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Patrick Melrose #1-4
The Patrick Melrose Novels
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
An Atlantic Magazine Best Book of the Year
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
“The Melrose Novels are a masterwork for the twenty-first century, written by one of the great prose stylists in England.” —Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
For more than twenty years, acclaimed author Edward St. Aubyn has chronicled the life of Patrick Melrose, painting an extraordinary portrait of the beleaguered and self-loathing world of privilege. This single volume collects the first four novels—Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother’s Milk, a Man Booker finalist—to coincide with the publication of At Last, the final installment of this unique novel cycle.
By turns harrowing and hilarious, these beautifully written novels dissect the English upper class as we follow Patrick Melrose’s story from child abuse to heroin addiction and recovery. Never Mind, the first novel, unfolds over a day and an evening at the family’s chateaux in the south of France, where the sadistic and terrifying figure of David Melrose dominates the lives of his five-year-old son, Patrick, and his rich and unhappy American mother, Eleanor. From abuse to addiction, the second novel, Bad News opens as the twenty-two-year-old Patrick sets off to collect his father’s ashes from New York, where he will spend a drug-crazed twenty-four hours. And back in England, the third novel, Some Hope, offers a sober and clean Patrick the possibility of recovery. The fourth novel, the Booker-shortlisted Mother’s Milk, returns to the family chateau, where Patrick, now married and a father himself, struggles with child rearing, adultery, his mother’s desire for assisted suicide, and the loss of the family home to a New Age foundation.
Edward St. Aubyn offers a window into a world of utter decadence, amorality, greed, snobbery, and cruelty—welcome to the declining British aristocracy.
An Atlantic Magazine Best Book of the Year
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
“The Melrose Novels are a masterwork for the twenty-first century, written by one of the great prose stylists in England.” —Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
For more than twenty years, acclaimed author Edward St. Aubyn has chronicled the life of Patrick Melrose, painting an extraordinary portrait of the beleaguered and self-loathing world of privilege. This single volume collects the first four novels—Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother’s Milk, a Man Booker finalist—to coincide with the publication of At Last, the final installment of this unique novel cycle.
By turns harrowing and hilarious, these beautifully written novels dissect the English upper class as we follow Patrick Melrose’s story from child abuse to heroin addiction and recovery. Never Mind, the first novel, unfolds over a day and an evening at the family’s chateaux in the south of France, where the sadistic and terrifying figure of David Melrose dominates the lives of his five-year-old son, Patrick, and his rich and unhappy American mother, Eleanor. From abuse to addiction, the second novel, Bad News opens as the twenty-two-year-old Patrick sets off to collect his father’s ashes from New York, where he will spend a drug-crazed twenty-four hours. And back in England, the third novel, Some Hope, offers a sober and clean Patrick the possibility of recovery. The fourth novel, the Booker-shortlisted Mother’s Milk, returns to the family chateau, where Patrick, now married and a father himself, struggles with child rearing, adultery, his mother’s desire for assisted suicide, and the loss of the family home to a New Age foundation.
Edward St. Aubyn offers a window into a world of utter decadence, amorality, greed, snobbery, and cruelty—welcome to the declining British aristocracy.
689 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
1598 people are currently reading
15955 people want to read
About the author
Edward St. Aubyn
20 books1,194 followersEdward St Aubyn was born in London in 1960. He was educated at Westminster school and Keble college, Oxford University. He is the author of six novels, the most recent of which, ‘Mother’s Milk’, was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, won the 2007 Prix Femina Etranger and won the 2007 South Bank Show award on literature.
His first novel, ‘Never Mind’ (1992) won the Betty Trask award. This novel, along with ‘Bad News’ (1992) and ‘Some Hope’ (1994) became a trilogy, now collectively published under the title ‘Some Hope’.
His other fiction consists of ‘On the Edge’ (1998) which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and A Clue to the Exit (2000).
His first novel, ‘Never Mind’ (1992) won the Betty Trask award. This novel, along with ‘Bad News’ (1992) and ‘Some Hope’ (1994) became a trilogy, now collectively published under the title ‘Some Hope’.
His other fiction consists of ‘On the Edge’ (1998) which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and A Clue to the Exit (2000).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,195 reviews
September 29, 2015
Investors talk often about risk-return tradeoffs. The more volatile an asset is, the higher the expected return has to be to want to hold it. The four short books packaged together as The Patrick Melrose Novels are at the extreme end of the risk-return spectrum. Edward St. Aubyn took big chances hoping the rewards would be commensurate. He risked alienating readers at every turn with characters who are loathsome or over-exposed. And with the depth of the interior development, the potential losses (and gains) in credibility were magnified. Fortunately, from this investor’s point of view, the gamble paid off. It helps to have a taste for an acerbic wit. Realize, too, we’re not talking about vinegar here; more like sulfuric acid.
In novel number one, Patrick is only five years old, living with his family in the south of France where the money from his mother’s side of the family allows them to live haute on the hog. Forgive me for flogging the metaphor, but such dining offers no guarantee against indigestion. Patrick’s father, David, is the primary cause, though his lush of a mother can be faulted, too, for her lack of intervention. David came from an aristocratic English family. He had at one time been a talented pianist and had also been trained as a physician (though one who must have had his fingers crossed when he took the Hippocratic Oath). By the time of this story, he was vile and abusive. Hard-not-to-cringe abusive, in fact. Patrick was a bright boy and, by nature, quite brave, but he lacked the power to stand up to his father.
Much of the first story took place at a dinner party attended by David’s imperious friends. Zingers like this were bandied about:
These people were deplorable snobs, but I figured it was OK to laugh with them as long as I laughed at them, as well. Another subject in this first book was not at all laughable. Many reviews mention it explicitly, but I won’t in case any of you want to read it as I did without knowing. The impact is likely greater that way.
In the second of the four novels, Patrick is in his early twenties and his life is a mess. He’s on a trip to New York to collect his father’s ashes. A dead father is not the source of his trouble, though – a rather nasty drug habit is. His trust fund money is running out fast as he attempts to achieve a delicate balance of smack, coke, booze, ludes, pot and speed. The logistics in maintaining just the right high are complicated, as are any attempts to function in front of his father’s old friends. This was an important novel for the context it gave regarding both Patrick’s life and that of his father who was also a product of family dysfunction.
Book three, called Some Hope, delivers what the title suggests. Patrick is a little older and a lot less addled. The toxicity in this one stems from the shallow lives of the upper crust. A grand party in the English countryside is the primary setting, and one of the attendees is Princess Margaret. St. Aubyn had met her in real life and evidently took advantage of the royal distaste for libel suits because he painted her as the epitome of self-importance with unmitigated disdain for any who were less than sufficiently sycophantic. The cast of smug and disagreeable personalities in this book was a large one. In the end, many had simply merged into a single type. I took this book to be an exercise in self-discovery for St. Aubyn whose own background was not what you’d call ‘common’. He had to identify and ridicule the haughty behavior to set himself apart from it, at least partially. (He’s godfather to Earl Spencer’s son – Lady Di’s nephew – and still a bit of a toff.) His character, Patrick, comes across as well-educated, wicked, and funny; and still intractably damaged.
The fourth book, Mother’s Milk, was short-listed for a Booker. I’m sure that many would find it unfair to single out this one alone for the honor since the first three did so much to take the story to that point. By now Patrick is married and the father of two remarkable boys who share his best traits. His wife dotes on them so thoroughly that there’s no affection left over for him. The bottle becomes his most intimate friend, with a mistress running a distant second. Patrick’s mother gives him trouble, too. She attempted to fill holes in herself by way of charity and ended up being taken in by the oleaginous charms of a New Age spiritualist who convinced her to donate the family estate to his cause. Patrick was essentially disinherited when his soft-headed mum fell prey to the charlatan.
The series ends with a fifth book called At Last, but that was not included in this volume. I’ll review it separately. As you’re no doubt aware, I’m running long as it is.
In case it’s not already obvious, Edward St. Aubyn is Patrick Melrose. He had the same abusive father, the same mother who turned the blind eye in his youth and later gave away their estate, and the same struggles with addiction. In fact, St. Aubyn said he’s lucky to be alive. One day in his early 20’s he woke from a stupor with a syringe in his arm containing what surely would have been a fatal dose had he been unimpaired enough to administer it hours earlier. It’s easy to see how these novels could be viewed as a form of therapy. St. Aubyn decided to present what might otherwise have been a “misery memoir” as fiction instead. He said, "It's more flexible. It goes beyond the mere shrill advancement of a complaint or a confession. I'm more interested in the dramatic truth of how something like cruelty occurs. That can be presented much more persuasively through fiction.”
These books are all about identity. As St. Aubyn said in the same interview, they address ‘Why we are as we are, and whether we have any choice in the matter. The entire Melrose series is explicitly about that, whether we can lead a voluntary life. The most primitive definition of freedom is being able to place your attention where you choose, and Patrick is someone who is drastically unable to do that. His attention is usurped by memories, by addictions, by obsessions.’ Does this deplorable determinism persist throughout? We’d all have to have read the entire series to discuss that. As of book four, though, Patrick was still sorting it out:
Patrick is complicated. I enjoy that, even when the complications are messy. What I enjoyed even more was the writing. I’ve already included a few passages, but want to include a few more to show that it’s witty, wise and urbane.
Four bright, shiny stars for this collection. I can’t quite give it full marks, though, because at times it got to be too much. A lighter touch might have played better over the long haul. I realize that books focused on exorcising demons require evil at cask strength, but the 'bad' to be analyzed in this was just so bloody ubiquitous. At times the cleverness got in the way, too. A character or a trait might have been described as both X and Y where X and Y were negatively correlated and slightly ironic. It was appealing the first few times, but a tad over-used in the end. Even so, when I look back at all the highlighted lines, I realize there were many fewer misses than hits. Recommended for those who can handle occasional excesses for the pleasures of high-risk returns.
In novel number one, Patrick is only five years old, living with his family in the south of France where the money from his mother’s side of the family allows them to live haute on the hog. Forgive me for flogging the metaphor, but such dining offers no guarantee against indigestion. Patrick’s father, David, is the primary cause, though his lush of a mother can be faulted, too, for her lack of intervention. David came from an aristocratic English family. He had at one time been a talented pianist and had also been trained as a physician (though one who must have had his fingers crossed when he took the Hippocratic Oath). By the time of this story, he was vile and abusive. Hard-not-to-cringe abusive, in fact. Patrick was a bright boy and, by nature, quite brave, but he lacked the power to stand up to his father.
Much of the first story took place at a dinner party attended by David’s imperious friends. Zingers like this were bandied about:
'Nothing but the best, or go without'; that was the code he lived by, as long as the 'go without' didn't actually happen.
'The dead are dead,' he went on, 'and the truth is that one forgets about people when they stop coming to dinner. There are exceptions, of course -- namely, the people one forgets during dinner.
'But that's what charm is: being malicious about everybody except the person you are with, who then glows with the privilege of exemption.'
These people were deplorable snobs, but I figured it was OK to laugh with them as long as I laughed at them, as well. Another subject in this first book was not at all laughable. Many reviews mention it explicitly, but I won’t in case any of you want to read it as I did without knowing. The impact is likely greater that way.
In the second of the four novels, Patrick is in his early twenties and his life is a mess. He’s on a trip to New York to collect his father’s ashes. A dead father is not the source of his trouble, though – a rather nasty drug habit is. His trust fund money is running out fast as he attempts to achieve a delicate balance of smack, coke, booze, ludes, pot and speed. The logistics in maintaining just the right high are complicated, as are any attempts to function in front of his father’s old friends. This was an important novel for the context it gave regarding both Patrick’s life and that of his father who was also a product of family dysfunction.
