It's a trite thing to say about a rom-com: "New York City is almost like a third protagonist! New York City is a character in this story!" But, for "Never Mind," in "Patrick Melrose," the setting really does feel like a character. The setting is Lacoste, in France.
So many non-living things seem to become enchanted; it's like we're watching a perverse version of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." In the early moments, we see Yvette, the earthy domestic servant, stopped in her tracks by David Melrose. (David stands on a perch, a little balcony high above; we see him here, over and over, and we think of the shooter in Las Vegas; eventually, David makes the comparison explicit. "If I had a machine gun, I could stand here and decimate the valley.") David studies Yvette and understands that she is uncomfortable, talking to a monster, holding a heavy tray. (The novels will return a few times to the problem of the complicit staff. One of David's many acts of evil is to make other adults into co-conspirators. The adult Patrick Melrose will recall a letter from a maid who said, "I could hear him raping you, and I never did anything." This is more than Patrick will ever receive from his own mother.) As David thinks of various ways to unnerve Yvette, he realizes it's best just to let her stand there, suffering with the heavy tray. We hear the silverware trembling. Eventually, David says, "Do be careful with Eleanor's dinnerware. It is--well, literally--priceless." Yvette scurries away, and we exhale; the possibility of the broken plates and broken glasses makes us think of other things that will break, or have broken, or could break, in this story (Eleanor, Patrick, the skin on Patrick's hand, the rotting planks of wood that cover the well, and remember David's threat to Patrick: "If you tell anyone what we did, I will snap you in half").
A lovely chair "really belongs to some Renaissance doge, in Venice." David "likes to grind out his cigars on the end of the arm." Nicholas Pratt--aware that David might feel enraged by an intruder--leaps out of the chair. "I don't actually think," says Eleanor, "David would sit there with you already in the chair." Nicholas is not so naive: "That's just because no one has ever tested David before."
The property invites many admiring bits of commentary. "We had thought," says Eleanor, "when we moved in, we might turn it into some kind of home for alcoholics." A beat. "And, you know, we really have succeeded in doing that!" (Eleanor--in the form of Jennifer Jason Leigh--is mesmerizing. David Nicholls has found a way to work in the "Save Chad" joke; when Patrick approaches Eleanor, maybe to try to describe the rape, Eleanor says, "Wait, I'm just writing a check for Save the Children." Eleanor attempts to defend her parenting style to her own small child: "I always think it's best not to interfere." She praises the restaurant in one small French village: "Literally every single person here was wiped out by the Nazis but this one chef, and, I'll tell you, that's lucky for us." We think of David's chosen phrase--"snap you in half"--when we see Eleanor torn between her son and her husband. David won't let Eleanor nurse her son; "you will not be bullied by that tyrant." Eleanor, drowning in booze, seems to exit the scene, at least spiritually; we see a husk of a person; the actual, decent life-force seems to draw in, and in, and in, until Eleanor's "pink eyes" are close-to-empty. "I do love when you wear pink. It matches your eyes!")
One of the most brilliant moments has Bridget, a minor character, attempting escape. She has found a young fling who will steal her away from the awful Nicholas Pratt, her date for the weekend. ("Bridget? She'll do for now.") But when Bridget tiptoes out at midnight, and waits by the side of the road, she discovers that her fling has abandoned her. He won't arrive. As Bridget returns--defeated--to the mansion, she finds Eleanor, in a cloud of narcotized smoke, in a car. "You see?" says Eleanor, from her haze. "It's not so easy to get out." This line is directed as much to the audience as it is to Bridget: The house has become a kind of maze, like something from a Beckett play, and there actually isn't an exit. ("You want to judge me?" Eleanor is saying. "You try raising a child while you're still in childhood, and while your husband is a brilliant homosexual pedophile and sadist." The script is asking us if we really haven't ever been complicit in bullying. And, also, we have to measure ourselves against Anne, the hero of this volume, and maybe the hero of the entire cycle of novels. "You're an ass," Anne says to Nicholas Pratt. And then, turning to David: "The only good thing about you is that you make Nicholas uncomfortable.")
