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Rewritten narratives and Christopher Priests The Glamour

 Rewritten narratives and Christopher Priests The Glamour

 

When my husband and I returned from our honeymoon in Argentina, I set to work transferring our various pamphlets, maps, tickets and so on into an album. Daunted by the mound of material in front of me, I decided to put the album together in the simplest manner I could: by location, and then by theme. My husband, however, wanted to know why I hadnt opted for a chronological approach. But it didnt matter, I argued: we both know what happened and when. We had both, surely, shared the same experiences throughout that time.

Christopher Priests'The Glamour, however, makes a mockery of our perception of chronological impartiality. Its a haunting, challenging novel that not only critiques our ability to rewrite our experiences both retroactively and in the future, but also upends the validity of the structure and the truth of the novel form itself.

The novel begins with a masterfully written prologue that hints at whats to come, but is only truly understood at the novels conclusion. In it, our narrator admits to looking back upon his childhood in order to determine a particular moment that might have shaped who has has become. The crux of the novel is right here in these two quietly written, laconic pages, but is only revealed, devastatingly, at the books conclusion.

Richard Grey, a photojournalist, finds himself in Middlecomb, something between a hospital and a nursing home, after an accident that has destroyed his mobility and taken with it whole sections of his memory. From the very beginning, we have a sense that all is not as it seems, and Greys remark that it was possible to forget, briefly, that Middlecombe was a hospital is a precursor to the contradictory, misleading narrative that follows.

Greys aim, of course, is to regain his memory, something which he attempts with renewed vigour upon being reacquainted, or perhaps newly acquainted, with Susan Kewley, a woman who claims to be his girlfriend. Grey initially has no recognition of her, but after a series of interventions is able to recollect her, although as the narrative progresses, we learn how inappropriate the term recollect is, and does in verbose and detailed manner.

Susan, however, has a different memory of their meeting and subsequent relationship, and though there is overlap between the two, there are marked, notable differences. Additional retellings are gradually threaded through the narrative as Grey turns to regressive therapy, visits Susans parents, and sorts through his own personal minutiae.

One element that remains constant, however, is the presence of Niall, who is, depending on the retelling, either invisible, or simply not visible.

Niall slips into the narrative unseen, but leaves rather differently.

Susan, for her part, is adamant that Niall is her invisible lover, and who will never leave her, while Grey, on the other hand, sees Niall as an unseen presence who intrudes upon his relationship with Susan. Whether Nialls invisibility is literal or metaphoric depends on the retelling, of course, much like how the role or importance of'any character in the book is dependent on the current narrator and their particular narrative emphasis.

Visibility is a constantly reiterated theme throughout the book, and occurs on many levels and many ways. Theres the moral dimension of visibility, for example. According to Susan, the invisible are all around us, leading unseen lives and unable to help themselves because they are so utterly distanced from our society. Others, however, are socialised not to see such people, and gradually they fade even further and further from our own experiences.

Our own personal narratives, of course, influence whether someone is seen or unseen in our lives, and its not surprising that as the characters in the novel become privy to these competing narratives and histories, the role of individuals can be honed in on with laserlike clarity, or allowed to fade into a nothingness from lack of acknowledgement or deliberate avoidance.

Visibility, identity, and memory, then, are inextricably linked in this book, with each feeding off or altering each other, and requiring subsequent reassessments and reworkings that require the very same themselves. As the book reaches what is truly a disturbing conclusion, we begin to see to what extent these things that we hold as truths are merely constructsand constructs that are not necessarily constructed by ourselves. And the echo of the nihilism in Nialls name becomes all the more evident.

Personal histories, as we have learnt through the lessons of the past century, are readily wiped out and rewritten according to those who have either the desire to do so, or who wield the power to make it so: those, perhaps, with the glamour described in the book. And with these rewritten histories, so too are memories and identities reworked.

Whats even more chilling is that in our desire to make sense of things that are nonsensical, we come to a compromise of experience, something that will best explain the collective experiences of a group. Throughout the book, people are disappeared through various means: memory, hypnosis, the power of narrativeand are reappeared through the same, and the only thing that becomes certain is that everything is uncertain.