Book three, called Some Hope, delivers what the title suggests. Patrick is a little older and a lot less addled. The toxicity in this one stems from the shallow lives of the upper crust. A grand party in the English countryside is the primary setting, and one of the attendees is Princess Margaret. St. Aubyn had met her in real life and evidently took advantage of the royal distaste for libel suits because he painted her as the epitome of self-importance with unmitigated disdain for any who were less than sufficiently sycophantic. The cast of smug and disagreeable personalities in this book was a large one. In the end, many had simply merged into a single type. I took this book to be an exercise in self-discovery for St. Aubyn whose own background was not what you’d call ‘common’. He had to identify and ridicule the haughty behavior to set himself apart from it, at least partially. (He’s godfather to Earl Spencer’s son – Lady Di’s nephew – and still a bit of a toff.) His character, Patrick, comes across as well-educated, wicked, and funny; and still intractably damaged.
The fourth book, Mother’s Milk, was short-listed for a Booker. I’m sure that many would find it unfair to single out this one alone for the honor since the first three did so much to take the story to that point. By now Patrick is married and the father of two remarkable boys who share his best traits. His wife dotes on them so thoroughly that there’s no affection left over for him. The bottle becomes his most intimate friend, with a mistress running a distant second. Patrick’s mother gives him trouble, too. She attempted to fill holes in herself by way of charity and ended up being taken in by the oleaginous charms of a New Age spiritualist who convinced her to donate the family estate to his cause. Patrick was essentially disinherited when his soft-headed mum fell prey to the charlatan.
The series ends with a fifth book called At Last, but that was not included in this volume. I’ll review it separately. As you’re no doubt aware, I’m running long as it is.
In case it’s not already obvious, Edward St. Aubyn is Patrick Melrose. He had the same abusive father, the same mother who turned the blind eye in his youth and later gave away their estate, and the same struggles with addiction. In fact, St. Aubyn said he’s lucky to be alive. One day in his early 20’s he woke from a stupor with a syringe in his arm containing what surely would have been a fatal dose had he been unimpaired enough to administer it hours earlier. It’s easy to see how these novels could be viewed as a form of therapy. St. Aubyn decided to present what might otherwise have been a “misery memoir” as fiction instead. He said, "It's more flexible. It goes beyond the mere shrill advancement of a complaint or a confession. I'm more interested in the dramatic truth of how something like cruelty occurs. That can be presented much more persuasively through fiction.”
These books are all about identity. As St. Aubyn said in the same interview, they address ‘Why we are as we are, and whether we have any choice in the matter. The entire Melrose series is explicitly about that, whether we can lead a voluntary life. The most primitive definition of freedom is being able to place your attention where you choose, and Patrick is someone who is drastically unable to do that. His attention is usurped by memories, by addictions, by obsessions.’ Does this deplorable determinism persist throughout? We’d all have to have read the entire series to discuss that. As of book four, though, Patrick was still sorting it out:
Nobody ever died of a feeling, he would say to himself, not believing a word of it, as he sweated his way through the feeling that he was dying of fear. People died of feelings all the time, once they had gone through the formality of materializing them into bullets and bottles and tumours. Someone who was organized like him, with utterly chaotic foundations, a quite strongly developed intellect and almost nothing in between desperately needed to develop the middle ground. Without it, he split into a vigilant day mind, a bird of prey hovering over a landscape, and a helpless night mind, a jellyfish splattered on the deck of a ship. 'The Eagle and the Jellyfish', a fable Aesop just couldn't be bothered to write.
Patrick is complicated. I enjoy that, even when the complications are messy. What I enjoyed even more was the writing. I’ve already included a few passages, but want to include a few more to show that it’s witty, wise and urbane.
'It's I-find-everything-boring, therefore I'm fascinating. But it doesn't seem to occur to people that you can't have a world picture and then not be part of it.'
He was just one of those Englishmen who was always saying silly things to sound less pompous, and pompous things to sound less silly. They turned into self-parodies without going to the trouble of acquiring a self first.
Debbie's father, an Australian painter called Peter Hickmann, was a notorious bore. Patrick once heard him introduce an anecdote with the words, 'That reminds me of my best bouillabaisse story.' Half an hour later, Patrick could only count himself lucky that he was not listening to Peter's second-best bouillabaisse story.
Four bright, shiny stars for this collection. I can’t quite give it full marks, though, because at times it got to be too much. A lighter touch might have played better over the long haul. I realize that books focused on exorcising demons require evil at cask strength, but the 'bad' to be analyzed in this was just so bloody ubiquitous. At times the cleverness got in the way, too. A character or a trait might have been described as both X and Y where X and Y were negatively correlated and slightly ironic. It was appealing the first few times, but a tad over-used in the end. Even so, when I look back at all the highlighted lines, I realize there were many fewer misses than hits. Recommended for those who can handle occasional excesses for the pleasures of high-risk returns.
August 2, 2012
The most fun I've ever had reading about incest, heroin addiction, narcissism, cruelty and dementia. The blackest of comedies, written in beautiful, elegant prose, with razor-sharp dialog and heartbreaking, finely-drawn characters.
If, like me, you can't imagine enjoying yet another book about decadent rich Brits, I implore you to set your class prejudices aside and let yourself sink into the lush, awful world of the Melroses. Patrick's journey from child victim, to wanton self-destroyer, to desperately good-intentioned parent and husband is a hero's journey for our time. His brilliant yet monstrous father, his lost and stubborn mother, his wise and tragic children, they are all unforgettable. You will root for him and his family to rise above the hard, ugly truths of our lives, knowing that none of us ever really do, but understanding at the end that maybe in kindness and forgiveness we can find the thread that leads out of the maze of personal history and into a life worth living. I loved this book.
If, like me, you can't imagine enjoying yet another book about decadent rich Brits, I implore you to set your class prejudices aside and let yourself sink into the lush, awful world of the Melroses. Patrick's journey from child victim, to wanton self-destroyer, to desperately good-intentioned parent and husband is a hero's journey for our time. His brilliant yet monstrous father, his lost and stubborn mother, his wise and tragic children, they are all unforgettable. You will root for him and his family to rise above the hard, ugly truths of our lives, knowing that none of us ever really do, but understanding at the end that maybe in kindness and forgiveness we can find the thread that leads out of the maze of personal history and into a life worth living. I loved this book.
August 22, 2020
Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died.
Peter Ustinov
This pentalogy of semi-autobiographical novels by Edward St. Aubyn, published between 1992 and 2011, subtly shames modern British aristocracy and ultimately devastates, in a manner only possible from one of its own. The collection examines the enduring damage from child rape/abuse, including, typically, a lifelong problem with substance abuse and addiction.
A short synopsis of each of the 5 novels herein (in order of publication):
NEVER MIND: Set in a mountain village in southeast France at the summer home of the protagonist Patrick when he was 5 years old. His dreadfully cruel father and meek alcoholic mother host several guests at a dinner party. Includes an incident of child rape.
BAD NEWS: Patrick is now a 25-year-old heroin abuser in New York City to retrieve the ashes of his father over a 24-hour period. Includes probably the most accurate depiction of the mindset of a active drug addict I've ever read.
SOME HOPE: Set back in England a few years later, prior to and at a society party, also takes place over a single day. Patrick is trying to stay clean and shares his secret with his best friend. A mordant observation of the haughty, shallow and cruel nature of the British upper crust. Queen Elizabeth's sister, Prince Margaret, plays a large and largely unflattering role.
MOTHER'S MILK: This novel, unlike the first 3 and the last, all set on a single day, occurs over several years. It's almost as long as the first 3 combined. Patrick's 2 sons are born. For most of it, he's a self-centered cad, drunk and on pain pills. His mother has given away most of Patrick's legacy to a spiritual guide (see, e.g., Eggbart Tolle').
AT LAST: Patrick's mom's funeral. St. Aubyn really takes a sardonic whip to aristocracy concentrated in the form of a snot named Nicholas Pratt and his mother's sister. Example: Patrick's uncle comments on the charitable and warm nature of Patrick's mother, "Eleanor was always concerned about other people." "That can be a good thing," Nicholas admitted, "depending on who those other people are."
__________________________________________
Recommended. Particularly if you have any interest in the modern British aristocracy or a loved one with a drug addiction after suffering sexual abuse as a child.
Peter Ustinov
This pentalogy of semi-autobiographical novels by Edward St. Aubyn, published between 1992 and 2011, subtly shames modern British aristocracy and ultimately devastates, in a manner only possible from one of its own. The collection examines the enduring damage from child rape/abuse, including, typically, a lifelong problem with substance abuse and addiction.
A short synopsis of each of the 5 novels herein (in order of publication):
NEVER MIND: Set in a mountain village in southeast France at the summer home of the protagonist Patrick when he was 5 years old. His dreadfully cruel father and meek alcoholic mother host several guests at a dinner party. Includes an incident of child rape.
BAD NEWS: Patrick is now a 25-year-old heroin abuser in New York City to retrieve the ashes of his father over a 24-hour period. Includes probably the most accurate depiction of the mindset of a active drug addict I've ever read.
SOME HOPE: Set back in England a few years later, prior to and at a society party, also takes place over a single day. Patrick is trying to stay clean and shares his secret with his best friend. A mordant observation of the haughty, shallow and cruel nature of the British upper crust. Queen Elizabeth's sister, Prince Margaret, plays a large and largely unflattering role.
MOTHER'S MILK: This novel, unlike the first 3 and the last, all set on a single day, occurs over several years. It's almost as long as the first 3 combined. Patrick's 2 sons are born. For most of it, he's a self-centered cad, drunk and on pain pills. His mother has given away most of Patrick's legacy to a spiritual guide (see, e.g., Eggbart Tolle').
AT LAST: Patrick's mom's funeral. St. Aubyn really takes a sardonic whip to aristocracy concentrated in the form of a snot named Nicholas Pratt and his mother's sister. Example: Patrick's uncle comments on the charitable and warm nature of Patrick's mother, "Eleanor was always concerned about other people." "That can be a good thing," Nicholas admitted, "depending on who those other people are."
__________________________________________
Recommended. Particularly if you have any interest in the modern British aristocracy or a loved one with a drug addiction after suffering sexual abuse as a child.
November 25, 2012
So far, reads like Alan Hollinghurst's excruciatingly fucked up and much richer second cousin, in the best possible way. Seems to explore the unstated hypothesis that having to earn a living is what distracts most people from destroying their children, themselves, and everyone around them. Also definitively answers the question of whether the most lurid and cliched subjects can be not just salvaged but made new, relevant, and moving through brilliant English prose. (Spoiler: yes.)
February 2, 2013
Each of these novels is like a high-end entrée: exquisite and varied in flavor, yet unable on its own to satisfy the appetite. But together they provide complete satiation and not a hint of surfeit. St. Aubyn's sharp and justly-lauded prose is addicting; he manages to craft a story of the leading man least-deserving of your sympathy into something not only bleak and funny but oddly moving and genuine. One of the most enjoyable experiences I've had since reading Proust, who receives his fair share of nods in this modern masterstroke.
