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Entitlement
Entitlement is the tragic, wrenching story of Andy Kronk. After a lifetime intertwined with the Aspinalls, one of Canada’s wealthiest families, Andy has finally forged a clean break. Mere months pass, however, before his past returns, and he finds himself, obediently, digging …At its heart, Entitlement is a story about identity — about who we think we are and where we really stand. Set in rural Ontario and with excursions to Toronto and New York City, the novel takes a provocative and honest look at class, power, male relationships, death, and the familial bonds that tie, protect and harm us most.Andy’s story is revealed to Trudy Clarke. Writing an Aspinall “tell-all” biography, she wants Kronk’s take for her book. Reluctantly, Andy agrees to talk. He begins by explaining that when he quit practising law, all he wanted was a clean start and the privacy to live life on his own terms. But, as he explains over the course of a weekend interview, his boyhood boarding school entanglement with one of Canada’s elite families became complicated — and remains strong. As the weekend progresses, Andy grows comfortable. When he realizes that he’s gone too far, said too much, it’s too late…Written in forceful prose, with a poet’s ear, Jonathan Bennett’s Entitlement does for the world of power and privilege what David Adams Richards has done for the hardscrabble blue collar men and women of his award-winning novels — tearing down myths to reveal something essentially, and always, heartbreakingly human.
- GenresFiction
294 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 8, 2017
"The Great Gatsby" meets "The Fall of the House of Usher." Sharp, atmospheric, and disturbing.
September 11, 2008
What is it about The Great Gatsby, anyway, that makes it so great? Sure, it’s spectacularly well-written, with a simple eye for the poetic and an ear for nuanced dialogue. It’s a good story, rife with classic themes of love, betrayal, greed, and simple human compassion. But there’s myriad of novels with the same themes, the same quality. What makes Gatsby stand out among its numerous peers?
I believe it’s in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s choice of narrator. Gatsby and Daisy are rich characters, but it takes a special kind of talent to write from the perspective of someone who has everything and make them at all relatable. No, Fitzgerald’s coup was adding an outsider to the mix in the form of Nick Carraway, the man who yearns to be one of the elite, yet has too much of the real world in him to ever fully join the top one percenters. Nick’s distance allows us empathy, and a greater understanding of Gatsby’s foibles and Daisy’s charms. Without him, the novel would likely appears as the rich simply being rich. This may belittle Fitzgerald’s talent, which I would never seek to do, but it’s a tricky proposition otherwise. Hemingway pulled it off in The Sun Also Rises, but oftentimes the wealthy are better served in art as objects to appreciate from afar.
Jonathan Bennett understands this dilemma, and there are true echoes of Gatsby’s themes throughout the pages of his novel Entitlement. The abundantly wealthy elite of Gatsby is personified in the pages of Entitlement as the Aspinall family, a Canadian dynasty who function as both objects of adoration and society-page gossip fodder. “We long for their example, grace, and luxury,” Bennett’s Carraway-proxy Andy Kronk tells a journalist at one point. “They remind us life is not democratic, or equal, or just. They fuel our selfish desires; they harden our egalitarian resolve. We yearn to be them if we only could; we loathe them because we will never be. They are the beloveds, the entitled, the unaccountable ones, and they walk among us, breathe our air. They both own and ignore us.”
Like Carraway, Andy is by far the most likeable character to inhabit the pages, a lower-class man with childhood (and father-encouraged) dreams of becoming a hockey player. His school friendship with Colin Aspinall leads to an intensely close relationship with the entire Aspinall clan, a Canuck version of American dynasties such as the Kennedys and the Bushes, with echoes of Conrad Black. Like those families, the Aspinalls are constantly cloaked in a cloud of suspicion and scandal, albeit from a more sedate Canadian point of view. As the patriarch Aspinall instructs Andy, “even when Canadians were not speaking in hand-wringing double negatives, they were, at least, being polite - if not outright pre-emptively apologizing for some, as yet to occur-affront.” We are a uniquely accommodating people to Bennett’s mind, and it is this discrepancy between our outwardly accepting natures and those of our more raucous neighbours to the south that drives much of Entitlement’s substantial entertainment value.
As Entitlement opens, Andy has voluntarily removed himself from the Aspinall’s sphere, living in a cabin and pondering his next life move. Interrupting his sojourn is Trudy, a journalist charged with the task of writing an Aspinall tell-all biography. Andy is an encyclopedia of the Aspinall’s considerable skeletons, but has a few of his own he is not eager to share. Even less eager are the Aspinalls themselves: daughter Fiona, jet-setter a la Paris Hilton (but far more substantial in intelligence and personality); son Colin, mysteriously unaccounted for; and patriarch Stuart, far more powerful and ruthless than anyone suspects.
