The problem was, it was dull. Painfully so. The story of Colin Saville, son of a Yorkshire coal miner, it explores the early years of his life in detail. Excruciating detail. From before his birth, to childhood, to school, to young adulthood, we see every aspect of Colin's life.
That's not bad in and of itself--the problem is that Colin is a character both passive and opaque. There is no insight to what he actually thinks or feels until more than halfway through the book. Page 356 to be exact--it was such a surprise to actually get some insight to his character that I remembered the page number.
Even that brief glimpse of enlightenment turns out to be a bit of a mirage, as after that, he never describes his thoughts or his feelings himself--instead, he only denies whatever words of description anyone else ever applies toward him. "No" is his most-used word.
Though he remains as opaque as ever, he does break out of his passivity--sort of. He transforms from an obliging youth to a bitter, whiny, self-centered young man, always ready to lay the blame onto others. Though I believe the term was not widely used at the time the novel was written and published, Colin appears to be the epitome of the passive-aggressive type.
Essentially, Saville is the story of the tragedy that occurs when a person of limited ambition does what he is told to do, but then finds himself unhappy with his reward. Such a story is certainly worth telling, but Saville isn't it. It's one of those novels where everything interesting happens offstage, and the truly interesting characters are only bit players in the story.
The novel ends with the protagonist finally leaving home, striking out independently for the first time in his life, going beyond the village that he hadn't left before--but the novel stops before he's actually even left yet. That's the story I want to read. I don't want to wallow in the story of a failure--I want to see what he does about it. It's no fun being in the head of a person with no passion. I want to find out what plans he has, what goals he's going to set.
With a completely passive protagonist, the novel is a massive exercise in frustration.
I read a quote from Francis King, who was one of the jury members the year that Saville won the Booker prize. She claims that it won solely because the other two jury members were a committed socialistic poet, and the wife of a Labour Prime Minister, respectively, and because they saw Saville as a piece of Socialist literature. Well, that's as may be, but that hardly seems to be a valid reason for rewarding an author.
Next up: Staying On by Paul Scott.
Postscript: I just want to quote the blurb on the back of the paperback edition that I read:
Against the harsh beauty of a Yorkshire landscape swept up in the turbulent passions of overwhelming social change, SAVILLE unfolds the rich human saga of a gifted young man's fierce struggle to achieve a higher destiny--one that would tear him from everyone he loved.
Colin Saville, coal miner's son, a deeply driven and complex man, fulfills his father's dream and his own consuming ambition when he wins the scholarship that will take him beyond his parents' humble world--and the two women who loved him--to a life they can neither accept nor understand.
What a load of baloney. That sounds nothing like the book I read or the protagonist in the book. What kind of bodice-ripping romantic figure are they trying to turn him into? This is an example of why marketing people are evil.
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