February 7, 2017
An unprecedented reading experience: 5-4-3-2-1. A tetralogy descending from audacious LOL greatness to who cares I think I'm gonna skim it. Of course I've read novels that started really strong and fizzled but never have they fizzled so evenly, their fizzle delineated by individually published volumes collected for the first time in a beautiful paperback with deckled edges and French flaps. The fizzle in my reading pleasure/engagement/interest I suppose matches the Melrose family's financial decline but that's way too generous an interpretation. The first novel is hardly much more than a novella but it's a zinger, the sort from which you read aloud passages to anyone nearby, bon mots forever, perfect images like killing ants with a cigar tip or making one's loved one kneel and eat fallen figs, all of it flowing and smart, charged with a bit of incestuous pedophilia, a few pages that create a shockwave that should've reverberated through these novels but really didn't. The second enjoyable novel (close third POV) takes place in NYC in the early '80s with Patrick a roving English Patrick Bateman junkie-type, not murderous but nihilistic. There's a wonderful image in the back of a cab imagining the lights in windows of passing office buildings as a crossword puzzle, but there's also a scene trying to buy heroin in Alphabet City that borders on cartoonish farce reminiscent, not in a good way, of The Confederacy of Dunces. By the third novel he's older, cleaned up, and ready to confess to a friend what happened as a child but the world around him opens up with a return to a roving third-person POV that never feels steady enough to jump from character to character at a posh dinner party. It's easy reading, relatively enjoyable, but becoming too diffuse, losing the focused psychological and emotional charge of the first two books. Everything in the final two novels dealing with Patrick's family, Patrick and his wife's affairs, and disinheritance and death of his mother felt sort of unnecessary, as though the supremely talented and intelligent and insightful writer of the first volume were coasting, letting the characters he'd created and new ones he concocted just spill out onto the page and do nothing more than talk. The charge or urgency of the first two books seemed replaced by always graceful but inconsistently worth-it verbosity, and so I felt nearly nothing for Patrick's dissolution into alcoholism or his mother's decline and death. Occasionally there were sentences or phrases I lingered over to appreciate ("psychedelic authority") but everything moved along on the skates of an automatic sort of semi-excellence. There's a fantastic story about his father as a young man on a wild boar hunt in India dispatching a man afflicted with rabies but it's too short and came too late to restore my love for this. The father David Melrose was a monster but so clever and so devilishly fucked-up it seemed like he needed to dominate things either on or off stage but he was dead by the beginning of the second novel and insufficiently sensed by the third one. Generally, in an ~850-page novel collection there wasn't enough devoted to David Melrose's youth, only a few pages really. These novels pretty much escaped David's gravity and/or seemed to fail to use his heft sufficiently, and also seemed not to remember themselves -- the Patrick of the last two books hardly seems to have shared the experiences of the abused boy or the young junkie. For a long story of the dissolution of a wealthy family, Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family seems like the reigning champ. Or at least I had it in my head as I read as a template/standard. Anyway, a great start that slowly but surely fizzled. Something else: it made me not want to write, like the author's prose was so consistently flowing and intelligent and descriptive and always readable but ultimately failed to really engage me in way that made me think toward the end why even bother with reading and writing? I first became interested in this book when I saw it suggested that A Little Life stole a lot from it and that this was in many ways superior -- the gray cover of the paperback also seems similar, as though the publishers wanted to capitalize on the association -- but really other than the fact that both central characters are victims of sexual abuse there's not much of a comparison to be made (A Little Life is, apparently very intentionally, the opposite of a family novel), particularly on a formal level but also Yanagihara's characters are so much stronger and the novel as a whole is so much steadier and unified, which makes sense of course since St. Aubyn's novels were published separately over time and Yanagihara's novel was written in a year and a half. I should also note that the inauguration occurred on the day I started the third novel and as we all know pretty much everything, particularly everyone's ability to concentrate, has gone downhill since then, so it's possible that the horrific reality show playing out recently at a granular level on Twitter warped my brain and hampered my ability to read the final three installments, but regardless I can proclaim with confidence that these volumes didn't offer a sufficiently strong immersive literary distraction since a certain fuckwit took an oath in front of the largest crowd ever assembled anywhere ever to undermine the Constitution and grab the world by its ya-ya.
January 30, 2013
Another great recommendation from The Professor. He recommended this specific edition which holds the first four books in the Melrose series (the fifth book, At Last, was published in 2011). He said that he had trouble putting the stories down once he started, and I have to agree with that.
Never Mind - This story broke my heart quite a bit. Patrick Melrose is a five-year-old boy, living in the cold shadow of his disgustingly rich parents who barely know the first thing about parenting. He endures abuse, physical and emotional, and because of this there are absolutely no redeemable characteristics of either of his parents. I wanted them both to die.
Not an easy story to read, but so well-written that it was hard to put down.
Bad News - Patrick Melrose is in his early 20s now, still struggling with the abuse forced upon him as a child, but also dealing with his own physical abuse - this time in the form of drugs. This is like one of those books from the 80s, when the drug culture was in the forefront of literature and movies, like Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City or Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero, though I believe Bad News took place a bit later than those other stories.
St. Aubyn wrote about drug abuse in more detail than I've seen for a while. We're all a little jaded because we've spent the last so many years reading Hubert Selby or Charles Bukowski or William Burroughs (or seen movies based on their books), so we know what drug abuse in literature is like, and it's hard to be shocked. I'm not going to say I was shocked. But I was certainly impressed. This guy made shooting up read like a fucking ballet. It was actually beautiful at times.
Some Hope - Probably the funniest of the bunch, though one of those dark, smirky kinds of humor. Like it's funny 'cause it's true kinda humor. St. Aubyn portrays the rich and wealthy with satirical honesty and all the pretention and pomposity that comes with the title of being Rich.
Patrick is older yet, he's in a different place and mindset than he was when we last met him in Bad News. The reader can't help but cheer him on. But. He now has a five-year-old son. Is he going to repeat the abuse that was inflicted upon him when he was five? Or is he stronger than that? Is he still clean?
I think this title, Some Hope, is the strongest of all the titles because there is a feeling of hopefulness throughout the text.
Not as strong a story as the first two, but worth the read for the mirror the author holds up to the characters.
Mother's Milk - I found this to be the weakest of the stories, strangely enough considering this one was shortlisted for the Booker prize or something and it's on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. We find Patrick even a little older, with another child in the mix. Now his concerns are his elderly and ailing mother and also the hot ex-girlfriend who has been visiting.
I think what St. Aubyn did with the POV in the beginning of the story was interesting, but I think he failed ultimately in how he portrayed children. These are some precocious children, to say the least. Smartest damn kids I've ever read. I think sometimes that serves a good purpose, but I'm not sure if I understood that purpose here. They're smart kids, but this went beyond that. And it felt unconvincing.
Overall, I adored these stories. I think the first two stories are the best and most convincing of the bunch, though the third and fourth serve some sort of purpose, even if I didn't care for them so much. I haven't read the latest Melrose book, At Last, but am looking forward to it if for no other reason than to see what Patrick is up to now.
These stories are hard to put down. I'd compare them to other similar stories that are like trainwrecks, like Tales of the City or Valley of the Dolls (though certainly less histrionic than the latter). Certainly more literary than Maupin or Susann, but a fun read nonetheless, despite occasional very difficult scenes.
Never Mind - This story broke my heart quite a bit. Patrick Melrose is a five-year-old boy, living in the cold shadow of his disgustingly rich parents who barely know the first thing about parenting. He endures abuse, physical and emotional, and because of this there are absolutely no redeemable characteristics of either of his parents. I wanted them both to die.
Not an easy story to read, but so well-written that it was hard to put down.
Bad News - Patrick Melrose is in his early 20s now, still struggling with the abuse forced upon him as a child, but also dealing with his own physical abuse - this time in the form of drugs. This is like one of those books from the 80s, when the drug culture was in the forefront of literature and movies, like Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City or Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero, though I believe Bad News took place a bit later than those other stories.
St. Aubyn wrote about drug abuse in more detail than I've seen for a while. We're all a little jaded because we've spent the last so many years reading Hubert Selby or Charles Bukowski or William Burroughs (or seen movies based on their books), so we know what drug abuse in literature is like, and it's hard to be shocked. I'm not going to say I was shocked. But I was certainly impressed. This guy made shooting up read like a fucking ballet. It was actually beautiful at times.
Some Hope - Probably the funniest of the bunch, though one of those dark, smirky kinds of humor. Like it's funny 'cause it's true kinda humor. St. Aubyn portrays the rich and wealthy with satirical honesty and all the pretention and pomposity that comes with the title of being Rich.
Patrick is older yet, he's in a different place and mindset than he was when we last met him in Bad News. The reader can't help but cheer him on. But. He now has a five-year-old son. Is he going to repeat the abuse that was inflicted upon him when he was five? Or is he stronger than that? Is he still clean?
I think this title, Some Hope, is the strongest of all the titles because there is a feeling of hopefulness throughout the text.
Not as strong a story as the first two, but worth the read for the mirror the author holds up to the characters.
Mother's Milk - I found this to be the weakest of the stories, strangely enough considering this one was shortlisted for the Booker prize or something and it's on the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. We find Patrick even a little older, with another child in the mix. Now his concerns are his elderly and ailing mother and also the hot ex-girlfriend who has been visiting.
I think what St. Aubyn did with the POV in the beginning of the story was interesting, but I think he failed ultimately in how he portrayed children. These are some precocious children, to say the least. Smartest damn kids I've ever read. I think sometimes that serves a good purpose, but I'm not sure if I understood that purpose here. They're smart kids, but this went beyond that. And it felt unconvincing.
Overall, I adored these stories. I think the first two stories are the best and most convincing of the bunch, though the third and fourth serve some sort of purpose, even if I didn't care for them so much. I haven't read the latest Melrose book, At Last, but am looking forward to it if for no other reason than to see what Patrick is up to now.
These stories are hard to put down. I'd compare them to other similar stories that are like trainwrecks, like Tales of the City or Valley of the Dolls (though certainly less histrionic than the latter). Certainly more literary than Maupin or Susann, but a fun read nonetheless, despite occasional very difficult scenes.
May 1, 2012
I just began reading this collection of the first four books in the quintet of Patrick Melrose books, and I am STUNNED by what an amazing writer St. Aubyn is. Every paragraph contains a gem, and his characterizations are brilliant, as is his character development... and the way he handles the heaviest subject matter you can imagine.
I've been wondering, "Where has Edward St. Aubyn been all my life?" And then I remember, "Right, right. Pedophiliac, homosexual incest. Not the usual fare of my friends and colleagues."
UPDATE: I just finished book one. Searing. Amazing. Witty. Brutal. I'm delving into Book 2 now.
--
Just finished these four novels, and I'm onto the last one now. They are BRILLIANT -- probably the best thing I've read. Ever! (Did I just say that?) More detailed review to follow. (I hope.)
I've been wondering, "Where has Edward St. Aubyn been all my life?" And then I remember, "Right, right. Pedophiliac, homosexual incest. Not the usual fare of my friends and colleagues."
UPDATE: I just finished book one. Searing. Amazing. Witty. Brutal. I'm delving into Book 2 now.
--
Just finished these four novels, and I'm onto the last one now. They are BRILLIANT -- probably the best thing I've read. Ever! (Did I just say that?) More detailed review to follow. (I hope.)
February 4, 2013
I can't recommend this book highly enough...but it's not for every reader. Anyone who writes, or wants to write, should read these four novels and the concluding fifth, At Last. Read with a highlighter in hand because you will want to mark at least one sentence, one line of the cutting, witty, mordant, pitch-perfect dialogue from every single page. Readers of Martin (and Kingsley) Amis, Evelyn Waugh, and the darkest of the John Cheever novels and stories will be utterly gripped by these novels and the trials of the central character, Patrick Melrose. As other reviewers have noted, the book begins with a shocking scene--one that lesser novelists would have held to the end, for the predictable Big Revelation with much emoting--but which here is treated with terse, brutal candor. Yes, there are slow patches, yes, a few repetitive scenes and words (characters "gasp" their lines of dialogue too many times) and yes, sometimes one wishes that parts of Patrick's struggle could be conveyed with a little less excruciating detail. But overall, this is one of the best-written, most-rewarding new books I have read in the past several years.
Read
September 4, 2015Page 329. So, that's it. I will not continue with this book. It is rare that you read a book that has not a single likeable person in it. The main character is repulsive, all people around him disgusting, scheming, mean and, if that sounds interesting, no, even if you wish it would, it is not. The story develops like in an extra glossy very mean gossip magazine. If the intention of the author is to make you sick of these people, he certainly succeeded with me. Sorry, perhaps you have to belong to the British upper crush to appreciate the book.
June 12, 2013
What do you want from fiction? The more I read, the more I realize that what I want, what fiction does for me, is allows me to live in another person's mind. To be able to see the world as someone else sees it, that's what I'm looking for when I open a novel. The other pleasures of the novel -- style, voice, etc. -- all flow from the consciousness of the characters.
In recent years, very few books have given me the glimpse into a character that The Patrick Melrose novels have. Told over a period of 50 or so years, these books follow the life of Patrick Melrose, the only child of David and Eleanor Melrose. And while Patrick himself would be worth the price of admission, it's the cast around him that really brings the picture to life. The grand snob Nicholas Pratt is especially wonderful to read, though any of a number of characters would make a fine protagonist in another novel.