This is a novel that slowly un-writes itself, forcing the reader to travel backwards as they travel forward, and creating story upon story as it does so. Its'the kind of book that warrants a re-read in order to tease out those agonisingly subtle cues and mentions, to turn them over and oversomething, of course, which will necessarily result in one experiencing a variation of the narrative originally experienced.

Its no coincidence, one imagines, that Priest returned to this book some twenty years after its original publication in order to rewrite good portions of it, an action that itself has created a series of new narratives and experiences for those readers who read the original.

I suspect that I may indeed pick up the earlier editionand then come back to rewrite this review.

 

'Rating: star Rewritten narratives and Christopher Priests The Glamourstar Rewritten narratives and Christopher Priests The Glamourstar Rewritten narratives and Christopher Priests The Glamourstar Rewritten narratives and Christopher Priests The Glamourstar Rewritten narratives and Christopher Priests The Glamour

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16 comments

  1. Book Review: The Glamour by Christopher Priest http://t.co/FS3Nt3Jr Yes, I loved this one. @gollancz

  2. Wow, that sounds really cool. Was it hard to following the appearance and disappearance of characters, or was the story so engaging that it was more thought provoking than frustrating?

    • Stephanie /

      Its divided into quite separate parts, with each part a different retelling, so its definitely readable. The actual story thats told is a fairly straight-forward narrative, but its the questioning of the validity of narrative, experience, and history that makes it so much more complex and challenging than it might initially appearat first glance it seems like one of those quiet, restrained literary novels from the 70s.

      I know I completely skipped out on the summary of this one, but I sounded like an idiot when I tried to explain to my husband. And then this happened, but it might actually have been this, but we really think its this! And now that weve discussed it, theres another story, so it can be this, too!

      • I was recently trying to explain The Forgotten Garden, which has multiple POV and jumps the timeline, and even a chronological summary was convoluted. It made my head hurt. LOL

        I love straight-forward narratives that are complex. I may have to see if I can find this! :D

        • Stephanie /

          We need to keep a notebook and pen on hand so that we can make a flow chart or something!

          • This reminds me of the J-term (a month long intensive study of a subject) where my roommates and I watched a soap opera every day for the fun of it, we had to make a flow chart after a week and only 24 hours had passed at the end of the month. It was hilarious.

          • Stephanie /

            Sounds like Passions! My school used to finish early every Wednesday, so Id be home in time to watch it. Seriously, I swear those guys were at the same party for a month!

  3. I really need to read one of his books

    • Stephanie /

      Ive also had The Prestige on my shelf for years, and still havent read it. Im definitely planning to get to it ASAP now!

  4. This sounds like a fascinating read Stephanie and I can completely understand why you skipped on the synopsis!

    Ohh i love collecting travel mementos and always have big plans of creating a fun scrapbook, but once the holiday is over and i sit down with a big pile of receipts, maps and photos i have no idea where to start. So, usually i bundle it all back up and mark it as to do and then never come back to it. For my most recent trip, I solved this problem by creating a slideshow dvd with captions to show friends/ family so they wouldnt have to wait forever to see my alleged scrapbook!

    • Stephanie /

      Im just as guilty of that as you are, Jayne! This is the first time Ive actually sat down to do itthough I have the best of intentions, I have bags and boxes of holiday bits and pieces waiting to be put into scrapbooks!

      Thank goodness we live in a world of digital photography, or I wouldnt have any photographs to show, either. I still havent even printed my wedding photos! :)

      • Kudos to you for getting it done Stephanie! Its a big task (requiring much patience!) and probably best done soon after a holiday i imagine while its still fresh in your mind.

        But no wedding photos printed? *shocked* oh you must get onto that asap lol

        • Stephanie /

          Haha, I know, I was the laziest bride out there :) Theyre online, though! Thats a start.

  5. Love your reviews by rating! tGlamour sounds like it is definitely worth reading. Thanks!

    • Stephanie /

      Thanks, Susan! Glad to hear that youve found that function useful. :)

  6. Cool stuff. Posted the review on our facebook site. (Christopher Priest wrote a short film related to magic called The Stooge. We're in pre-production for it now. Also working on the project is Tom Joyner (Jaws), Kent Butterworth (The Simpsons), Rogelio Fojo and many more talented crew and cast members. https://www.facebook.com/thestoogemovie

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