Spike Magazine

Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com
This is perhaps too convenient, but it is certainly in
tune with the question of Destiny. Perhaps it prompted
the direction of his thoughts about journalism? Burton
says Inferno is a great piece of journalism but that Purgatory
and Paradise, the other two parts of The Divine
Comedy, are parts of a pilgrimage to perfection. This
is something journalism cannot achieve. His book on
national characteristics is, therefore, an attempt to get
beyond journalism. However, he seems to have been
pre-empted by another famous English journalist who
has churned out a book claiming to do the same. He also
happens to be Mrs Burton’s lover. Burton doesn’t know
what the situation is between them. Her vicious attacks
on him in the mortuary seem to indicate a conclusive
dissatisfaction, an indication of an imminent split. But
they could just be uncontrolled outpourings of grief.
How is he to know? He is trying to understand.
From the beginning, Burton seems destined for
doom and gloom. Despite this impression, there is rich
comedy in his various encounters along the way. The
nature of the book means that the crescendo Burton
leads us to expect is only ever going to be a fiction of
his imagination. All the set pieces, like the visit to the
mortuary, appear to us as fragments pieced together in
the spaces between other set pieces, like his struggle
above the toilet, which itself is fragmented by thoughts
of the visit to the mortuary. Instead, there is a quiet,
optimistic conclusion – which is also a beginning – as
BUY Tim Parks books online from and
Mrs Burton behaves out of character. That is, out of
the character that her husband has imagined. One can
thereby understand the novel as the refutation of Burton’s
thesis – that human behaviour can be explained
before the event. And yet, there is, in the form of his
narrative, an achievement beyond journalism! It makes
it one of the most satisfying and memorable novels,
written in English, for quite some time.
But one last thing. I said that this novel opens with
a ten-line sentence. The most striking thing about this
sentence is that it is almost identical in form and content
to the opening sentence of Thomas Bernhard’s
final novel Extinction (1986). Indeed, the whole novel
is deeply informed by Bernhard’s masterpiece. Does
this diminish Parks’ achievement? No, it doesn’t.
Technical brilliance does not swamp its emotional
resonance. That can’t be borrowed. When Chris Burton
is with his son’s body in a room near the mortuary,
he notices three heavy pieces of dark wooden furniture
and a Sacred Heart on the wall. It is there to console
the relatives of the deceased. Burton dismisses it is a
“public space that apes the private.” As a result of its
aping, it is drained of consoling authority. This is an
appropriate definition of most novels: a public space
that apes the private. This novel, on the other hand,
like Bernhard’s novels, mediates between public and
private space, showing us how intimately one influences
the other. A wonderful book. �
400
More
Spike
email
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z