The tone of these books -- at once contemplative and witty -- is a miracle unto itself. The first book in the series, Never Mind, reads, at times, like a horror novel. Terrifying things happen in it, and yet, one finds oneself laughing on nearly every page (emphasis on the nearly). St. Aubyn not only has a master's grasp on character and dialog, but he changes perspective in surprising and daring ways. It's not uncommon in these books to be in the head of Patrick's son Robert for a few paragraphs and then to suddenly find oneself seeing the scene through the eyes of Patrick's wife, Mary. If this sounds like it might be jarring, it isn't, though don't ask me how that's possible.
These books feel so lived, so alive and authentic, that, cliche as it sounds, I didn't want them to end and dragged out the reading of At Last, the final book in the series, for as long as I could. Don't deprive yourself any longer--read them today!
In recent years, very few books have given me the glimpse into a character that The Patrick Melrose novels have. Told over a period of 50 or so years, these books follow the life of Patrick Melrose, the only child of David and Eleanor Melrose. And while Patrick himself would be worth the price of admission, it's the cast around him that really brings the picture to life. The grand snob Nicholas Pratt is especially wonderful to read, though any of a number of characters would make a fine protagonist in another novel.
The tone of these books -- at once contemplative and witty -- is a miracle unto itself. The first book in the series, Never Mind, reads, at times, like a horror novel. Terrifying things happen in it, and yet, one finds oneself laughing on nearly every page (emphasis on the nearly). St. Aubyn not only has a master's grasp on character and dialog, but he changes perspective in surprising and daring ways. It's not uncommon in these books to be in the head of Patrick's son Robert for a few paragraphs and then to suddenly find oneself seeing the scene through the eyes of Patrick's wife, Mary. If this sounds like it might be jarring, it isn't, though don't ask me how that's possible.
These books feel so lived, so alive and authentic, that, cliche as it sounds, I didn't want them to end and dragged out the reading of At Last, the final book in the series, for as long as I could. Don't deprive yourself any longer--read them today!
January 23, 2013
Simultaneously hilarious and devastating--my favorite, brutal combination--wringing out laughter that hurts. As a friend put it, "These are the fucked up descendants of the downton abbey crew." There is this incredible tension between Patrick Melrose's hyper-articulate linguistic self indulgence as he describes the torments of his childhood and subsequent addictions and misery, and the almost inchoate line that he repeats, "No one should do that to another person," this wounded cry at what was taken from him, how he ended up the way that he did. The point of view swerves constantly, brilliantly, and yet this somehow feels purely like Patrick's story, fragmented into novellas from each major episode of his life, childhood through middle age. I don't think I've ever seen a writer break so many "rules" of writing so effectively. He does everything you're told not to, and it adds up to undeniable literature but also just a fantastic read. The only place my attention lagged a little was in Book 3, Some Hope, where the party/rotating POV trick reminded me a lot of the first novella, and I got slightly impatient with meeting so many new partygoers and mostly just waiting for Patrick to finally unburden himself of his secret to someone. When he did, it was a great moment. Still, I was restless until getting to Mother's Milk, where I can't believe how he pulled off (with great liberties taken) the point of view of a newborn. Weird, wonderful, elegant, sharp, entertaining, revolting, harrowing stuff. A scathing look at the human desire to overpower and dominate other people.
November 18, 2017
Apart from the heartbreak of the protagonist's atrocious and cruel childhood, it was the exquisite prose and incredibly brilliant speech of St. Aubyn that blew me away. This, for me, is not only one of the most gorgeously written novels in the English language, but also conveys a profound understanding of the essence of the human mind.
What irritated me to no end was the tasteless cover of my edition, which would fit better to a sleazy novel than to this masterpiece.
What irritated me to no end was the tasteless cover of my edition, which would fit better to a sleazy novel than to this masterpiece.
March 15, 2012
I read the whole thing cover to cover in like a week, so it does not bore you. That said, I'm feeling hard pressed to find something fascinating to say about these books. It follows the life of your typical messed up person, starting with early childhood with an abusive father and a disengaged mother, progressing through drug addicted young adulthood, drug-free further adulthood and finally married with children. The many demons that haunt the protagonist never really cease haunting him, they simply take turns and adapt to his changing situation. There is very little catharsis granted him, not when his father dies, and not when his mother is on the brink, either.
The books showcase what is purportedly the lifestyle of the British upper crust, with its many warts. They are full of vacuous people, betrayals, addictions, abuse, scams and parties, in fact, one of the books takes place almost wholly at a party the protagonist attends.
I kept expecting some point to the whole thing, and maybe I was too busy reading and missed it. Online blurbs state that the series is somewhat autobiographical, in which case I do not envy the author one bit. And perhaps there was no point to the books except to chronicle the protagonist's life throughout the four stages I mentioned before. Which brings me to my final, and main, problem with the series. It is disjointed. The first book shows us the protagonist as a child in an abusive household. The next one jumps us to early adulthood seasoned with a really bad drug habit. The following one jumps again some years and finds Patrick older, still single and suddenly drug-free. Finally we find him married with 2 children.
One is left wondering how, exactly, Patrick transitions from the stage we had left him in at the conclusion of the prior book, and the stage he is magically in, in the subsequent one. I sometimes had the nagging suspicion that these gaps may have been more interesting than the parts the author chose to include in the series.
But you are all getting the impression that there wasn't a whole lot of good stuff, and that's not true. Some of the moments in the books are full of pathos, or triumph, or tragedy or a healthy dose of clueless stupidity. Maybe even a bit of evil in the abusive father, though one gets the impression that he had suffered abuse himself, and as many abuse victims do, they grow up to become perpetrators perpetuating the cycle.
I picked up this series after seeing a favorable review somewhere, and don't really regret reading them. In fact, I am about to pick up the 5th and final volume in the series right now. So I liked it that much.
Anyway, that is my honest opinion of these books. Definitely "liked" them, but can't really go and say I "really liked" them, hence the 3 instead of 4 stars.
The books showcase what is purportedly the lifestyle of the British upper crust, with its many warts. They are full of vacuous people, betrayals, addictions, abuse, scams and parties, in fact, one of the books takes place almost wholly at a party the protagonist attends.
I kept expecting some point to the whole thing, and maybe I was too busy reading and missed it. Online blurbs state that the series is somewhat autobiographical, in which case I do not envy the author one bit. And perhaps there was no point to the books except to chronicle the protagonist's life throughout the four stages I mentioned before. Which brings me to my final, and main, problem with the series. It is disjointed. The first book shows us the protagonist as a child in an abusive household. The next one jumps us to early adulthood seasoned with a really bad drug habit. The following one jumps again some years and finds Patrick older, still single and suddenly drug-free. Finally we find him married with 2 children.
One is left wondering how, exactly, Patrick transitions from the stage we had left him in at the conclusion of the prior book, and the stage he is magically in, in the subsequent one. I sometimes had the nagging suspicion that these gaps may have been more interesting than the parts the author chose to include in the series.
But you are all getting the impression that there wasn't a whole lot of good stuff, and that's not true. Some of the moments in the books are full of pathos, or triumph, or tragedy or a healthy dose of clueless stupidity. Maybe even a bit of evil in the abusive father, though one gets the impression that he had suffered abuse himself, and as many abuse victims do, they grow up to become perpetrators perpetuating the cycle.
I picked up this series after seeing a favorable review somewhere, and don't really regret reading them. In fact, I am about to pick up the 5th and final volume in the series right now. So I liked it that much.
Anyway, that is my honest opinion of these books. Definitely "liked" them, but can't really go and say I "really liked" them, hence the 3 instead of 4 stars.
December 13, 2021
We have been revisiting the 2006 Booker longlist this month in the Mookse group, and one of the shortlisted books was Mother’s Milk. I have never read St Aubyn, but felt it wouldn’t be fair to read Mother’s Milk without tackling the first three Melrose books first, and the cheapest way to obtain second hand paper copies of all five was to buy this American edition of the first four and a separate copy of the final book At Last.
I have just finished reading the first four parts in five days. I have heard such a lot about this series that my expectations may have been raised unfairly – overall there is plenty to enjoy, not least the quality of the writing and the savage humour, but spending so much time in the company of a less than likeable protagonist and the ghastly array of aristocratic caricatures was a bit too much, and I will probably read a few other books before tackling At Last.
Of the four, I liked the first and fourth parts most and the second least, but none of them is quite a five star book for me.
Book 1: Never Mind
(4*) The first part of the saga is set in the south of France in the mid-60s (. The five year old Patrick Melrose lives there with his sadistic, sarcastic and often cruel father David and his drunken mother Eleanor. Over the course of a long day, the chapters focus in turns on these three and an array of friends and acquaintances who visit them. The parents’ back stories are also summarised – David has been disinherited by his own father and became a doctor, before marrying the richer American Eleanor, whose mother has married a French aristocrat who has his own designs on the family fortune.
Patrick starts the day playing solitary games in the grounds, but arouses his father’s anger . St Aubyn revels in describing his cast of aristocratic grotesques and their pretensions, but for me there were too many of these to sustain my interest.
Book 2: Bad News
(2.5*) The second Melrose book is probably the funniest, but is also dominated by graphic descriptions of the sordid mechanics of heroin and cocaine addiction, which may be too much for many readers, including me. The 22-year old Patrick has been summoned to New York after his father has died, and once again the action takes place almost entirely in a single day. The story is told exclusively from Patrick’s perspective, as he struggles to find anything positive to remember his father by and spends most of his time pursuing drugs and sex, finding no satisfaction in either.
Book 3: Some Hope
(3*) In the third book, Patrick is now 30 and no longer taking hard drugs. Once again the action takes place over a single day, this time the day of a big aristocratic party in a Cotswold country house, where the guest of honour is Princess Margaret. For me, the narrative got rather too bogged down in introducing a long list of party guests individually, and the scenes involving the princess seem to be written more for comedy and shock value than artistic reasons. Once again very few of the characters are at all likeable, or have any real concept of their own privilege.
Book 4: Mother’s Milk
(4*) This book is something of a departure from the earlier books in the series, in that it takes place in four parts over four consecutive summers starting in 2000, three in France and one in America. Patrick is now married with two young sons. His mother Eleanor, who is now in a care home, has become involved with a faith healing community, to whom she has decided to bequeath the family chateau, but with the condition that Patrick and his family are allowed an annual summer holiday there.
The opening chapters are rather striking, as five year old Robert, helped by watching his baby brother, reconstructs the memory of his own birth. The year 2000 section is mostly told from his perspective, but he seems far too knowing for such a young child. Patrick’s wife Mary spends most of her time with baby Thomas, and he persuades himself that an affair with an old flame who is staying at the chateau is justified. The later parts of the book are also largely focused on Patrick’s relationship with his mother, who wants him to help her to die. After a fairly disastrous family holiday in America, Patrick decides to give up drinking and to try to be a better father.
I liked this book rather more than the second and third parts, but still found sections of it hard work.
I have just finished reading the first four parts in five days. I have heard such a lot about this series that my expectations may have been raised unfairly – overall there is plenty to enjoy, not least the quality of the writing and the savage humour, but spending so much time in the company of a less than likeable protagonist and the ghastly array of aristocratic caricatures was a bit too much, and I will probably read a few other books before tackling At Last.
Of the four, I liked the first and fourth parts most and the second least, but none of them is quite a five star book for me.
Book 1: Never Mind
(4*) The first part of the saga is set in the south of France in the mid-60s (. The five year old Patrick Melrose lives there with his sadistic, sarcastic and often cruel father David and his drunken mother Eleanor. Over the course of a long day, the chapters focus in turns on these three and an array of friends and acquaintances who visit them. The parents’ back stories are also summarised – David has been disinherited by his own father and became a doctor, before marrying the richer American Eleanor, whose mother has married a French aristocrat who has his own designs on the family fortune.
