Scan barcode
A review by chirson
Never Mind by Edward St Aubyn
3.0
Sometimes reading a very cruel book can feel like (oh, forgive me for saying this, but it's the most accurate word here) self-care. Brings a degree of catharsis to some readers and clearly was cathartic to write. It is clearly not a book for everyone: it's a (famously autobiographical) novel about a bunch of awful people (ranging from criminally evil sadists to complicit victims to self-satisfied hypocrites) over the course of a very short time, abusing a child (in a variety of ways) or allowing the abuse to go on, all the while indulging in English upper-class pursuit of saying mean things to and about each other (with the exception of one character too drunk to say much) . After all, "what redeemed life from complete horror was the almost unlimited number of things to be nasty about" (Chapter 11).
All the same, it's a novel that is simultaneously self-indulgent and unsparing. It's deeply satirical and funny (I laughed out loud regularly, in fact, cringe comedy as this was), distanced, distancing and intimate.
It's a pity I read it now and not a week and a half ago: it's just the sort of "people at their most terrible" book that would have put my petty annoyances around Christmas at the right perspective.
I found it interesting though not earth-shattering, and will try the next volume sometime soon-ish.
All the same, it's a novel that is simultaneously self-indulgent and unsparing. It's deeply satirical and funny (I laughed out loud regularly, in fact, cringe comedy as this was), distanced, distancing and intimate.
It's a pity I read it now and not a week and a half ago: it's just the sort of "people at their most terrible" book that would have put my petty annoyances around Christmas at the right perspective.
I found it interesting though not earth-shattering, and will try the next volume sometime soon-ish.