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This is Litt's second novel, following the awesome
Beatniks. We're immediately set a different tone here, since the
narrator, Conrad Redman, is a bloke rather than a woman (Litt's narrator in
Beatniks, Mary, was majestically authentic). Conrad's surname, 'Redman',
immediately gives us some idea of what this novel is about, since it's not long
before he's covered by a large quantity of blood - his own and his
girlfriend's, when they're gunned down in a flashy Soho restaurant.
In his first novel, Litt gave us twenty something
teenage angst exported from Bedford, which was indeed novel. The Soho
setting for the shooting immediately has me on my guard though, since I have a
phobia about novels set in the Soho media world. As Conrad himself narrates,
"all VT engineers are called Chris" - so we immediately realise that
we're in a new kind of genre. Of course, the sanguine shooting politely
suggests crime fiction (Conrad spends quite a bit of time in University College
Hospital, where Agatha Christie worked in the Second World War). But nearly
every English novel I've read this year (2000) has mentioned Soho or Soho media
types, which makes me suspect that all English novelists are aspiring
screenwriters in disguise. Toby Litt does indeed have aspirations to become
such a screenwriter, and it appears that this novel has been successfully
optioned as a film. Certainly, Litt's first novel was very film-worthy,
as it was a Beatnik road novel, which started off in England and sped all away
across the States. Beatniks would make a very good art house movie,
methinks, because it twisted traditional expectations on their head, with
the drive across America being incredibly banal, with identikit MacDonald's
fried mushrooming on every convenient corner, and San Francisco appearing to
have more sky scrapers than its narrator could ever believe.
Corpsing seems to be far more world weary and
cynical. Okay, so Jack and Neal were deluded in their cartoonish Beat
religion, but at least their way of life offered some kind of Romance with a
capital R. Conrad Redman, on the other, has been there and done
that. He's headed to London to work in the media, and has succeeded to
some degree, since his main employment involves creating trailers for
satellite/digital companies like the Discovery Channel. Yet he's almost
given up his dream of becoming a film maker. We first meet him when he's
putting together a biting promotion for yet another Shark Week. This is
how Redman makes trailers, splicing bits of film together, disregarding
linearity in order to collage the best shots. It's also how he
narrates. You can't help thinking of a digital viewer, who can choose
which angle he wants to see the action from. Conrad's narration is
therefore very bitty, full of jump cuts, flashbacks, slow mo, stops and
starts that flow seamlessly.
What's most distinctive here are the bullet
entries. Literally. Toby Litt spares no blushing pigmentation, no
internal and bruising detail as he describes how Conrad and his girlfriend,
Lily, are literally blown to bits. Think of Peckinpah's Wild Bunch,
Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, to get an idea of how deadly these passages are.
But Litt's attempts go far beyond Penn's and Peckinpah's, which now look crude
and banal in comparison. Heaven help the director who attempts to
visualize these fatal penetrations. I know that cameras can now go where
they've never been able to go before, but even so... I can't help but
think of Nick Roeg as these bullets relentlessly and arbitrarily rip through
the pages of this book, ending up where you'd least expect them.
The narrator's first name also conjures up hearts
of darkness. However, like Mary in Beatniks, Conrad is very human.
A man of faults certainly, but very recognisable all the same. I recall
seeing a French screenwriter say in a documentary that the only way he
could succeed in his trade, to create powerful drama, was to lock himself away
each morning and imagine what it would be like to see his family blown
away. Litt very cleverly places his narrator into such situation,
something that each of his readers will have fantasized about in one way or
another, albeit as a worst case scenario. So, although Conrad may not
always be very likeable, the reader cannot help but identify with him.
However, this may not work so well for a film of
this book. I think that any screenplay would have to include
some kind of Blade Runner type narration to let us get into Conrad's head
(with the actor concerned hopefully putting a bit more character into than
Harrison Ford desired to ((Ford didn't want the narration to be used))).
The main reason for this would be to include the wit of Conrad's narration.
There's that delicious scene in the restaurant where Conrad relates his shame
at being shot by a bicycle courier in shockingly bright lycra - "He should
go away and change and then come back and apologize, and do it properly, with
the full decorum it deserves".
However, there are faults with the novel.
Too much of the plot seems to have been derived from the title. I suspect
colleagues of mine who've judged short story competitions would want to
throttle Litt for all the unsubtle references to 'corpsing' and death
metaphors, especially regarding dying on stage. Conrad's fascination with
guns is undoubtedly disturbing, but treads the borderline of yoyeurism maybe
too closely. Unlike Beatniks, the plot in Corpsing seems to want to
constantly head-butt you. The characters I found to be most lifeless were
the living performers, like the Greys (who were too blurry - even Dorothy's
maiden name is 'Pale'), and Tony Smart (who was too blunt and just too open an
audition for Vinnie Jones). Lily, as Conrad's dead actress girlfriend,
seems to get a far better role. Perhaps Litt should stick to the
Chastity Vow laid down by the Dogme 95 film makers, in which genre and guns
have been pulped. I'm not saying that genre's a bad thing, I just don't
think it suits Litt's style of writing, where character is king.
Maybe Corpsing is just Litt's attempt at generic
excess before he embraces the Dogme inspired rules of The New Puritans.
One thing is for certain, despite these minor quibbles: Toby Litt has all
the gunpower he needs to set off a literary explosion, with him as the main
projectile.
AuthorTrek Rating: 8/10.
Kevin Patrick Mahoney
|
Visit
our Toby Litt page
for Toby Litt biography, Toby Litt bibliography, Toby Litt short stories, and
Toby Litt interviews |
