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JACK
The Times
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As a story, Society of Others starts out in a rather plodding way. The first chapter or two there are undertones of that "I want to win a Booker"-style: young man, disenfranchished with life, dislikes his family, life has no direction, etc. I thought I could smell the rest of the story from there. I think at this point I only put the effort in continuing because I related to the character. I underestimated Nicholson as a writer, that isn't where this book heads.
The story isn't like that at at all. It's insane. It's beautiful. It makes no sense, and yet that's the point. In the early chapters there were the subtle undertones of an influence from Banks' 'The Wasp Factory' which were all another red herring (or were they?). It all starts to get uneven, unsettling, unsure... I think that's the point.
The influences here are wide and varied. The narration is often rich, sometimes not particularly well paced, but all rather hypnotic and surreal in its own way - not maddeningly so, but there. The story takes us through a journey that makes no sense yet in the same way, is the only journey that could be taken for this young man.
If this all sounds rather philosophical, rather airy, then yes, that's the point. If you're the sort of person who liked Zen/Motorcycle Maintenance, liked Sophie's World, likes to think, likes to explore your own mind and those of others, this is an enjoyable book. At times it feels like it's trying to be a Clancy or something like Ipcress File, other times it feels like Vonnegut has been at the typewriter and is trying to squeeze some Bokonism in there and other times still it's just a story about a guy who is really, really lost.
And therein lies the clincher - this is all about being lost. It's all about sacrifice and not always the sacrifices you make for others, but those made for you.
I'm going to be reading a lot more Nicholson from now on. I originally considered giving this book 4 stars because the pace shifts and some parts are just wholly unbelievable, and I'm not sure they weren't meant to be. It's hard sometimes to suspend disbelief and there are weak spots here. Whilst the writing sometimes felt patchy to me, on the whole, the overall effect that I walk away with is pretty brilliant. When a novel makes you think a little more about others in the World around you and less about yourself, well, how can you not give it 5 stars?
That's how he meets Marker, a Belgian lorry driver, and how he fetches up in a Communist country fleeing for his life across a ploughed field when Marker's lorry is stopped by the police. From there, the events of this novel take on a surreal edge. He is plunged into a series of almost clichéd situations (getting involved in a `terrorist' gang, rescued by simple peasants, saved by an English-speaking school-teacher - it sometimes reads like the kind of thriller you buy in an airport when you're desperate for something to keep your mind off the corporeality of the self in relation to several tons of metal and air), but somehow you keep reading. The power of art - books, poetry, music, painting - runs through this novel in multiple strands as, again and again our protagonist is thrown up against questions of philosophy, religion and what it means to be alive. Thus we have the strange juxtaposition of thriller action, along with surprisingly involving intellectual and artistic propositions.
I am impatient with novels which refuse to name the protagonist of their story (why not just call him Joe or Jack and have done with it!), and wary of books which purport to impart to their reader messages of great philosophical meaning. But, against all my prejudices, I had to keep reading. The messages do get across, but how can a book with such a contradictory internal construction work? Well, it can't, not really. In the end something has to give, and it is the ending that lets the whole scenario down with, not so much a bang, as a grandiose moment of semi-bafflement. Marrying the thriller to philosophy is an intriguing ambition, but it sets the writer a conundrum. Does one go for a realistic, or a (more honest yet less satisfying) philosophic ending? Given that Nicholson started with realism, it might have been better for the shape and direction of the book if he had also ended with it.
However, I would still recommend this book. It is not so much the destination that is important as what is learned on the journey. Nicholson writes with great energy, intensity and - it feels to me - enjoyment. Yes, the strain of his contradictory elements tests the reader's belief, but Nicholson puts his head down and just goes with the flow and, amazingly enough, it almost works. That is, it works enough to make this book a thoroughly intriguing and often enjoyable read.
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