Patrick starts the day playing solitary games in the grounds, but arouses his father’s anger . St Aubyn revels in describing his cast of aristocratic grotesques and their pretensions, but for me there were too many of these to sustain my interest.
Book 2: Bad News
(2.5*) The second Melrose book is probably the funniest, but is also dominated by graphic descriptions of the sordid mechanics of heroin and cocaine addiction, which may be too much for many readers, including me. The 22-year old Patrick has been summoned to New York after his father has died, and once again the action takes place almost entirely in a single day. The story is told exclusively from Patrick’s perspective, as he struggles to find anything positive to remember his father by and spends most of his time pursuing drugs and sex, finding no satisfaction in either.
Book 3: Some Hope
(3*) In the third book, Patrick is now 30 and no longer taking hard drugs. Once again the action takes place over a single day, this time the day of a big aristocratic party in a Cotswold country house, where the guest of honour is Princess Margaret. For me, the narrative got rather too bogged down in introducing a long list of party guests individually, and the scenes involving the princess seem to be written more for comedy and shock value than artistic reasons. Once again very few of the characters are at all likeable, or have any real concept of their own privilege.
Book 4: Mother’s Milk
(4*) This book is something of a departure from the earlier books in the series, in that it takes place in four parts over four consecutive summers starting in 2000, three in France and one in America. Patrick is now married with two young sons. His mother Eleanor, who is now in a care home, has become involved with a faith healing community, to whom she has decided to bequeath the family chateau, but with the condition that Patrick and his family are allowed an annual summer holiday there.
The opening chapters are rather striking, as five year old Robert, helped by watching his baby brother, reconstructs the memory of his own birth. The year 2000 section is mostly told from his perspective, but he seems far too knowing for such a young child. Patrick’s wife Mary spends most of her time with baby Thomas, and he persuades himself that an affair with an old flame who is staying at the chateau is justified. The later parts of the book are also largely focused on Patrick’s relationship with his mother, who wants him to help her to die. After a fairly disastrous family holiday in America, Patrick decides to give up drinking and to try to be a better father.
I liked this book rather more than the second and third parts, but still found sections of it hard work.
July 14, 2018
Mi sono decisa a leggere questa raccolta di romanzi brevi solo dopo aver visto l’adattamento televisivo Patrick Melrose, con Benedict Cumberbatch. Mi aveva colpita il mondo narrativo di questa saga familiare: una classe aristocratica decadente che sembra partorire solo mostri e persone profondamente danneggiate. Seguendo il personaggio di Patrick dall’infanzia alla mezz’età si segue il suo lunghissimo e complicato tentativo di emancipazione da tutto questo. Vi anticipo che solo il primo dei romanzi mi è piaciuto davvero e che la serie tv è senza dubbio migliore.
1) Non importa : una mazzata nello stomaco. Le origini del personaggio Patrick Melrose, qui infante, sono terribili. Un viaggio dentro la mente distorta del padre orco e della fauna che lo circonda negli anni ’60. Emerge chiaramente un motivo di fondo: l’uomo dell’upper class descritto da St Aubyn è un sadico convinto che essere crudeli col prossimo sia il miglior modo per distinguersi dal popolino e dalla borghesia che si arrampica. Agghiacciante pensare alla base autobiografica di questi racconti. Interessante la scelta fatta per la serie tv, in cui questo romanzo diventa il secondo capitolo della storia, e non il primo, spiegando a ritroso la formazione di un personaggio tragico come Patrick.
2) Cattive notizie : encomiabile il lavoro fatto dall’adattamento televisivo, che ha risollevato il materiale originale trasformandolo in un pilot eccellente. Sulla carta, non funziona allo stesso modo. Fedele cronaca della vita da tossico, riesce a restituirne lo squallore in un flusso di coscienza costellato dai meccanismi fisiologici del personaggio: la ricerca spasmodica di vene ancora fruibili, le ondate di cocaina invadono il sangue, alternate a quelle di eroina; poi ricomincia la ricerca di un venditore affidabile. Il problema è che dopo una sessantina di pagine il romanzo ha già esaurito tutto quello che aveva da dire.
3) Speranza : raggiunta la metà del poderoso volume non ero più tanto motivata a continuare la lettura. Ci ho provato lo stesso, perché il terzo capitolo si annunciava più vicino al primo nella struttura: un’alternanza di punti di vista racconta una sola serata in cui tutta la famigerata upper class dell’aristo-disperazione converge a una mastodontica festa. Si fa leggere, ma sembra sempre indeciso tra essere un dramma oppure una raccolta di aforismi. Dà la fastidiosa sensazione di ascoltare qualcuno che vuole essere arguto a tutti i costi.
4) Latte materno : inizia dal punto di vista del bambino Robert, figlio di Patrick, durante una vacanza estiva nella famigerata villa di sua nonna. Per me è stato il colpo di grazia, non ce l’ho fatta neanche a finirlo. Per struttura, è il più originale dei quattro, ma arrivati a questo punto i contenuti suonano troppo ripetitivi e la visione del mondo di Robert non riesce a compensare, anzi. La storia di Patrick Melrose mi ha stufata, la sua resa sulla carta è irrimediabilmente noiosa e la prosa mediocre di St Aubyn non aiuta.
Vittoria della televisione sulla letteratura: David Nicholls e Edward Berger salvano tutto il meglio del testo di St Aubyn, editano via il resto e ambientano, modificano, potenziano. È uno di quei casi in cui non ha senso leggere il libro prima perché l’adattamento è nettamente migliore.
Il finale è pubblicato separatamente nel volume Lieto fine.
1) Non importa : una mazzata nello stomaco. Le origini del personaggio Patrick Melrose, qui infante, sono terribili. Un viaggio dentro la mente distorta del padre orco e della fauna che lo circonda negli anni ’60. Emerge chiaramente un motivo di fondo: l’uomo dell’upper class descritto da St Aubyn è un sadico convinto che essere crudeli col prossimo sia il miglior modo per distinguersi dal popolino e dalla borghesia che si arrampica. Agghiacciante pensare alla base autobiografica di questi racconti. Interessante la scelta fatta per la serie tv, in cui questo romanzo diventa il secondo capitolo della storia, e non il primo, spiegando a ritroso la formazione di un personaggio tragico come Patrick.
2) Cattive notizie : encomiabile il lavoro fatto dall’adattamento televisivo, che ha risollevato il materiale originale trasformandolo in un pilot eccellente. Sulla carta, non funziona allo stesso modo. Fedele cronaca della vita da tossico, riesce a restituirne lo squallore in un flusso di coscienza costellato dai meccanismi fisiologici del personaggio: la ricerca spasmodica di vene ancora fruibili, le ondate di cocaina invadono il sangue, alternate a quelle di eroina; poi ricomincia la ricerca di un venditore affidabile. Il problema è che dopo una sessantina di pagine il romanzo ha già esaurito tutto quello che aveva da dire.
3) Speranza : raggiunta la metà del poderoso volume non ero più tanto motivata a continuare la lettura. Ci ho provato lo stesso, perché il terzo capitolo si annunciava più vicino al primo nella struttura: un’alternanza di punti di vista racconta una sola serata in cui tutta la famigerata upper class dell’aristo-disperazione converge a una mastodontica festa. Si fa leggere, ma sembra sempre indeciso tra essere un dramma oppure una raccolta di aforismi. Dà la fastidiosa sensazione di ascoltare qualcuno che vuole essere arguto a tutti i costi.
4) Latte materno : inizia dal punto di vista del bambino Robert, figlio di Patrick, durante una vacanza estiva nella famigerata villa di sua nonna. Per me è stato il colpo di grazia, non ce l’ho fatta neanche a finirlo. Per struttura, è il più originale dei quattro, ma arrivati a questo punto i contenuti suonano troppo ripetitivi e la visione del mondo di Robert non riesce a compensare, anzi. La storia di Patrick Melrose mi ha stufata, la sua resa sulla carta è irrimediabilmente noiosa e la prosa mediocre di St Aubyn non aiuta.
Vittoria della televisione sulla letteratura: David Nicholls e Edward Berger salvano tutto il meglio del testo di St Aubyn, editano via il resto e ambientano, modificano, potenziano. È uno di quei casi in cui non ha senso leggere il libro prima perché l’adattamento è nettamente migliore.
Il finale è pubblicato separatamente nel volume Lieto fine.
May 14, 2013
This volume contains the first four Patrick Melrose novels (Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother’s Milk), collected and reprinted to accompany the 2012 publication of Edward St. Aubyn’s At Last, the fifth and final Patrick Melrose novel. All five books together come to less than a thousand pages; reading them as one long novel works well. I found these first four books brilliant but hard to take at the outset. On page one you see St. Aubyn’s ability to quick sketch a character in very few words, but most of his characters are unpleasant, difficult people, except for those who are downright evil. But my daughter encouraged me to stick with these books, and I am exceedingly glad that I did.
The Melrose family is one of the more dysfunctional you’ll meet. Mr. Melrose is a brute of a man, angry towards everyone, and extremely abusive towards his family. Mrs. Melrose is a professional doormat, whose acceptance of her husband’s abuse includes a looking-away from her own child and instead work towards saving others that enables her husband to abuse their son Patrick, who is five years old in the first volume. But these books take on much more than one family; St. Aubyn takes on the entire British aristocracy. Portraying the landed gentry as sanctimonious prigs who (falsely) believe they are better than everyone merely because they were born to wealth and/or nobility, S. Aubyn slices up a variety of pompous, self-important characters. These attacks rise as high as the royal family; Princess Margaret appears at a dinner party in the third volume, and she does not shine. St. Aubyn’s attacks reach beyond the aristocracy, as he also takes on their various hanger-ons and kiss-ups. Patrick’s travels in the United States brings American culture under attack as well. St. Aubyn is brilliant in his use of satire and sarcasm. Even if you do not believe in noticing others’ obsequiousness or false humility, you will find yourself smiling at St. Aubyn sharp wit and pointed attacks. He is brave enough to say what you were secretly thinking, and he says it well much as Oscar Wilde did in another time.
Through the course of these four books we see Patrick at very different points in his life. In the first book he is five; in the later three volumes we see him at 22, 30, and 40. We witness Patrick coming to deal with the effects of his unfortunate upbringing, and along with the familial and social critiques comes a self-analysis that is persuasive and increasingly deep. There are no miraculous cures for Patrick’s difficulties; at first there is no effort at all to deal with his own pain in any way other than seeking oblivion through drugs and alcohol. But as we read, we see him modify his anger. He marries and becomes a father, not a perfect husband or father, but a much better husband and father than his own had been. The portrayal of his sons and his relationships with them in the fourth book is extremely interesting and touching; for that reason alone, it is no wonder the book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Despite Patrick’s progress, the books never succumb to saccharine solutions; there is no easy cure anywhere.
The Melrose family is one of the more dysfunctional you’ll meet. Mr. Melrose is a brute of a man, angry towards everyone, and extremely abusive towards his family. Mrs. Melrose is a professional doormat, whose acceptance of her husband’s abuse includes a looking-away from her own child and instead work towards saving others that enables her husband to abuse their son Patrick, who is five years old in the first volume. But these books take on much more than one family; St. Aubyn takes on the entire British aristocracy. Portraying the landed gentry as sanctimonious prigs who (falsely) believe they are better than everyone merely because they were born to wealth and/or nobility, S. Aubyn slices up a variety of pompous, self-important characters. These attacks rise as high as the royal family; Princess Margaret appears at a dinner party in the third volume, and she does not shine. St. Aubyn’s attacks reach beyond the aristocracy, as he also takes on their various hanger-ons and kiss-ups. Patrick’s travels in the United States brings American culture under attack as well. St. Aubyn is brilliant in his use of satire and sarcasm. Even if you do not believe in noticing others’ obsequiousness or false humility, you will find yourself smiling at St. Aubyn sharp wit and pointed attacks. He is brave enough to say what you were secretly thinking, and he says it well much as Oscar Wilde did in another time.
