Just because you're writing a book, it doesn't mean you have to explain every damn thing.
So says Beryl Bainbridge in this interview about the novel, and it's all fascinating so do listen to it. Another thing she says is that she thinks people should read her novels three times if they want to really understand them. I suspect this is a really good idea, though of course we get a lot from them in one reading. But I certainly think this one could do with a second read. It's the fifth I have now read, and seems to me to be the best yet, which is saying something, as I've loved them all. Certainly it's the most subtle, complex and eliptical. It's full of hints and teases and we have to be really alert when the solutions appear.
This is of course one of Bainbridge's historical novels, and it tells of the last four days of the Titanic's doomed voyage. If you think that might be depressing or upsetting, think again. Being Bainbridge, she uses these events as a backdrop to what's really going on, which is the story of Morgan, a wealthy young American, his friends, his loves, and his history. He and his fellow first class passengers spend most of their time eating, drinking and flirting -- an empty life, as Morgan himself realises, but one which he doesn't seem to have the strength of will to abandon. But of course this novel is being told by Morgan himself, after the event, which makes a big difference to how we read his story. We have to assume that he somehow survived the disaster, but he has to narrate the events leading up to it in such a way that he doesn't give anything away, something Bainbridge handles with extraordinary skill. To give just one example, people are taking bets on the arrival time in New York, and Morgan and his friends go off to get some inside knowledge from the crew members. They are told they expect to arrive on Tuesday, barring accidents. Naturally that means a lot to us and also to the narrating Morgan, but he resists the possibility of commenting on it.
Bainbridge has a habit of starting her novels with a flash forward, and this one is no exception. The beginning episode takes place as the ship is going down, and the short conversation is fascinating but wholly mysterious, though by the time we return to it almost at the end it does of course make sense. This is only one of the many mysteries Bainbridge scatters through the novel. Who is the man who dies in Morgan's arms on a London street the day before he goes to Southampton? Who is the mysetrious, beautiful Adele, who appears sometimes in first class but also sometimes in third? Who is Scurra, what does he know about Morgan's childhood, and how did he get the split in his lip that makes his appearance so unusual? What about Morgan's childhood, anyway -- who was the old woman who appears scarily in his dreams? and why did his uncle have to rescue him from an orphanage? And what does he steal from his uncle's house, leaving a dusty mark on the wall?
All of these things are finally explained, and most if not all have a connection with each other. Add to this a mixture of love affairs, which seem mostly to have more to do with lust than love, wonderfully memorable characters (who may or may not survive the disaster), and much of interest relating to social class (first vs third, crew vs passengers), and all this crammed into just over 200 pages, and you have a most remarkable novel indeed. I'm quite surprised to see that it was not the novel that was awarded a posthumous Booker Prize (Bainbridge was shortlisted five times and falied to win) -- that was Master Georgie which of course I now need to read.
I have become, as you may have noticed, a most avid adorer of Beryl Bainbridge. I've been thinking about Muriel Spark, whose Reading Week I co-hosted a little while ago. I liked Spark enormously, but in a face-off between her and Bainbridge, I'd give Bainbridge the prize every time. So I'm hugely grateful to Annabel of Gaskella, without whom I might never have discovered this wonderful author.
