The Hunters – Claire Messud (2001) 86 pages

Earlier in the month I read A Simple Tale, the first of two novellas by Claire Messud collected under the title The Hunters. I was so impressed I wanted to read more by her, so on this last day I decided to return and read the titular tale.

It is very different to the previous story, although there are thematic links, and while I didn’t love it quite so much, it definitely convinced me that Messud is a skilled, versatile writer that I should explore further.

An unnamed narrator, whose gender is never revealed, takes a flat in Kilburn for three months while they undertake some research into poetic considerations of death. (There were extended descriptions of Kilburn which as a Londoner had me rolling my eyes at the snobbery/inaccuracy but I’ll be generous and say Kilburn has changed a lot in the 22 years since this was written so maybe it was a bit less lovable in 2001).

They are recovering from a broken heart, and desire nothing more than to be left alone. In Rear Window style, the flat looks out onto other flats, and this is what most appeals:

“I was at a time in which I desired exactly that: the suggestion of society, without its actual impingement into my carefully controlled existence. This is why, also, the people flitting among their trappings in the houses opposite so appealed to me: they were at once there and not there, a sign that life continued, even if it had nothing to do with me.”

Unfortunately for the narrator, they are unable to keep a pane of glass between themselves and other people, because their downstairs neighbour arrives on their doorstep. Ridley Wandor is a woman who lives in the ground floor flat with her mother and three rabbits (the titular Hunters). She is not glamorous; she has greasy hair, indistinct features, and a worn garish shellsuit. She smells of her pets. Her awkward manner is irritating and the narrator refers to her as an “oblique suet of a woman”.

Yet Ridley has power. She explains to her neighbour that as a carer, all her clients keep dying. The narrator is fearful of her:

“As if I knew – I did know, of course I knew; whether that knowing was a premonition or a predetermination – that I would not be able to escape her. That’s assault of the doorbell, which had so set me to trembling, was but the first of many such assaults;”

I can’t say too much more about what happens for fear of spoilers, but what Messud does in the story is to brilliantly confound expectations. The echoes of well-known horror/suspense films are there: Rear Window, Misery, possibly even Psycho. The narrator falls for these tropes and takes the reader with them.

Then, the narrator is very clear in explaining, they were wrong. They met Ridley at a time when they were vulnerable, defensive and not very generous. They thought of her as an “oblique suet”; a cruel and unthinking, dehumanising conclusion. Once they are in a better place, they view the story differently. They stop falling back on tales already told and subsequently see Ridley as an individual, deserving of respect:

“Which is why, you see, it must be told. Precisely in order to transcend its storyness, to make clear that this is not the invented story of a woman who existed only in my imagination, but the real story of a flesh-and-blood, breathing, sentient creature, someone far more real than I ever wanted or allowed her to be.”

The destabilising of the narrative isn’t remotely frustrating. Rather it widens the story to demonstrate the need to see life afresh and also to remember Anaïs Nin’s assertion: “We see the world not as it is, but as we are.”

The Hunters is a plea to not lose compassion at those times when we are not feeling compassionate; to be kind to those who encroach when we really want to be left alone – because we never know what is happening for someone at the times when they cross our path.

The positioning of the reader is very cleverly done in this respect. I didn’t like the narrator much at the start: snarky, judgemental, selfish. Yet as they had explained clearly, they were in a bad place, a place of pain. By the end of the story they are happier, and more pleasant as a result. So I shouldn’t be so quick to judge…

The Hunters is an evocative, sad, unnerving story that I’m certain will stay with me.

So that’s it – another month of novellas that has gone by in a flash! It was definitely looking unlikely at several points that I’d manage it but I’m glad I did. Thank you so much to everyone who has liked, commented and shared, I really do appreciate it.

It’s been great to see Simon doing his BookADayinMay posts too, and his achievement is far more impressive because he reads and posts the same day, whereas I give myself a headstart that somehow never manages to offset the panic/feeling of impending failure 😀

Last year after I’d finished I decided to read a massive tome, namely Ulysses. I thought I’d do the same this year (but first a Daphne Du Maurier novel, because I was disappointed not to manage Ali’s #DDMReadingWeek) and I’d appreciate some guidance from the lovely bookish blogosphere…

The chunksters longest languishing in the TBR are: The Magic Mountain; Parade’s End; Bleak House; Sophie’s Choice. I also have a recent acquisition of the thousand-page, single sentence Ducks, Newburyport. I think I’m tending towards Parade’s End but any and all opinions on which I should choose are welcome! If it’s Ducks… I have a seven hour train journey to Aberdeen at the end of June, so it may even get read 😀