Through the course of these four books we see Patrick at very different points in his life. In the first book he is five; in the later three volumes we see him at 22, 30, and 40. We witness Patrick coming to deal with the effects of his unfortunate upbringing, and along with the familial and social critiques comes a self-analysis that is persuasive and increasingly deep. There are no miraculous cures for Patrick’s difficulties; at first there is no effort at all to deal with his own pain in any way other than seeking oblivion through drugs and alcohol. But as we read, we see him modify his anger. He marries and becomes a father, not a perfect husband or father, but a much better husband and father than his own had been. The portrayal of his sons and his relationships with them in the fourth book is extremely interesting and touching; for that reason alone, it is no wonder the book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Despite Patrick’s progress, the books never succumb to saccharine solutions; there is no easy cure anywhere.
August 14, 2015
I can understand why the U.S. publisher decided to release these four short novels in one volume: Once the fifth book was ready to be released, some excitement needed to be drummed up on this side of the Atlantic, but getting readers enthused about four separate novels by an author they’d never heard of before, in preparation for a fifth, was a tall order. Better, for that purpose, to release the first four as one long book.
That justification aside, I don’t necessarily feel it works to read these four short books as one long one—the change in tone from novel to novel is jarring in a way it wouldn’t be if there were months or years separating their release, as there was in the UK. So I feel like the only way to review these is as separate books, all with their good points and their flaws.
Never Mind starts off slowly but is eventually shocked to life with the devastating event that propels the entire series. To St. Aubyn’s immense credit, this scene is exactly as horrifying as it should be. It’s followed, somewhat incongruously, by a dinner party studded with lots of enjoyable rapier wit. These qualities make this installment a great encapsulation of the best aspects of the entire series, now that I think of it.
Bad News fast-forwards to Patrick Melrose as a young adult and is a detailed glimpse of his hellish life as an addict. The druggie stuff is undeniably entertaining, but Patrick is a bit difficult to sympathize with. This difficulty is a harbinger of things to come—for me, it recurred throughout the rest of the novels in the volume.
Some Hope featured one segment that was absolutely astonishing to me in its emotional openness, and which I hoped signaled a new turn in the story. (It didn’t.) It also featured a party at a country house that contained some amusing dialogue, but I felt this was weaker than the previous two novels.
Unfortunately, Mother’s Milk was probably just as weak as its predecessor. While there were some poignant bits about caring for an aging parent, Patrick and his wife were insufferable to me. I can’t stand full-grown adults who hate all their friends and mock them behind their backs. Psst… you’re a grown-up. If you don’t like these people, make new friends. I realize this is a personal pet peeve, but this installment was so underwhelming that I didn’t seek out the final book, At Last, which was published separately. Maybe I’ll get to it someday.
I don’t want to be too harsh on this series. The writing was really very good, and hopefully you can tell from the above that there’s a lot to recommend these books. Ultimately, though, they just didn’t quite live up to the hype for this reader.
That justification aside, I don’t necessarily feel it works to read these four short books as one long one—the change in tone from novel to novel is jarring in a way it wouldn’t be if there were months or years separating their release, as there was in the UK. So I feel like the only way to review these is as separate books, all with their good points and their flaws.
Never Mind starts off slowly but is eventually shocked to life with the devastating event that propels the entire series. To St. Aubyn’s immense credit, this scene is exactly as horrifying as it should be. It’s followed, somewhat incongruously, by a dinner party studded with lots of enjoyable rapier wit. These qualities make this installment a great encapsulation of the best aspects of the entire series, now that I think of it.
Bad News fast-forwards to Patrick Melrose as a young adult and is a detailed glimpse of his hellish life as an addict. The druggie stuff is undeniably entertaining, but Patrick is a bit difficult to sympathize with. This difficulty is a harbinger of things to come—for me, it recurred throughout the rest of the novels in the volume.
Some Hope featured one segment that was absolutely astonishing to me in its emotional openness, and which I hoped signaled a new turn in the story. (It didn’t.) It also featured a party at a country house that contained some amusing dialogue, but I felt this was weaker than the previous two novels.
Unfortunately, Mother’s Milk was probably just as weak as its predecessor. While there were some poignant bits about caring for an aging parent, Patrick and his wife were insufferable to me. I can’t stand full-grown adults who hate all their friends and mock them behind their backs. Psst… you’re a grown-up. If you don’t like these people, make new friends. I realize this is a personal pet peeve, but this installment was so underwhelming that I didn’t seek out the final book, At Last, which was published separately. Maybe I’ll get to it someday.
I don’t want to be too harsh on this series. The writing was really very good, and hopefully you can tell from the above that there’s a lot to recommend these books. Ultimately, though, they just didn’t quite live up to the hype for this reader.
September 6, 2012
OMG. apparently, the same reactions as many other reviewers, and "stunned" is the main one. have only read the first five chapters, and could hardly put down. and it isn't a quick page turner for plot, but the writing is so exceptionally beautiful that makes it a page turner. and as i was trying to put into sentences all the wonderful words such as enchanted, shocked, heightened senses, lucid, vivid, aesthetic, profound, philosophical, i realized that all the other reviewers have done the very same thing. that is, as a reader and in the presence of st aubyn's writing via the patrick melrose novels, you're elevated to a whole different level of senses, mind and emotions!
if you're interested in english aristocrats (or the many times more intense/dark side of the likes of downton abbey), this would have to be on your reading list, to be read now!
~~~~~review upon completion~~~~~~~~~
There are just too many great things about these stories. They're not for the faint of heart, and not to be read as a source for cheerfulness. If you're someone that wished you were born to different parents, and struggle to be very different from them (and to find out that with the best intentions, you've only changed a bit), then this would be an interesting book for you as well.. it's so that you'll experience the "misery loves company" type of stories, but with a lot more insights and clarity. Perhaps, it'll save you from many sessions with your therapist :)
But all that aside, you could read just to be illuminated by the beautiful prose that carries with it all the ironies, wit, and sharp observations about life in a very intellectual manner. There are just too many great insights and you could go on and on highlighting your book, copy down quotes, etc. I felt that way but didn't want to put down the kindle to jot down notes... and as I come to a close, finishing the last few pages, I realized how the potent language carried its way through to the very end:
"In the end it was unfair on everyone being who they were because they couldn't be anyone else." - thought by Robert, the eight years old son. Really, an eight year old could say this?!
"If she belonged to the tribe who always heard the siren call of the choice they were about to lose.."
"Do nothing!?" said Thomas "I mean, how do you do nothing? Because if you do nothing, you do something!" - said by the three years old son! Isn't that such a perfect statement? LOL!
And by all means, these are not the most lyrical, there're plenty of that throughout, but you'll have to read it to find out for yourself :)
if you're interested in english aristocrats (or the many times more intense/dark side of the likes of downton abbey), this would have to be on your reading list, to be read now!
~~~~~review upon completion~~~~~~~~~
There are just too many great things about these stories. They're not for the faint of heart, and not to be read as a source for cheerfulness. If you're someone that wished you were born to different parents, and struggle to be very different from them (and to find out that with the best intentions, you've only changed a bit), then this would be an interesting book for you as well.. it's so that you'll experience the "misery loves company" type of stories, but with a lot more insights and clarity. Perhaps, it'll save you from many sessions with your therapist :)
But all that aside, you could read just to be illuminated by the beautiful prose that carries with it all the ironies, wit, and sharp observations about life in a very intellectual manner. There are just too many great insights and you could go on and on highlighting your book, copy down quotes, etc. I felt that way but didn't want to put down the kindle to jot down notes... and as I come to a close, finishing the last few pages, I realized how the potent language carried its way through to the very end:
"In the end it was unfair on everyone being who they were because they couldn't be anyone else." - thought by Robert, the eight years old son. Really, an eight year old could say this?!
"If she belonged to the tribe who always heard the siren call of the choice they were about to lose.."
"Do nothing!?" said Thomas "I mean, how do you do nothing? Because if you do nothing, you do something!" - said by the three years old son! Isn't that such a perfect statement? LOL!
And by all means, these are not the most lyrical, there're plenty of that throughout, but you'll have to read it to find out for yourself :)
May 10, 2018
I select books to read in a lot of different ways. Sometimes, I read a review that intrigues me; other times, from a friend's recommendation; occasionally, it's for the simply expedient reason that the book was on sale and looked interesting.
I have no idea why I selected this book. Even after going back to read reviews, some of which were complimentary.
This is actually a compilation of 5 shorter books, and if you have 27 hours of your life you care nothing about, devote them to the audio rendition of this book. Only, however, if you enjoy tedious, narcissistic expositions on child abuse and its long term implications on a person's life, drug abuse in unnecessarily graphic and boring description, and one book devoted entirely to what is surely the longest funeral in the history of the literary world.
Perhaps there are others who will be enlightened by the tedium of this droning book, if there are, I'm not sure they would be people I would enjoy socializing with.
So, no, didn't care for it.
I have no idea why I selected this book. Even after going back to read reviews, some of which were complimentary.
This is actually a compilation of 5 shorter books, and if you have 27 hours of your life you care nothing about, devote them to the audio rendition of this book. Only, however, if you enjoy tedious, narcissistic expositions on child abuse and its long term implications on a person's life, drug abuse in unnecessarily graphic and boring description, and one book devoted entirely to what is surely the longest funeral in the history of the literary world.
Perhaps there are others who will be enlightened by the tedium of this droning book, if there are, I'm not sure they would be people I would enjoy socializing with.
So, no, didn't care for it.
June 22, 2014
toward the end of some hope, a snooty princess spells out what these novels are all about:
'It must be funny having the same name as so many other people,' she speculated. 'I suppose there are hundreds of John Halls up and down the country.'
'It teaches one to look for distinction elsewhere and not to rely on an accident of birth,' said Johnny casually.
'That's where people go wrong,' said the Princess, compressing her lips, 'there is no accident in birth.'
She swept on before Johnny had a chance to reply.
dark, hysterical, moving stuff.
st. aubyn ain't no Waughnabee.
of course, there's always this;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wal-q...
'It must be funny having the same name as so many other people,' she speculated. 'I suppose there are hundreds of John Halls up and down the country.'
'It teaches one to look for distinction elsewhere and not to rely on an accident of birth,' said Johnny casually.
'That's where people go wrong,' said the Princess, compressing her lips, 'there is no accident in birth.'
She swept on before Johnny had a chance to reply.
dark, hysterical, moving stuff.
st. aubyn ain't no Waughnabee.
of course, there's always this;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wal-q...
August 11, 2016
If you've ever wondered what became of the Dedlocks of Chesney Wold you need look no further than this quartet of novels by Edward St. Aubyn. According to him, they changed their name to Melrose and fled to the South of France. We first meet Patrick Melrose as a lad of five in Never Mind. Poor Patrick battles against a brilliant, criminally-sadistic father and his criminally-negligent, rich American wife, who is capable of mothering only in the abstract. As much as Dickens predicted the decline of the Gentry, even he might be shocked by the antics of the Melrose clan and their guests during a weekend of boozing and debauchery. In the next book Bad News, we watch in fascinated horror as Patrick grows into adulthood while he sinks into addiction. As he jets between two continents, we marvel at his brilliance and are crushed by his dissolution. This might seem like a journey to avoid, but he is such good company. He shares his attempts to fend off madness by ingesting every mind-altering substance ever invented. He recounts a weekend in Manhattan in his 20's, which could be described as a long day's journey into Disco Hell: Imagine a date between Mary Tyrone and Jay McInerney.
Obviously this can't go on forever, so the third and fourth books, Some Hope and Mother's Milk are concerned with his experiments in sobriety and parenting. His father haunts him throughout, but it is mother who strikes the final blow when she squanders his inheritance. In my efforts at self-improvement , I attempted to highlight particularly brilliant passages to share. I had to abandon this when I counted forty in the first book alone. You're just going to have to discover them for yourself. And after you're completely hooked, as I am, you can console yourself in the knowledge that the fifth Patrick Melrose novel, At Last: A Novel is as close as a click on your kindle.
Here's an excellent review of it:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics...
