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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Much ado about nothing, 31 May 2005
Sarah Hall's second novel is a dance of burlesque characters. The main one is Cy Parks, a tattooist who learns his trade in Morecambe Bay of the 20s under the tutelage of a larger-than-life drunk called Eliot Riley. Later, Cy leaves that seafront resort for its brasher US equivalent, Coney Island. Both the setting and Cy's profession give Hall an opportunity to linger at the frailty of our bodies and our souls, something she does with a great deal of compassion. Even so, she seems to relish the decline of bodies and of places: it's all dying consumptives, alcoholics, the glamour of the sea-side slipping away. At times, she includes bursts of violence that shock by the extent of their viciousness. The subterranean art of tattoos stands for some deeper struggle, the book suggests; it's part of how we face the world and ourselves. The first pages of The Electric Michelangelo blew me away. It's written in an astonishing restless, easy flow that reminds me of Zadie Smith at her best, though with less humour and more poetry. A couple of chapters later, I was falling out of love with the book. Perhaps it was the dearth of dialogue or storytelling drive that was starting to take its toll. A lot is going on - there are illegal abortions, near-death in the quick sands of Morecambe Bay, electrocuted elephants - but somehow these dramatic events are so embedded in descriptions that they seem more of an afterthought than the backbone of the novel. And be honest, when you skip something as you read along, is it dialogue or is it descriptions? That is not to say that these passages lack originality or beauty. There are many unexpected metaphors to savour, but their impact is lessened by the sheer wordiness of it all. Every single thing is the subject of so much symbolism that the style grows too laboured, in spite of all its bawdy irreverence. Shouldn't good writers work like magicians and conceal their tricks from the world? And shouldn't good writing be easy to read, not make you feel as though you're swimming through jelly? Suddenly I was reminded of Stella Gibbon's parody "Cold Comfort Farm", where she takes the mickey out of over-literary writers, and once I had seen the book through those goggles, I just couldn't shake it off. After all, sometimes a tattoo is just a tattoo.
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