about. Alongside the self-consciously dissolute persona he displays to the world, Mark has a religious side, which tends to lead him off down paths of self-harm and the glorification of suffering. And the same-sex side of his bisexuality occasionally drags him into trouble with the law.

Mark, then, for all his wealth and talent, is a damaged, fragile, and mercurial character. The flipside of his easy munificence is a tendency to cruelty and manipulation.



Crises notwithstanding, everyone has fun, and everyone graduates (not necessarily well). But then they have to go their separate ways, and the rot really sets in.

Mark ill-advisedly marries Nicola, Simon's much younger sister (and I'm honestly not sure about this plot point, as it seems such a crazy decision, and so clearly destined to go badly). Mark and James conduct a long affair, betraying Nicola and Jess in the process. The marriage produces a baby, Daisy, whom Mark dotes on. So when Nicola -- suspecting an affair but not knowing with whom -- decides she wants a divorce, Mark proposes to come clean: "I don't think she'd mind so much if she knew it was just you," he tells James. "It'd be containable, you know?" James, however, knows this would mean the end of his relationship with Jess. So he basically blackmails Mark to keep him out of it. If he doesn't keep quiet, he warns, his mother will know everything. Mark aims a heavy glass ashtray at James's head. James dodges, but this won't be the last act of violence.

Soon afterwards, Daisy dies when Mark's car comes off the road. He's not found culpable. It's accidental death. But Mark is now broken, and suicidal. After Daisy's funeral, doped and confused, he lets the cat out of the bag with regard to his relationship with James. Jess is extraordinarily understanding: "You should be with him. He needs you."

And so now it's Mark and James. They go to live in San Ceterino, where Mark's family has yet another useful villa.

It's probably clear that this won't be love's young dream either. Mark is still disturbed. James is still a doormat. Teenage boys start to visit, although initially James is not unduly worried by this: "He and I, and now these boys, were in the business of keeping him alive..."

But things are careering downhill. The novel opens with a scene of mayhem. The swimming pool is full of food; the boys (the oldest no more than 18) are watching cartoons on television; Mark is comatose from drink and drugs. James deals with everything as though he's a nursemaid.

Mark becomes increasingly obnoxious, needling to try to provoke a reaction from the partner he obviously regards as inferior: "All you ever are is a reflection of other people. With Jess you were loyal, with me you're dissolute. What ARE you really? Nothing. You're all shadows and mirrors. All you've got is the power to ingratiate yourself with whoever you're around to make them like you. But the thing is, James, it doesn't work. We DON'T like you..."

When James walks away, Mark attacks him. At this point, thank heavens, James does actually decide that enough is enough, and takes himself off to a hotel to lick his wounds. There's a cathartic (if somewhat unlikely) meeting with Jess (now with someone we hope is less complicated), and a little later James goes back to the villa to say goodbye. Mark predicts he won't stay away for long... "Who are you going to follow? Who's going to tell you what to do?"

We watch James board the train to Rome. We hope he'll be all right. We hope he'll stay the hell out of Mark's orbit. But we're far from sure.



***

There's plenty to like.

Alderman knows how to build tension, and watching these characters at work, you're constantly waiting for the next explosion. Joanna Briscoe has a good summary: "This is a portrait of a profoundly troubled monster and the grip he has on one impressionable man's soul... Alderman portrays the mixed blessing of extreme wealth with great insight and credibility... The novel sets us thinking about the nature of love as a sickness, about how mutual dependency bleeds into hatred, and about the warping effects of wealth. The rich are different, and so is Mark, his inheritance his salvation yet also his downfall. He is at heart a damaged sadist, buttressed by priests and limitless funds."

Briscoe feels the post-Oxford section of the book is stronger than its Oxford-based counterpart. Others, including Alice Fisher, argue the direct opposite. I'm in the latter camp. You don't have to have studied at Oxford (Alderman did) to understand the mixture of emotion its supposedly hallowed halls evoke. James ponders:

"What is Oxford? It is like a magician, dazzling viewers with bustle and glitter, misdirecting our attention. What was it for me? Indifferent tuition, uncomfortable accommodation, uninterested pastoral care. It has style: the gowns, cobbled streets, domed libraries and sixteenth-century portraits. It is old and it is beautiful and it is grand. And it is unfair and it is narrow and it is cold. Walking in Oxford, one catches a glimpse through each college doorway, a flash of tended green lawn and ancient courtyards. But the doorways are guarded and the guardians are suspicious and hostile."

Much of what she portrays, though, is not specifically Oxford. It can be university experience everywhere. And for those of us who weren't really ready to move on after the cocoon of our undergrad days, it's a good reminder of the gulf we had to cross. University is a hothouse, and you know it can never last. But looking back from the cold, bleak world of work, you can't help but miss the environment where you took your first, exciting-yet-protected steps into adulthood.

James is spot on about the gulf that separates academic structure from the chaos of real life: "There's a sense of mastery that comes in examinations. It's an experience that is rare in the outside world. The number of questions, the different ways they can be presented: these things are limited, and each can be explored, studied, perfected. No wonder we spend our adult lives feeling we're simply pretending to know what we're doing. After sixteen years spent doing exams, where the lessons we've received perfectly fit the challenges we're faced with, our preparation for the unpredictable events of normal life will always seem shoddy and haphazard."

This theme is developed further right at the end, illuminating the title: "What is it that one learns from life? I had always supposed that I would accumulate some wisdom as my life progressed. That, as in my progress through Oxford, some knowledge would inevitably adhere to me. I supposed I hoped that love would teach me. But the very question is redundant. It is ridiculous to think we can learn anything from so arbitrary an experience as life. It forms no kind of curriculum and its gifts and punishments are bestowed too arbitrarily to constitute a mark scheme. There is only one subject on which the lessons are in any way informative."

James is a good subject for direction, but not so adept at picking his own path. He probably ought to stay within the confines of an institution... Mark taunts him to the very end: "Who are you going to follow? Who's going to tell you what to do?... Whose dog are you going to be?" Ultimately, though, it's Mark who, having burned through existence as though it's hay, is more likely to end up prematurely cold on a slab.



***

The element that ALL the critics comment on, because it stands out a mile, is the similarity with Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited... Sam Ruddock: "James and Mark are essentially Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte, and their homosexual undertone is brought into the foreground. Like Charles, James is a passive character, drawn to the powerful Flyte-like Mark, a troubled character for whom a wealthy and privileged upbringing has resulted in a dangerous lack of self control. His Catholicism, which he clings to fervently, has given him a world view of glorious suffering, of saviour and sacrifice which is reflected in his relationships with the surrogate family he gathers around him." I loved Brideshead Revisited (and read it just as I was stepping out into that dreaded world of work, so it probably seemed doubly poignant).

The other comparison that's often made is to The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which I happened to have chosen to read concurrently, without having realized the parallels. Here, too, Tartt is looking at a close group of students, whose esoteric pursuits and strong personalities set them apart from their cohort. Her university community is located in rural Vermont, and the story hinges on a crime, which necessitates a much more driven kind of narration. But the similarities are there.

Not that this is a bad thing. No-one has a monopoly on any given situation. There is always more to be said. But Tartt's book does throw into relief the blandness of some of Alderman's characters. The monstrous-but-beguiling Mark is drawn very convincingly. Likewise, poor James, the moth to the flame. But Jess is impossibly wise and perfect. And the others in the group, and in the various families, are sketched in so lightly that we feel they're just place-holders. They flit in; they flit out. Of course, it's the relationship between Mark and James that's supposed to overshadow everything else. Even so...

Naomi Alderman is an interesting person. For more detail on her life-story, see the very frank interview here.