Hangover Square - CaB Book Club 2

[DukeDeMondo]

I just finished it there this afternoon, and whilst I thought it was quite exceptional, and that it was imbued with a sorry sort of authenticity that was nigh on scalding at times, and that the whole milieu was beautifully depicted and compellingly realised and all the rest, I agree with Howj Begg, the misogyny of the thing is really quite breathtaking, and at risk of getting carried away with the Virtue Signalling or whatever the fuck, that soured it hugely for me. Doesn't make it any less impressive, if it's misogynistic then that's what it is and you have to accept it on those terms, but it makes it a fuck of a lot less attractive, even if the misogyny makes some sort of sense when viewed through the prism of the author's - and the central character's - alcoholism, and all of the self pity and the impotent raging and the resentment and the sense of entitlement that comes with it. Easy to see where it springs from, maybe, but no less repugnant for that.

Those chapters in the second "Brighton" section where everyone just takes turns telling Bone how much of a bitch Netta is are extremely uncomfortable to read, especially as it's quite clear we're supposed to be feeling as elated as he is with each fresh variation on "she's a cunt and worth fuck all to no-one" that comes his way. She's no more of a cunt than he is. She's fucked up and halfways deranged and broken in bits over never having lived up to what she and others thought she was capable of, and her pursuit of her own Maidenhead is every bit as pitiable and pathetic and relatable as George's. She uses people, but so does he. She relies in large part on the affections of others to make loose kind of sense of herself, and so does he. He's not just jealous of the men that she draws towards her, he's jealous of her and the lure that she has. All of his time is spent lamenting the fact that he isn't better thought of by this one or that or the other, and when he does find someone that thinks well of him, it's not enough. It's not enough that A thinks he's wonderful if B hasn't realised that yet. That's a large part of his love for Netta. He delights in the thought of people looking on him with envy and awe if Netta were to give herself to him (and it's worth noting that it's only after it becomes clear to him that people he respects don't actually see in her what he thinks they do, and so she might not be the shortcut to adulation that he's after, that he finally summons the nerve - and his body behaves itself for long enough - to actually kill her!). He's trying to use her every bit as much as she's managing to use him, and every bit as much as she's trying to use Eddie Carstairs. She takes money off him, but she wouldn't take it if it wasn't offered, and his reasons for offering are every bit as selfish and self-serving as her reasons for accepting. If George could do what Netta does he would. What St Augustine said about children in the Confessions came to mind fairly often as I was reading. The thing about how the purity and the goodness of the child is an illusion, that it would be the worst cunt in creation if it could be, it's just that it's physically impossible. That doesn't make George or Netta bad people. Fucked up people with fucked up ways of thinking and the self esteem of hot shit, certainly, but only George is given the benefit of the doubt by Hamilton. Least that's how it came across to me.

But, I did find much to love in the book, nonetheless. Like Janie Jones I was floored by the relationship with the cat. Pathos for a fleet. And the ending kicked me in the gut, even though it was inevitable.

A complicated affair, altogether, full of humanity and empathy when it suits it, deeply unpleasant and judgemental when that's what's required. Or is it? Maybe it's more complicated still. Maybe it's just that George is misogynistic and unpleasant, and it just so happens that we're situated with him, so that's the colour things take. I don't know. In any case I'll be reading more of the man, for as I said, the thing was brilliant, nasty though it often was.