While these characters are outwardly stereotypes of the rich and restless jet set who habitually grace the pages of Hello! and the screens of TMZ.com, Bennett accomplishes the not-insubstantial task of humanizing the aristocracy in a age where we seek their comeuppance with the fervor and bloodlust of Roman spectators to gladiatorial combat. Bennett has a gift for nuance, and while the actions of the Aspinalls may skirt parody, Bennett is skilled enough to craft their scandals as heart-breaking rather than ridiculous. He’s also astute enough to understand the true natures of the powerful as being no different than those of the populous middle-classes. Consider Stuart’s sizing-up of Fiona’s boyfriend, an American of serious privilege with designs on the White House:
"He wants to walk into a room one day and have a man in a uniform with four stars say, Yes, sir! when he gives an unpopular order. He wants to watch that man hate him to the core of his being, but be unable to do anything about it…He wants, metaphorically, to bust his father’s balls."
If that isn’t one of the most concise summations of Bush Jr.’s entire reign, I don’t know what is.
Bennett also displays considerable flair for the caustic and witty, especially when it comes in the form of Mr. Aspinall’s attitude toward Canadian society. To Stuart, Canada is a nation of studious underachievers, a country of citizens almost snobbishly proud of their unassuming natures: “Fourth…was the ideal position for a Canadian to finish: a good outcome, but not crudely so, and at fourth and just one off the podium, Canadians positioned themselves for a prize more coveted by them than any shiny gold, silver, or bronze medal: a chance to display publicly just how polite and impossibly good-natured they were after having come so close.”
Now, is Entitlement the Canadian Gatsby? The Awesome Aspinall? It’s probably too early to tell, but likely not. Entitlement has a few subplots that peter out rather than satisfy; the life of the journalist Trudy is covered to a great degree, but Bennett’s ultimate intention with her is unclear.
But Entitlement is not, despite what I've written above, Gastby Redux; despite the parallels, Entitlement is its own creature, examining the lives of those we admire/despise with gravity and graciousness. In the end, it's a saga about family, a universal theme if there ever was one.
Small flaws do not serve to denigrate Entitlement’s many strengths; indeed, they serve to emphasize the quality and power of the work as a whole. There is real lyricism in Entitlement’s narrative, and a sureness of hand that reveals Bennett as a true Canadian find. Entitlement may stumble occasionally, but who cares when the rest is this good?
I believe it’s in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s choice of narrator. Gatsby and Daisy are rich characters, but it takes a special kind of talent to write from the perspective of someone who has everything and make them at all relatable. No, Fitzgerald’s coup was adding an outsider to the mix in the form of Nick Carraway, the man who yearns to be one of the elite, yet has too much of the real world in him to ever fully join the top one percenters. Nick’s distance allows us empathy, and a greater understanding of Gatsby’s foibles and Daisy’s charms. Without him, the novel would likely appears as the rich simply being rich. This may belittle Fitzgerald’s talent, which I would never seek to do, but it’s a tricky proposition otherwise. Hemingway pulled it off in The Sun Also Rises, but oftentimes the wealthy are better served in art as objects to appreciate from afar.
Jonathan Bennett understands this dilemma, and there are true echoes of Gatsby’s themes throughout the pages of his novel Entitlement. The abundantly wealthy elite of Gatsby is personified in the pages of Entitlement as the Aspinall family, a Canadian dynasty who function as both objects of adoration and society-page gossip fodder. “We long for their example, grace, and luxury,” Bennett’s Carraway-proxy Andy Kronk tells a journalist at one point. “They remind us life is not democratic, or equal, or just. They fuel our selfish desires; they harden our egalitarian resolve. We yearn to be them if we only could; we loathe them because we will never be. They are the beloveds, the entitled, the unaccountable ones, and they walk among us, breathe our air. They both own and ignore us.”
Like Carraway, Andy is by far the most likeable character to inhabit the pages, a lower-class man with childhood (and father-encouraged) dreams of becoming a hockey player. His school friendship with Colin Aspinall leads to an intensely close relationship with the entire Aspinall clan, a Canuck version of American dynasties such as the Kennedys and the Bushes, with echoes of Conrad Black. Like those families, the Aspinalls are constantly cloaked in a cloud of suspicion and scandal, albeit from a more sedate Canadian point of view. As the patriarch Aspinall instructs Andy, “even when Canadians were not speaking in hand-wringing double negatives, they were, at least, being polite - if not outright pre-emptively apologizing for some, as yet to occur-affront.” We are a uniquely accommodating people to Bennett’s mind, and it is this discrepancy between our outwardly accepting natures and those of our more raucous neighbours to the south that drives much of Entitlement’s substantial entertainment value.
