A few weeks ago I went to the Royal Society of Literature’s panel at the British Library as part of their move to find the Nation’s Favourite Second Novel (as they pointed out on the night, this had caused no end of confusion as lots of people thought they were seeking out the Nation’s Second Favourite novel). You can read all about the unsurprising but deserving winner here.
I’d thought growing up in London, with a mother who instructed me in no uncertain terms when I was about six that I was never to approach famous people even if they were Adam Ant, meant I was celebrity immune. But apparently this is because I’m crossing paths with the wrong type of celebrity. Put me in a room where Evie Wyld is on the panel and Eimear McBride is in the audience and the result is mass evacuation because I have spontaneously combusted with excitement.
Anyhoo….this rambling preamble is to say I’ve chosen second novels as the theme for this post, one from the RSL list and one off-piste.
Firstly, Thirst by Kerry Hudson (2015) which I was looking forward to because I’d really enjoyed Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma. It tells the story of Alena and Dave as they fall in love over the course of a hot summer in London.
“he’d forgotten the sickness, right down to the soles of your feet, of wanting. To want and maybe allow yourself to have it and maybe be wanted back. He’d forgotten how terrifying wanting and having could be.”
It’s a sweet story, and about two people who aren’t often represented in literature: someone on low wage living above a kebab shop and an illegal immigrant. It’s a simple tale in many ways, charting the course of a romantic relationship. But there are potential complexities from the past of both Dave and Alena. Neither has behaved particularly well, and their secrets threaten the happiness they find with each other. Alena especially is in genuine danger:
“Dave only ran in the mornings but she was running all the time. She sustained herself on a diet of him, his kisses, his voice, his nearness. She sustained herself on promises, and silent deals and thoughts of three days time.”
Thirst is not as strong as Tony Hogan, which had verve and raw tenderness that this doesn’t quite match. However, it’s a touching story and Hudson’s talent lifts the story above its rather simple premise. She excels at capturing beauty in places where it’s seldom recognised. She has a compassionate but unsentimental understanding of people and of both the damage and healing that can occur through love.
“As if she knew, lurking in the dark parts that had stayed, unbidden, inside her, that as soon as autumn did come, bringing the reek of dead leaves and fires and a cold that whispered across your skin like a lie, her old bad luck would be back too.”
Secondly, from the RSL second novels list, Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926). This thinly-disguised biography describes the lives of American ex-pats living in Paris in the 1920s, who then travel to Pamplona to see the running of the bulls and enjoy the fiesta.
“We ate dinner at Madame Lecomte’s restaurant on the far side of the island. It was crowded with Americans and we had to stand up and wait for a place. Someone had put it in the American Women’s Club list as a quaint restaurant on the Paris quais as yet untouched by Americans so we had to wait forty five minutes for a table.”
It is narrated by Jake, a veteran whose war wound has rendered him impotent. He is in love with aristocratic Brett Ashley who ricochets from man to man.
“The dancing kept up, the drinking kept up, the noise went on. The things that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as if nothing could have any consequences.”
There is also much evidence of Hemingway’s love of bullfighting, which thankfully is not dwelt upon; there was only one passage that this blood-sport adverse reader had to skip. Jake loves the bullfight so much he is accepted by the aficionados as one of their own:
“Somehow it was taken for granted that an American could not have aficion. He might simulate it or confuse it with excitement, but he could not really have it. When they saw that I had aficion, and there was no password, no set questions that could bring it out, rather it was a sort of spiritual examination”
At first I thought this might be the end of my love affair with Hemingway. His simple prose style which offers such distilled beauty in his later writing seemed too basic here. But then I realised this was absolutely a stroke of genius. The novel is about the lost generation, the title taken from Ecclesiastes, referring to the insignificance and transience of humans:
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
The simple, almost detached, documentary style of the novel effectively captures the numb rootlessness of a generation who have endured great trauma and are now surviving without knowing exactly what their purpose is. This isn’t depressing – there is humour, such as the wise aphorism I’ll certainly bear in mind: “Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs.” But there is bleakness to it, not least the anti-Semitism voiced by some characters, foreshadowing the devastation of the Holocaust.
Fiesta is a brilliantly observed, deceptively simple portrait of a particular group at a particular time, but with something to say beyond its immediate context, about the struggle of the individual to find meaning in the world.
“There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that could not prevent happening. Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy. It seemed they were all such nice people.”
To end, totally unrelated to the post: over Easter I was given a delicious haul of cheese and now I’ve eaten so much I’m worried I’ve become half-human, half-dairy product:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UWepLNUEiA
madame bibi lophile recommends 
I rather liked Thirst – Kerry Hudson is certainly a very witty and careful observer of human nature and society. And yes, that’s not my favourite Hemingway (well, I prefer his short stories to his novels – too much masculinity running rampant over many pages in the novels).
