Clear - Nicola Barker

There can't be that many novels that have stellar reviews from both the Times Literary Supplement and Heat Magazine, but Clear by Nicola Barker is just such a one.

I seem to be reading her books in reverse order. I started last year with Darkmans, which came to my attention when it made the shortlist of the 2007 Booker Prize (I still say it woz robbed, btw), and now thanks to Palimpsest and its book group I have found myself reading her previous novel, Clear, which was seemingly longlisted for the 2004 Booker. At this rate, I'll be gobbling up everything of hers I can find because both of her books so far have been a dream.

So what is Clear all about then? Well, here's the blurb:

On 5th September 2003, New York illusionist David Blaine entered a small perspex box beside the River Thames and began starving himself. Forty-four days later he left the box. The end. The real show, of course, was on the sidelines: the crowds, the chaos, the hype and most enjoyably, the hypocrisy. Through the eyes and exploits of Adair Graham MacKenney, bitter, shameless and irreverent, we see this world for what it is: a place of illusion, delusion, celebrity and hunger. And, naturally, lust. With her Tupperware and awful shoes, Adair finds himself unaccountably drawn to the reluctant Aphra. But when has futility ever stopped anyone? Just think of the guy in the perspex box. Wickedly comic, caustic and uncommonly astute, this outrageous peep show of a novel gives us our contemporary world laid bare.

So there's the background - David Blaine in his clear perspex box dangling above the Thames. Adair is a bit of a fashion victim, achingly cool in his Boxfresh jacket and pristine "classic" trainers. However, for him Blaine's stunt seems to precipitate a genuine growth within his personality, whether it is fighting with his flatmate's girlfriend about whether or not Blaine was influenced by Kafka and Primo Levi, or getting to know workmate Bly through lunchtime strolls past Blaine in his box, or being entranced by the enigmatic Aphra and her endless supply of bizarre second-hand shoes.

I found an interview with Barker about the book where she states that "as a writer (and as a person) I've always celebrated the outsider, the stranger, the interloper, the freak. The main aim of all my fiction is to render the unlovable, lovable."  She certainly achieved that for me. She lays out modern life and obsessions in front of you and points out their ridiculousness, but still manages to make it really not seem so awful after all. The novel is written in the first person, with Adair as our narrator, and Barker's real skill is in her dialogue, both internal and external (an aside: internal dialogue? is that not just internal monologue? *shrugs* Anyway...) because everything she writes is just utterly believable. Everything fits, Adair's reactions, realizations, fits of temper, they all fit.  All the characters are superbly drawn in fact. And they are all trying to find their way in this crazy modern world we all find ourselves in, desperately searching for meaning for themselves by way of looking for an explanation for Blaine's actions.

This is a quirky novel, and its idiosyncratic narration will clearly not be for everyone, but it is laugh-out-loud funny in places and is wonderful on a number of levels - story, the underlying implications, the language, the satire. Which is probably why it clearly (ho ho ho) appeals to everyone from Heat readers to TLS subscribers.

Comments

[Mark Thwaite]

For me, David Blaine's weird, unsettling, pointless, fascinating stunt in his box above the Thames has melded onto the summer of 2003 and defines it for me.

Wikipedia reminds me the box-living happened in September, but I remember sunshine, crazy conversations with tourists and this lovely inversion whereby the reaction to Blaine became far me fascinating than his strangely lonely, pathetic, narcissitic street theatre ...

[chartroose]

Okay, another TBR. Can't you hate something so I won't have to add it to my overflowing list? Have some consideration, please!

[Kirsty]

Apologies chartroose! Other blogs have recommended so many books that I bought a haul at the weekend, so I thought it only fair to inflict my pain on everyone else! :)

[dovegreyreader]

Kirsty YIPPEEEEE for Nicola Barker, my thoughts on Clear next week, but like you I thought it was such a great read I now MUST read all Nicola Barker ever writes ever.