May 24, 2020
The level of aristo-gloom in these novels is sky-high. The writing is absolutely superb (love the imagery), but the cast of characters started to wear me down after a while. There is only so much snobbish condescension I can stomach. I may have benefited more from these novels if they weren’t all merged together. I do like the main character, his voice, sharp and funny. In many ways, this reads as an extended exorcism of the demons this author has had to experience and carry. So it can be heavy at times.
The books namely center around Patrick Melrose, and we see his life course unfold throughout the books. Like I said, the writing is damn good, wickedly funny at times and sharp, but counterbalanced by deep pain and a largely unlikeable cast of characters. Sometimes the most incisive and harsh class commentary comes from within its own ranks (British aristocracy in this one).
The most interesting aspect is seeing how Patrick grapples with his tragedies/painful memories, he carries a deep well of pain (I won’t give away the trauma he lived through but it’s enough to crush anyone). This trauma opens up an examination of self and personal identity, and how identity is shaped via our personal experiences/traumas.
Interesting to juxtapose with another aristocrat writer, Proust. Both writers are highly intelligent, peculiar, incisive, philosophical, eviscerate their class, and both can be incredibly funny. Aubyn is more wry and cynical, Proust's voice is sweeter and often more naive (at least that's how he presents his main narrator). The structure of Aubyn's writing is not quite as complex. More linear, that's not a bad thing, just a difference. Proust tends to have a multi-faceted architecture to how he flows from imagery to imagery and memory to memory, the intertwining sometimes deceptively simple belying deeper complexity to the structure. The comparison pops up in my mind because I've been reading Proust.
I listened to the audiobook. I love the narrator, one of my favs, he also did a lot of the Joe Abercrombie books. And I do recommend this series, but maybe not all in one go. The dad is a real POS.
The books namely center around Patrick Melrose, and we see his life course unfold throughout the books. Like I said, the writing is damn good, wickedly funny at times and sharp, but counterbalanced by deep pain and a largely unlikeable cast of characters. Sometimes the most incisive and harsh class commentary comes from within its own ranks (British aristocracy in this one).
The most interesting aspect is seeing how Patrick grapples with his tragedies/painful memories, he carries a deep well of pain (I won’t give away the trauma he lived through but it’s enough to crush anyone). This trauma opens up an examination of self and personal identity, and how identity is shaped via our personal experiences/traumas.
Interesting to juxtapose with another aristocrat writer, Proust. Both writers are highly intelligent, peculiar, incisive, philosophical, eviscerate their class, and both can be incredibly funny. Aubyn is more wry and cynical, Proust's voice is sweeter and often more naive (at least that's how he presents his main narrator). The structure of Aubyn's writing is not quite as complex. More linear, that's not a bad thing, just a difference. Proust tends to have a multi-faceted architecture to how he flows from imagery to imagery and memory to memory, the intertwining sometimes deceptively simple belying deeper complexity to the structure. The comparison pops up in my mind because I've been reading Proust.
I listened to the audiobook. I love the narrator, one of my favs, he also did a lot of the Joe Abercrombie books. And I do recommend this series, but maybe not all in one go. The dad is a real POS.
September 20, 2014
On a recent trip to New England, I breezed through these four novels (the first four of the five Patrick Melrose novels), inspired by the New Yorker's recent profile of St. Aubyn. The first (Never Mind) and last (Mother's Milk) novels were my favorites; although I think Never Mind is the most powerful and affecting of all of them. The practice of reading all four novels in quick succession was also beneficial, I think, rather than having to wait years in between them; they all build upon and reference each other so frequently that it was helpful to read them in one quick clip. The novels flag in parts, but St. Aubyn is a precise and gifted stylist, and he is unflinching in his portraits of the mostly miserable British upper class. The novels, which are purportedly highly autobiographical, are not uplifting in any sense, but they feel true and end in these blunt, strangely compelling ways. Recommended for those who don't like to cover their eyes in the face of dark family distress.
June 30, 2023
[2.5]
Sono così frustrata da questo romanzo! La prima parte mi è piaciuta così tanto che ero convinta, CONVINTA, tutto il libro mi sarebbe piaciuto tantissimo. E invece, che delusione. È andato peggiorando fino alla fine.
Di base l’ho trovato noioso. Noiosissimo. Pagine e pagine e pagine - ben 922 - in cui per 3/4 del tempo non si parla di nulla, fuffa senza sostanza, nell’altro quarto ci sono dettagli inutili su dettagli inutili e riflessioni filosofiche che non hanno nulla di corposo e interessante.
I dialoghi sono completamente vuoti. In parte penso anche che fosse voluto dall’autore, per trasmettere l’idea di questi pranzi e cene dove i ricconi passano il loro tempo a parlare del nulla più assoluto, al massimo sparlano dell’uno e dell’altro. In parte penso che non si sia reso conto di quanto sia soporifero leggere 900 pagine così.
Sono così frustrata da questo romanzo! La prima parte mi è piaciuta così tanto che ero convinta, CONVINTA, tutto il libro mi sarebbe piaciuto tantissimo. E invece, che delusione. È andato peggiorando fino alla fine.
Di base l’ho trovato noioso. Noiosissimo. Pagine e pagine e pagine - ben 922 - in cui per 3/4 del tempo non si parla di nulla, fuffa senza sostanza, nell’altro quarto ci sono dettagli inutili su dettagli inutili e riflessioni filosofiche che non hanno nulla di corposo e interessante.
I dialoghi sono completamente vuoti. In parte penso anche che fosse voluto dall’autore, per trasmettere l’idea di questi pranzi e cene dove i ricconi passano il loro tempo a parlare del nulla più assoluto, al massimo sparlano dell’uno e dell’altro. In parte penso che non si sia reso conto di quanto sia soporifero leggere 900 pagine così.
January 4, 2014
Holy effing cow. These four novels -- it's hard to say whether they read as four separate works or one large one; I tend to the latter opinion -- amount to some of the most powerful work I've read in years. St. Aubyn combines extraordinarily bleak and painful subject matter (parental sadism and neglect, rape, addiction) with robust comedy (yes, believe it) and exquisite prose. But it's more than that St. Aubyn can tell a harrowing and resonant story--it's that he dares to take on a wildly ambitious theme: the sheer terror of existence, for all of us. I'm awed, humbled, inspired. Read these one after another without stopping.
January 19, 2019
Cinque libri in meno di venti giorni, e uno dietro l'altro! Questo da solo rende l'idea della fluidità della narrazione di St. Aubyn, ma non spiega tutto.
Ho amato la grande introspezione psicologica che regge la trama dei romanzi e ho vissuto l'altalena emotiva di Patrick fino all'ultimissima pagina.
Ho amato la grande introspezione psicologica che regge la trama dei romanzi e ho vissuto l'altalena emotiva di Patrick fino all'ultimissima pagina.
February 10, 2015
E' stata una piacevolissima scoperta quest'epopea familiare – o questo moderno Bildungsroman – preso per curiosità, più che dando credito alla fascetta e alle innumerevoli lodi di scrittori contemporanei.
Ciò che colpisce e lega subito è la scrittura bellissima, elegante e profonda a un tempo nel tratteggiare caratteri, stati d'animo e situazioni, oltre al tema o i temi cardine, affatto banali o facili da trattare. Si parla di abusi sui minori, in questo libro, e la crudissima scena narrata quasi all'inizio non può non lasciar storditi, a pagina 50 e dintorni ho interrotto la lettura e l' ho ripresa dopo un po' di tempo. Si parla anche di una discesa negli abissi più profondi del dolore, della dipendenza da stupefacenti, di legami familiari malati o carenti e della posssibilità di spezzare le proprie catene, e, in sostanza, si parla di Patrick, prima bambino abusato dal padre, poi adolescente e ricco giovane preda di una tossicodipendenza feroce, fino alle soglie della maturità con un tentativo di riscatto.
Il fatto che St Aubyn abbia trattato il tema dell'abuso sui minori – dato peraltro autobiografico – con apparente distacco e sarcasmo tutto britannico, è un elemento che, a mio parere, non banalizza ed eleva il testo a livelli di eccelsa letteratura, chissà il macello grondante di autocommiserazione lacrimevole ne avrebbe fatto uno scrittore meno dotato, o più mediterraneo. Il suo stile divertente e tragico a un tempo rende godibile anche il II libro, dove si descrive con dovizia di particolari la vita da tossico in cerca di dosi, chiuso nei bagni e in giro per NY City ...con... (non voglio spoilerare, ma la trovata è macabra e divertente a un tempo come nel miglior Amis).
Eppure, pur nell'altero, stoico distacco assunto nella tragedia, uso comune nella classe sociale e nell'isola dell'autore, arcinota per il piglio fiero che la sua popolazione tiene in ogni frangente (Grace under Fire), non si può non provare un'intensa simpatia per Patrick e per la sua solitaria lotta per non soccombere (alla crudeltà del padre, all'indifferenza della madre, alle sirene inebrianti e mortifere delle droghe, al suo ambiente elevato ma vuoto, perfido, privo di qualsiasi sincera empatia umana).
Il libro è stato paragonato, per la scrittura brillante e la satira dell'aristocrazia britannica, a Evelyn Waugh e Oscar Wilde, senz'altro giusto è l'accostamento, ma qui più che una satira a una certa classe sociale, pur presente –, con un attacco pevfino al cuove della Covona, nella pevsona della sovella della Vegina (! )– , c'è la critica ad una parte di mondo (gli Adulti), chiusa nel loro personale dolore o fallimento o vuota indifferenza, di fronte alle sofferenze di un bambino o peggio, impegnata a cercare di distruggere l'altra parte di mondo (l'Infanzia, La Pura Innocenza).
Sarebbero moltissime le cose ancora da sottolinerae, voglio solo aggiungere che ho ammirato moltissimo l'abilità dell'autore di descrivere carrellate di caratteri e personaggi indimenticabili, per la loro varietà e intrinseca, mai banale, autenticità. Tra questi, basti ricordare solo i due cattivi che, come in ogni fiaba che si rispetti, sono un po' orchi e un po' antagonisti del piccolo eroe protagonista: uno è il padre David Melrose (crudele, eccentrico, misogino, egoista e molto altro, forse anche depresso) e il di lui amico Nicholas Pratt, rampollo di nobile famiglia ma un idiota perfetto, con un paio di soli talenti all'attivo: sposarsi e divorziare a manetta e abbinare i giusti calzini al resto dell'ambaradan. Notevole anche l'abilità e la schiettezza nel ritrarre un ambiente sociale (mi chiedo se St Aubyn venga ancova vicevuto a Covte, di tanto in tanto, o viva in un pevenne confino, degna sovrte del veietto dissacvatove) chiuso nei loro clubs o residenze di campagna, fraternizzati da una maschia, gaudente alleanza o da una femminile e snobisticamente pomposa e fatua parvenza di socilaità, che da sola varrebbe la lettura con effetti davvero esilaranti.
La saga troverà continuazione in un prossimo libro, ancora non pubblicato in Italia: At Last. In trepida attesa, magari con in programma una rilettura..
Ciò che colpisce e lega subito è la scrittura bellissima, elegante e profonda a un tempo nel tratteggiare caratteri, stati d'animo e situazioni, oltre al tema o i temi cardine, affatto banali o facili da trattare. Si parla di abusi sui minori, in questo libro, e la crudissima scena narrata quasi all'inizio non può non lasciar storditi, a pagina 50 e dintorni ho interrotto la lettura e l' ho ripresa dopo un po' di tempo. Si parla anche di una discesa negli abissi più profondi del dolore, della dipendenza da stupefacenti, di legami familiari malati o carenti e della posssibilità di spezzare le proprie catene, e, in sostanza, si parla di Patrick, prima bambino abusato dal padre, poi adolescente e ricco giovane preda di una tossicodipendenza feroce, fino alle soglie della maturità con un tentativo di riscatto.