As Entitlement opens, Andy has voluntarily removed himself from the Aspinall’s sphere, living in a cabin and pondering his next life move. Interrupting his sojourn is Trudy, a journalist charged with the task of writing an Aspinall tell-all biography. Andy is an encyclopedia of the Aspinall’s considerable skeletons, but has a few of his own he is not eager to share. Even less eager are the Aspinalls themselves: daughter Fiona, jet-setter a la Paris Hilton (but far more substantial in intelligence and personality); son Colin, mysteriously unaccounted for; and patriarch Stuart, far more powerful and ruthless than anyone suspects.
While these characters are outwardly stereotypes of the rich and restless jet set who habitually grace the pages of Hello! and the screens of TMZ.com, Bennett accomplishes the not-insubstantial task of humanizing the aristocracy in a age where we seek their comeuppance with the fervor and bloodlust of Roman spectators to gladiatorial combat. Bennett has a gift for nuance, and while the actions of the Aspinalls may skirt parody, Bennett is skilled enough to craft their scandals as heart-breaking rather than ridiculous. He’s also astute enough to understand the true natures of the powerful as being no different than those of the populous middle-classes. Consider Stuart’s sizing-up of Fiona’s boyfriend, an American of serious privilege with designs on the White House:
"He wants to walk into a room one day and have a man in a uniform with four stars say, Yes, sir! when he gives an unpopular order. He wants to watch that man hate him to the core of his being, but be unable to do anything about it…He wants, metaphorically, to bust his father’s balls."
If that isn’t one of the most concise summations of Bush Jr.’s entire reign, I don’t know what is.
Bennett also displays considerable flair for the caustic and witty, especially when it comes in the form of Mr. Aspinall’s attitude toward Canadian society. To Stuart, Canada is a nation of studious underachievers, a country of citizens almost snobbishly proud of their unassuming natures: “Fourth…was the ideal position for a Canadian to finish: a good outcome, but not crudely so, and at fourth and just one off the podium, Canadians positioned themselves for a prize more coveted by them than any shiny gold, silver, or bronze medal: a chance to display publicly just how polite and impossibly good-natured they were after having come so close.”
Now, is Entitlement the Canadian Gatsby? The Awesome Aspinall? It’s probably too early to tell, but likely not. Entitlement has a few subplots that peter out rather than satisfy; the life of the journalist Trudy is covered to a great degree, but Bennett’s ultimate intention with her is unclear.
But Entitlement is not, despite what I've written above, Gastby Redux; despite the parallels, Entitlement is its own creature, examining the lives of those we admire/despise with gravity and graciousness. In the end, it's a saga about family, a universal theme if there ever was one.
Small flaws do not serve to denigrate Entitlement’s many strengths; indeed, they serve to emphasize the quality and power of the work as a whole. There is real lyricism in Entitlement’s narrative, and a sureness of hand that reveals Bennett as a true Canadian find. Entitlement may stumble occasionally, but who cares when the rest is this good?
January 23, 2018
DNF. BORING. Gave up.
December 10, 2017
Entitlement by Jonathan Bennett (ECW, 2008) is a plot-driven encounter with one of Canada's richest, oldest, most entitled (and fictional) families: the Aspinalls.
A well-paced story with a thumping ending, Bennett's second novel occasionally lapses into sociological telling-not-showing about the meaning of wealth in Canada. It is saved, however, by its strong, compelling characters and clear, direct prose.
The novel is framed by the quest of a biographer to tell the story of Aspinall family, old, Upper Canadians who -- in the words of the patriarch -- manage to perpetuate their wealth and influence because Canadians don't really know they exist. Americans worship their capitalists, and the British gossip endlessly about the Monarchy, but Canadians kind of just assume that we're all pretty much the same. The rich amongst us benefit from this anonymity, this novel suggests. They just keep doing what they do, and no one bothers them much.
The biographer in the novel is sort-of trying to excavate this silence, though it's not immediately clear why she thinks there's a story to tell (there is, but she doesn't discover it until later).
I imagined the biographer as modelled on Stevie Cameron, but I hope the author of On The Take (Random House, 1995) was ... well, a little more intrepid, alert, smart and gutsy ... than the biographer presented here. There's a certain simplicity to Bennett's characters in this novel, embodied by (but not limited to) the biographer character. This simplicity grounds the novel's presentation of Canadians as passive, willing dupes to the super rich.