"Dialogue is exhausting," says Edward St. Aubyn. "These characters are much more interesting than anyone I've ever actually known. And that takes work." Also, per Henry James: "Every line of dialogue has to be in service of the plot. Dialogue is characters commenting on the story." So, as witty as a line may be, if it doesn't move things along, it's worthless. "Never Mind" is about getting Eleanor to a crisis point: It needs to establish stakes, to show us Eleanor torn between taking a stand and simply complying, and it needs to show us the devastation left over once she has made her choice. It needs to lay the groundwork for Patrick's shattering realization in adulthood: In a way, his mother has been as monstrous as his father. It succeeds while feeling casual and seamless--without interruption--as if it were a dream. I also think of Maurice Sendak, borrowing various childhood memories of his uncles and aunts to draw the beasts in "Where the Wild Things Are." Till next time!
P.S. In the shower, having written today's post, I couldn't help but think of all the terrible caretakers in the Melrose novels. There are David and Eleanor, who win top prize, but then there's also Kettle. And Belinda's nanny in "Some Hope." And Jilly Packer ("Mother's Milk"), commenting on the babysitter: "Lazy bitch. She spends the whole day gawping at HELLO! magazine and eating Ben and Jerry's ice cream. A bit like her employer, you might say, hem-hem, but it's costing me a fortune whereas SHE'S getting paid." Clearly, negligent, or lazy, childcare is a favorite theme of St. Aubyn's. ("Parents! You're just getting over how badly they've taken care of you--when you have to turn around and start badly taking care of them!")
P.P.S. The attention to space, and the use of dialogue, reminds me of Ivy Compton-Burnett. When we say, "There's no getting out," we're not just talking about the literal difficulties (maze-like roads, broken-down cars) you might find in the Lacoste landscape. (We're really talking about something spiritual/metaphysical.) And when we entertain the thought of David sitting on top of Nicholas, on some level, we're thinking about murderous obliteration. David could actually remove Nicholas from the planet; the thought is not that far-fetched. So the material is something more than kitchen-sink realism. It's heightened. It's also a horror story. It's also a farce.
So many non-living things seem to become enchanted; it's like we're watching a perverse version of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." In the early moments, we see Yvette, the earthy domestic servant, stopped in her tracks by David Melrose. (David stands on a perch, a little balcony high above; we see him here, over and over, and we think of the shooter in Las Vegas; eventually, David makes the comparison explicit. "If I had a machine gun, I could stand here and decimate the valley.") David studies Yvette and understands that she is uncomfortable, talking to a monster, holding a heavy tray. (The novels will return a few times to the problem of the complicit staff. One of David's many acts of evil is to make other adults into co-conspirators. The adult Patrick Melrose will recall a letter from a maid who said, "I could hear him raping you, and I never did anything." This is more than Patrick will ever receive from his own mother.) As David thinks of various ways to unnerve Yvette, he realizes it's best just to let her stand there, suffering with the heavy tray. We hear the silverware trembling. Eventually, David says, "Do be careful with Eleanor's dinnerware. It is--well, literally--priceless." Yvette scurries away, and we exhale; the possibility of the broken plates and broken glasses makes us think of other things that will break, or have broken, or could break, in this story (Eleanor, Patrick, the skin on Patrick's hand, the rotting planks of wood that cover the well, and remember David's threat to Patrick: "If you tell anyone what we did, I will snap you in half").
A lovely chair "really belongs to some Renaissance doge, in Venice." David "likes to grind out his cigars on the end of the arm." Nicholas Pratt--aware that David might feel enraged by an intruder--leaps out of the chair. "I don't actually think," says Eleanor, "David would sit there with you already in the chair." Nicholas is not so naive: "That's just because no one has ever tested David before."