Il fatto che St Aubyn abbia trattato il tema dell'abuso sui minori – dato peraltro autobiografico – con apparente distacco e sarcasmo tutto britannico, è un elemento che, a mio parere, non banalizza ed eleva il testo a livelli di eccelsa letteratura, chissà il macello grondante di autocommiserazione lacrimevole ne avrebbe fatto uno scrittore meno dotato, o più mediterraneo. Il suo stile divertente e tragico a un tempo rende godibile anche il II libro, dove si descrive con dovizia di particolari la vita da tossico in cerca di dosi, chiuso nei bagni e in giro per NY City ...con... (non voglio spoilerare, ma la trovata è macabra e divertente a un tempo come nel miglior Amis).
Eppure, pur nell'altero, stoico distacco assunto nella tragedia, uso comune nella classe sociale e nell'isola dell'autore, arcinota per il piglio fiero che la sua popolazione tiene in ogni frangente (Grace under Fire), non si può non provare un'intensa simpatia per Patrick e per la sua solitaria lotta per non soccombere (alla crudeltà del padre, all'indifferenza della madre, alle sirene inebrianti e mortifere delle droghe, al suo ambiente elevato ma vuoto, perfido, privo di qualsiasi sincera empatia umana).
Il libro è stato paragonato, per la scrittura brillante e la satira dell'aristocrazia britannica, a Evelyn Waugh e Oscar Wilde, senz'altro giusto è l'accostamento, ma qui più che una satira a una certa classe sociale, pur presente –, con un attacco pevfino al cuove della Covona, nella pevsona della sovella della Vegina (! )– , c'è la critica ad una parte di mondo (gli Adulti), chiusa nel loro personale dolore o fallimento o vuota indifferenza, di fronte alle sofferenze di un bambino o peggio, impegnata a cercare di distruggere l'altra parte di mondo (l'Infanzia, La Pura Innocenza).
Sarebbero moltissime le cose ancora da sottolinerae, voglio solo aggiungere che ho ammirato moltissimo l'abilità dell'autore di descrivere carrellate di caratteri e personaggi indimenticabili, per la loro varietà e intrinseca, mai banale, autenticità. Tra questi, basti ricordare solo i due cattivi che, come in ogni fiaba che si rispetti, sono un po' orchi e un po' antagonisti del piccolo eroe protagonista: uno è il padre David Melrose (crudele, eccentrico, misogino, egoista e molto altro, forse anche depresso) e il di lui amico Nicholas Pratt, rampollo di nobile famiglia ma un idiota perfetto, con un paio di soli talenti all'attivo: sposarsi e divorziare a manetta e abbinare i giusti calzini al resto dell'ambaradan. Notevole anche l'abilità e la schiettezza nel ritrarre un ambiente sociale (mi chiedo se St Aubyn venga ancova vicevuto a Covte, di tanto in tanto, o viva in un pevenne confino, degna sovrte del veietto dissacvatove) chiuso nei loro clubs o residenze di campagna, fraternizzati da una maschia, gaudente alleanza o da una femminile e snobisticamente pomposa e fatua parvenza di socilaità, che da sola varrebbe la lettura con effetti davvero esilaranti.
La saga troverà continuazione in un prossimo libro, ancora non pubblicato in Italia: At Last. In trepida attesa, magari con in programma una rilettura..
April 7, 2022
Libro n°1: NON IMPORTA.
E in effetti la percezione fondamentale è proprio quella che nulla importi a nessuno dei diversi personaggi qui presentati. «In assenza di alternative, il sole splendeva su un mondo sempre identico» scrive Beckett e così appare, in effetti, il mondo che ruota intorno ai Melrose. Ritratto impietoso dell'alta società inglese, dove ci si scambiano contenuti perfidi e umilianti rispettando sempre le regole impeccabili dell'etichetta. Personaggi oltremodo negativi, s'è detto, fra i quali spicca David Melrose, il padre sadico del protagonista, Patrick, qui bambino di 5 anni. Ma anche i deboli suscitano ben poca compassione: Eleanor, ad esempio, moglie assoggettata, madre assente, in stato di perpetua evaporazione alcolica verso un mondo alternativo dove, appunto, nulla veramente importa.
Degna di nota la perizia di St.Aubyn, narratore onnisciente che con estrema disinvoltura trasferisce il punto di vista da un personaggio all'altro, capitolo dopo capitolo.
Libro n°2: CATTIVE NOTIZIE
Stupefacente (è il caso di dirlo) viaggio nell'interiorità drogata e allucinata di Patrick, ormai ventiduenne, completamente assoggettato ai mix letali di coca, eroina, eccetera, di cui si inebria e con cui meticolosamente si devasta. L'immersione nel mondo interiore del protagonista è totalizzante, affascinante; si tratta di un mondo asfittico e al contempo debordante, disperatamente allucinatorio, devastante ma anche straniato. Il narratore lo costella di immagini, le metafore fioriscono, scintillanti come fuochi artificiali. E quali saranno le "cattive notizie" per Patrick? La (finalmente) morte di un padre aguzzino o la fine delle scorte di droghe letali che sono lo specchio dell'odio verso se stesso e del terrore di diventare gemello del vero oggetto di quell'odio, cioè il padre?
Libro n°3 SPERANZA
Nel carosello di personaggi futili e vacui della british upper class che appaiono, scompaiono e si aggirano intorno e all'interno di una festa di compleanno (a cui partecipa una particolarmente odiosa princess Margaret) prendiamo respiro ascoltando i pensieri di Patrick che cerca uno sbocco, una via d'uscita dalla gabbia del rancore verso il padre aguzzino e a sua volta infelice. E forse sarà proprio la consapevolezza di questa infelicità radicale a far transitare il trentenne protagonista (ormai libero dalle tossicodipendenze) verso l'emancipazione ovvero verso la necessaria espressione del proprio (vero) sè.
Libro n°4 LATTE MATERNO
Decisamente il più complesso e impegnativo, perché si incunea nei labirinti oscuri e magmatici della relazione materna. Non solo quella disastrata fra il protagonista, Patrick e sua madre Eleanor, che continua fino all'ultimo a stillare i suoi frutti venefici; ma anche quella tra la moglie Mary e i due figli (soprattutto risalta il rapporto totalizzante, oblativo, sacrificale con il piccolo Thomas). I cordoni ombelicali, stringenti e affamanti, qui si intrecciano e il latte materno vi imprime la sua aura misteriosa e allunga la sua ombra verso alberi genealogici radicalmente perversi e malati. La questione si complica e si proietta verso l'ignoto e l'insoluto, dunque. Patrick è ancora lontano dal compimento del suo progetto di individuazione-emancipazione e lo vediamo qui predato da istinti profondi, mai domati.
L'articolazione del tessuto narrativo deriva anche dal fatto che qui St.Aubyn riprende il filo (i fili) della prospettiva onnisciente: e così vediamo le cose dal punto di vista di Patrick, di Mary, e di ciascuno dei figli, ancora bambini ma consistenti e perfettamente delineati nel loro essere profondo. La densità è molta, i contenuti si moltiplicano e si intersecano, tuttavia nulla può essere completamente dispiegato e tantomeno compreso perché (e così il racconto conclude) "c'è sempre un significato più grande di quello su cui riusciamo a mettere le mani".
E in effetti la percezione fondamentale è proprio quella che nulla importi a nessuno dei diversi personaggi qui presentati. «In assenza di alternative, il sole splendeva su un mondo sempre identico» scrive Beckett e così appare, in effetti, il mondo che ruota intorno ai Melrose. Ritratto impietoso dell'alta società inglese, dove ci si scambiano contenuti perfidi e umilianti rispettando sempre le regole impeccabili dell'etichetta. Personaggi oltremodo negativi, s'è detto, fra i quali spicca David Melrose, il padre sadico del protagonista, Patrick, qui bambino di 5 anni. Ma anche i deboli suscitano ben poca compassione: Eleanor, ad esempio, moglie assoggettata, madre assente, in stato di perpetua evaporazione alcolica verso un mondo alternativo dove, appunto, nulla veramente importa.
Degna di nota la perizia di St.Aubyn, narratore onnisciente che con estrema disinvoltura trasferisce il punto di vista da un personaggio all'altro, capitolo dopo capitolo.
Libro n°2: CATTIVE NOTIZIE
Stupefacente (è il caso di dirlo) viaggio nell'interiorità drogata e allucinata di Patrick, ormai ventiduenne, completamente assoggettato ai mix letali di coca, eroina, eccetera, di cui si inebria e con cui meticolosamente si devasta. L'immersione nel mondo interiore del protagonista è totalizzante, affascinante; si tratta di un mondo asfittico e al contempo debordante, disperatamente allucinatorio, devastante ma anche straniato. Il narratore lo costella di immagini, le metafore fioriscono, scintillanti come fuochi artificiali. E quali saranno le "cattive notizie" per Patrick? La (finalmente) morte di un padre aguzzino o la fine delle scorte di droghe letali che sono lo specchio dell'odio verso se stesso e del terrore di diventare gemello del vero oggetto di quell'odio, cioè il padre?
Libro n°3 SPERANZA
Nel carosello di personaggi futili e vacui della british upper class che appaiono, scompaiono e si aggirano intorno e all'interno di una festa di compleanno (a cui partecipa una particolarmente odiosa princess Margaret) prendiamo respiro ascoltando i pensieri di Patrick che cerca uno sbocco, una via d'uscita dalla gabbia del rancore verso il padre aguzzino e a sua volta infelice. E forse sarà proprio la consapevolezza di questa infelicità radicale a far transitare il trentenne protagonista (ormai libero dalle tossicodipendenze) verso l'emancipazione ovvero verso la necessaria espressione del proprio (vero) sè.
Libro n°4 LATTE MATERNO
Decisamente il più complesso e impegnativo, perché si incunea nei labirinti oscuri e magmatici della relazione materna. Non solo quella disastrata fra il protagonista, Patrick e sua madre Eleanor, che continua fino all'ultimo a stillare i suoi frutti venefici; ma anche quella tra la moglie Mary e i due figli (soprattutto risalta il rapporto totalizzante, oblativo, sacrificale con il piccolo Thomas). I cordoni ombelicali, stringenti e affamanti, qui si intrecciano e il latte materno vi imprime la sua aura misteriosa e allunga la sua ombra verso alberi genealogici radicalmente perversi e malati. La questione si complica e si proietta verso l'ignoto e l'insoluto, dunque. Patrick è ancora lontano dal compimento del suo progetto di individuazione-emancipazione e lo vediamo qui predato da istinti profondi, mai domati.
L'articolazione del tessuto narrativo deriva anche dal fatto che qui St.Aubyn riprende il filo (i fili) della prospettiva onnisciente: e così vediamo le cose dal punto di vista di Patrick, di Mary, e di ciascuno dei figli, ancora bambini ma consistenti e perfettamente delineati nel loro essere profondo. La densità è molta, i contenuti si moltiplicano e si intersecano, tuttavia nulla può essere completamente dispiegato e tantomeno compreso perché (e così il racconto conclude) "c'è sempre un significato più grande di quello su cui riusciamo a mettere le mani".
intermittently-reading
August 26, 2016A pair of recent reviews of At Last prompted me to take-up this tetralogy that I purchased, on a whim, a couple of months ago. Said whim was driven, in large part, by my attraction to the stark cover; and with the further experience of physically grasping and admiring the thing in my very hands, I find myself beguiled by this book's aesthetics—a cover design as black as Satan's pupils floating box islands of a neon pink that speaks of electrocuted roses or Rosé deepened to a homogenized lacquer via the aeration of mundane excess; the limpid paper deckle edged and redolent of off-white virgin reams having been put through their paces; serif fonts sufficiently small to avoid clownery whilst yet perfectly proportioned to the swift unveiling of upper-class monstrousness that takes place within. From a purely sensory point of view, The Patrick Melrose Novels provides a continuous current of pleasure, one which makes me loath to set it aside and move on to more promising and anticipated fare. However, due to a lack of compulsion to continue with the remaining pieces engendered within subsequent to my completion of Never Mind, the opening novel of the collection, it may indeed be a while before I muster the mustard to put the entirety of this work—one of art, bodily if not narratively—to bed.
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