Are the Aspinalls supposed to be the Irvings? the Reichmanns? the Thomsons? the Westons?
None of the above. But one does note it's been many years since Peter C. Newman's The Canadian Establishment has had a new edition.
What are those rich people up to, anyway? National Post readers know; they provide glory for the rest of us. This novel takes that point of view, too; then twists it.
Back to the plot. The biographer discovers, and interviews, Andy Kronk, a working-class hockey player whose puck skills "earned" him a scholarship at Lord Simcoe College (UCC?), where he befriends the youngest Aspinall, Colin, a contemporary Oscar Wilde. Perceptive readers will pick up quickly that things won't go well for Colin. Twenty years later, Kronk tries to reconstruct the story.
At the heart of this book is the relationship of Andy and Colin. They live as brothers, yet are star-crossed. Colin is gay, loves Andy; not gay, Andy can only be Colin's platonic ideal.
Bennett's last novel, After Battersea Park, told the story of twins separated at birth:
"Part mystery, part love story, Jonathan Bennett’s debut novel deftly examines fractured identities, families and cultures in a tale that spans one year, three continents and two generations. As William and Curt conflate and dissolve they wrestle with the twin masters of memory and truth, reason and passion. Here is a contemporary portrait of two men bound by blood and lies, but liberated by a chance to be both whole and wholly understood."
A thematic summary of Entitlement would also focus on the challenges of emotional connections between men. Bennett is a deft explorer of this continent.
http://thenewcanlit.blogspot.ca/2008/...
A well-paced story with a thumping ending, Bennett's second novel occasionally lapses into sociological telling-not-showing about the meaning of wealth in Canada. It is saved, however, by its strong, compelling characters and clear, direct prose.
The novel is framed by the quest of a biographer to tell the story of Aspinall family, old, Upper Canadians who -- in the words of the patriarch -- manage to perpetuate their wealth and influence because Canadians don't really know they exist. Americans worship their capitalists, and the British gossip endlessly about the Monarchy, but Canadians kind of just assume that we're all pretty much the same. The rich amongst us benefit from this anonymity, this novel suggests. They just keep doing what they do, and no one bothers them much.
The biographer in the novel is sort-of trying to excavate this silence, though it's not immediately clear why she thinks there's a story to tell (there is, but she doesn't discover it until later).
I imagined the biographer as modelled on Stevie Cameron, but I hope the author of On The Take (Random House, 1995) was ... well, a little more intrepid, alert, smart and gutsy ... than the biographer presented here. There's a certain simplicity to Bennett's characters in this novel, embodied by (but not limited to) the biographer character. This simplicity grounds the novel's presentation of Canadians as passive, willing dupes to the super rich.
Are the Aspinalls supposed to be the Irvings? the Reichmanns? the Thomsons? the Westons?
None of the above. But one does note it's been many years since Peter C. Newman's The Canadian Establishment has had a new edition.
What are those rich people up to, anyway? National Post readers know; they provide glory for the rest of us. This novel takes that point of view, too; then twists it.
Back to the plot. The biographer discovers, and interviews, Andy Kronk, a working-class hockey player whose puck skills "earned" him a scholarship at Lord Simcoe College (UCC?), where he befriends the youngest Aspinall, Colin, a contemporary Oscar Wilde. Perceptive readers will pick up quickly that things won't go well for Colin. Twenty years later, Kronk tries to reconstruct the story.
At the heart of this book is the relationship of Andy and Colin. They live as brothers, yet are star-crossed. Colin is gay, loves Andy; not gay, Andy can only be Colin's platonic ideal.
Bennett's last novel, After Battersea Park, told the story of twins separated at birth:
"Part mystery, part love story, Jonathan Bennett’s debut novel deftly examines fractured identities, families and cultures in a tale that spans one year, three continents and two generations. As William and Curt conflate and dissolve they wrestle with the twin masters of memory and truth, reason and passion. Here is a contemporary portrait of two men bound by blood and lies, but liberated by a chance to be both whole and wholly understood."
A thematic summary of Entitlement would also focus on the challenges of emotional connections between men. Bennett is a deft explorer of this continent.
http://thenewcanlit.blogspot.ca/2008/...
February 10, 2009
I hate when I waste precious reading time on stuff like this
July 18, 2012
A chilling story of the lengths to which an ultrarich family will go to preserve their name and their wealth. Beautifully written.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews