Customer Reviews

Trouble: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This novel, entitled "Affliction' in the UK, was torn apart by most critics over here when it first appeared. The reason? It was too close to the truth, which is a rather odd criticism of a novel. Weldon's own marriage of 30 years had ended in a bitter divorce that was more or less carried out in public. In my view this actually adds fire to the book, which is breathtakingly unputdownable. The mental torture, the phoney therapy, the increasing impossibility for the female protagonist of distinguishing fact from fiction, the negation of memory and the horror of isolation ring absolutely true, and make for a gripping read that will pierce the heart of anyone who has ever experienced the breaking-down of a relationship. Through all of this, Weldon maintains her inimitable ironic detachment and her blacker than black sense of humour. A fiery, miniature masterpiece.

Very witty novel written almost entirely in dialogue, which show the lengths a psychobabbler husband, Spicer will go to to destroy the psyche of of his wife, Annette. Weldon again demonstrates wittily and savagly the way the war between the sexes has not ended with Bluebeard. "Best" friends, neigbors, mothers, etc. all have agendas of their own, and not kind ones, either. Spicer goes so far as to tape record Annetes phone calls to his office, and then play them on the loudspeaker for the benefit of his secretary, Wendy. Wendy is quick to tell Annette, I support you Annette, even if you do have a history of emotional problems. Spicer is brilliantly drawn as a mind-destroying monster to end all monsters, but the books ending is weak, and unsatisfying, without the typical rallying of the heroine and her "revenge-getting" tactics one finds in so many other of Weldons books. This ending is a very limp, rather sad solution to Annetes problems, but a very funny read until then. Try Worst Fears, also by Weldon, for a satisfying ending to a much-abused heroines retaliation on her "nearest and dearest"?

The way hubby Spicer re-interprets everything his worried wife tries to say or do to save their - up to now - normally happy marriage as an assault to himself, the way he turns around and acts sweet the minute she either does what he wants or seems ready to leave him, only to mingle stones among the pralines and ruin it again, so that in the end she almost belives everything he insinuates makes your skin crawl and your adrenaline go up. On the other hand this is a book without the typical Weldon finish of the woman's revenge, which helps to make her books so enjoyable, despite the bitter criticism of (not only male) behaviour, that many women recognize from their own experience.

Weldon's "Trouble" brilliantly captures how being engulfed in a powerful relationship can cause one's perception of reality to falter. It pulls this off in a way I don't think I've seen before in fiction. I found the book extremely engrossing and was amazed by how much Annette is transformed by the sad, sad ending: from a confident, witty writer to a simpering, apologetic, self-doubting and very ill shadow of her former self. I was disappointed, as others have said, by how two-dimensional the "bad guys" were; Spicer was pure, pure evil, and the other characters are either just as bad or total morons, making this book a bit too bitter to be believable. Nevertheless, it's absolutely worth reading and very hard to put down.

This is a slim volume to hold so much satire, yet it does. Followers of Fay Weldon's tragic/comic chronicles of dour domestic bliss will find the author again coming through with wry.

Living in London with her husband, Spicer, and their two children from former marriages, Annette Horrocks appears to have everything any woman could wish - her first novel will soon be published and she is expecting a baby. But, in true Weldonesque fashion, this idyll unravels.

Possessing a sharp eye and an equally sharp pen, the author seems to have more of a following among women than men. That should be the case with Trouble, yet Weldon surprises as it isn't only a woman's story.

The author of some twenty novels and short story collections, Weldon has the ability to make the banal sharply bright and everyday experiences stand out in bold dramatic relief. She's not a sexist - she skewers the foibles of both men and women with equal aplomb.

Despite the fact that the characters in "Trouble" are mostly more or less normal post-modern professionals going throgh typical identity and relationship conflicts, it does not feel at all like a "soap opera" or other fodder for daytime television. Weldon could easily teach Seinfeld and Tarantino a thing or two about gritty, realistic dialogue and making the trivial fascinating. Annette seems like such a real person that I could scarcely put the book down and read it in about two days. Spicer's pseudo-Jungian New Age obsessions were also so hillarious that I had to keep reading just to see how irrational,deluded and self-obsessed he could become.

Having thoroughly enjoyed the author's other works "The Life and Loves of a She Devil" and "Remember Me", I was looking forward to more of the same. Unfortunately after I had got about a third of the way into this dreary tale of woe, the only sensation was one of annoyance.

The "heroine", Annette, starts out as being slightly neurotic and then proceeds to totter, quite willingly it seems, to full-blown co-dependency via whinging, whining and manipulation of her (admittedly dreadful) partner. Hasn't the woman got any choice but to stay with Spicer? Is this able-bodied, upper-middle class woman really so bereft of other options?

Granted, the supporting characters are very nicely drawn, more interesting than the central ones, alas.

And as for Spicer, a more two-dimensional hiss-boo musical hall villain has seldom been committed to print in modern literature.

Add to the mix some ludicrous impossibilities (would the two psychotherapists really have been allowed to set up a practice? Would no-one have checked into their past?) and you're left with a dull, tedious pot-boiler that leaves you wondering what such a talented writer was thinking of...

Apparently so stupid that she ignores her own health care to the point of tragedy. Up to that point I had a bit of sympathy for her but she has no one to blame but herself for what she does to her baby. I had no sympathy for her from this point on at all.

I can't believe I read the whole dismal book, something in common with those train wrecks you can't quite turn away from. But there wasn't one person in the book that was even likeable much less admirable. If this is the European Sensibility you can have it.