The property invites many admiring bits of commentary. "We had thought," says Eleanor, "when we moved in, we might turn it into some kind of home for alcoholics." A beat. "And, you know, we really have succeeded in doing that!" (Eleanor--in the form of Jennifer Jason Leigh--is mesmerizing. David Nicholls has found a way to work in the "Save Chad" joke; when Patrick approaches Eleanor, maybe to try to describe the rape, Eleanor says, "Wait, I'm just writing a check for Save the Children." Eleanor attempts to defend her parenting style to her own small child: "I always think it's best not to interfere." She praises the restaurant in one small French village: "Literally every single person here was wiped out by the Nazis but this one chef, and, I'll tell you, that's lucky for us." We think of David's chosen phrase--"snap you in half"--when we see Eleanor torn between her son and her husband. David won't let Eleanor nurse her son; "you will not be bullied by that tyrant." Eleanor, drowning in booze, seems to exit the scene, at least spiritually; we see a husk of a person; the actual, decent life-force seems to draw in, and in, and in, until Eleanor's "pink eyes" are close-to-empty. "I do love when you wear pink. It matches your eyes!")
One of the most brilliant moments has Bridget, a minor character, attempting escape. She has found a young fling who will steal her away from the awful Nicholas Pratt, her date for the weekend. ("Bridget? She'll do for now.") But when Bridget tiptoes out at midnight, and waits by the side of the road, she discovers that her fling has abandoned her. He won't arrive. As Bridget returns--defeated--to the mansion, she finds Eleanor, in a cloud of narcotized smoke, in a car. "You see?" says Eleanor, from her haze. "It's not so easy to get out." This line is directed as much to the audience as it is to Bridget: The house has become a kind of maze, like something from a Beckett play, and there actually isn't an exit. ("You want to judge me?" Eleanor is saying. "You try raising a child while you're still in childhood, and while your husband is a brilliant homosexual pedophile and sadist." The script is asking us if we really haven't ever been complicit in bullying. And, also, we have to measure ourselves against Anne, the hero of this volume, and maybe the hero of the entire cycle of novels. "You're an ass," Anne says to Nicholas Pratt. And then, turning to David: "The only good thing about you is that you make Nicholas uncomfortable.")
"Dialogue is exhausting," says Edward St. Aubyn. "These characters are much more interesting than anyone I've ever actually known. And that takes work." Also, per Henry James: "Every line of dialogue has to be in service of the plot. Dialogue is characters commenting on the story." So, as witty as a line may be, if it doesn't move things along, it's worthless. "Never Mind" is about getting Eleanor to a crisis point: It needs to establish stakes, to show us Eleanor torn between taking a stand and simply complying, and it needs to show us the devastation left over once she has made her choice. It needs to lay the groundwork for Patrick's shattering realization in adulthood: In a way, his mother has been as monstrous as his father. It succeeds while feeling casual and seamless--without interruption--as if it were a dream. I also think of Maurice Sendak, borrowing various childhood memories of his uncles and aunts to draw the beasts in "Where the Wild Things Are." Till next time!
P.S. In the shower, having written today's post, I couldn't help but think of all the terrible caretakers in the Melrose novels. There are David and Eleanor, who win top prize, but then there's also Kettle. And Belinda's nanny in "Some Hope." And Jilly Packer ("Mother's Milk"), commenting on the babysitter: "Lazy bitch. She spends the whole day gawping at HELLO! magazine and eating Ben and Jerry's ice cream. A bit like her employer, you might say, hem-hem, but it's costing me a fortune whereas SHE'S getting paid." Clearly, negligent, or lazy, childcare is a favorite theme of St. Aubyn's. ("Parents! You're just getting over how badly they've taken care of you--when you have to turn around and start badly taking care of them!")
P.P.S. The attention to space, and the use of dialogue, reminds me of Ivy Compton-Burnett. When we say, "There's no getting out," we're not just talking about the literal difficulties (maze-like roads, broken-down cars) you might find in the Lacoste landscape. (We're really talking about something spiritual/metaphysical.) And when we entertain the thought of David sitting on top of Nicholas, on some level, we're thinking about murderous obliteration. David could actually remove Nicholas from the planet; the thought is not that far-fetched. So the material is something more than kitchen-sink realism. It's heightened. It's also a horror story. It's also a farce.
Comments
Post a Comment