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She certainly is – hopefully it won’t be long before her third novel 🙂
I’ve not read any of Hemingway’s short stories but I think I’ve got Men Without Women buried somewhere in the TBR, I’ll have to dig it out.
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And I completely understand the love of cheese, by the way…
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I really love cheese, but I’ve seriously overindulged
It was totally worth it.
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I have a stack of Hemingway that I’ve been too scared to read in case it sends me into a misogyny induced coma. However, every time I browse his books, I’ve been bowled over by the musicality of the prose, the sparse syncopation. They could well become my new guilty pleasure. I shall start with this.
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It’s a source of constant amazement to me how much I like Hemingway’s writing. I don’t need to like someone whose art I admire (I adore Ezra Pound’s poetry and he was a total fascist) so I’m really not a Hemingway apologist, but I didn’t think the portrayal of Brett was misogynistic. Some readers think she’s a real bitch but I thought he just presented her behaviour without judgment, and it’s clear how unhappy she is because her and Jake can’t be together fully. I’d be really interested to hear what you think when you read it!
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My favorite novel of the year (so far and I think it’s likely this will last) is Version Control by Dexter Palmer, a second novel. I just found a copy of his first novel, but I’m not expecting too much from it. Some talents take a while to develop fully.
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Definitely – for some they put everything into that first novel and struggle to produce a second, but for others they’re learning their craft and get better and better. I think the immense competition now means we see fewer of those ‘craft-learning’ novels but they probably rest unpublished in many writers drawers!
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Such an interesting post. I frequently bang on about the disappointment of the second novel but there are some gems on the RSL list – Maps for Lost Lovers and The Magic Toyshop, for instance.
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Yes, I was really surprised by the strength of many of the novels on the list, as they are supposed to be so notoriously difficult. I’ve not read Maps for Lost Lovers but I want to. The Magic Toyshop is just brilliant.
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Second novels is such a fun theme! I didn’t realize Pride & Prejudice was a second novel, but I must admit I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about second novels. I think my vote would be for Donna Tartt’s The Little Friend, which I think is grossly underappreciated in comparison to her other two works!
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That’s really interesting – I have The Little Friend in my TBR where it has lay languishing for years, because I only ever hear it compared negatively to her other novels. It’s great to hear that you rate it – I’ll have to dust it off & get reading!
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The equivalent of that difficult second album for musicians I suppose! I have the Hemingway and really should read it, but the thought of the macho element and the bull fighting keeps putting me off!
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Yes, I think it is like the second album, trying to come up with new ideas when you feel you’ve poured all you are into that first offering!
I didn’t think this was too bad on the bullfighting front, definitely more manageable than I was expecting – I skipped one bit and also a fishing scene. I think Death in the Afternoon is worse for the bloodsports, I’m not sure I’m up to reading that…
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I’m going to have to send the cheese song to my sister who loves cheese with a passion and will be the perfect audience for it!
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Your sister must be a very sound person, of exquisite taste 😉
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I surprised myself by rather loving The Sun Also Rises in the end, even the bullfighting rituals which I found fascinating. The description of the bus trip to Pamplona has stayed clear in my mind, which rarely happens. Though there were passages of such extraordinary dullness I feared I may slip into a coma, and I always get a tad frustrated that everyone comments on the anti-Semitism and ignores the anti-Scottishism… though in truth I felt both were lazy stereotypes more than anything else.
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It surprised me too! I don’t mind hearing about rituals but I really, really don’t want to hear about the event itself.
I think the danger of such stripped back writing is that if it doesn’t grab the reader, it does seem interminable…
I think the anti-Semitism is so chilling because we know where it leads in the following decades, but yes, some of the group are shown to be total bigots with ignorant attitudes towards many.
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Was the cheese at least egg-shaped? I have added ‘Thirst’ to my list, and I should probably re-read Hemingway, I read a lot of him when I was a stupid teenager, in order to impress strangers at the train station. I missed all the finer points, and have only a basic recollection of each book.
And I’m sure Adam Ant is no longer on the list of people who can’t be approached. Now he’s not a mega star and now we’ve passed the excitable stage of sinking our teeth into his clothes and clinging on like a Jack Russell with a chew toy, it’s would be fine to say hello, maybe give him an awkward high 5 followed by a frantic curtsy. 😉
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It was ball shaped – they’re called Cheese Bombs and they are *delicious* – I’d do it all again, I tell ya.
I hope the strangers were very impressed! My memory fades on practically everything I read, but I’ve felt better about this ever since one of my tutors – who specialised in early modern literature- told me she couldn’t remember any plots, including the end of Shakespeare plays. It means we can enjoy what we’ve read all over again at least 😉
I’m afraid I can’t guarantee I’m past my excitable Jack Russell phase when it comes to Adam 😀
I hope you enjoy Thirst!
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