Serious Things

by Gregory Norminton

At an old-fashioned boarding school in the early 1990s, thirteen-year-old Bruno Jackson is fascinated by fellow outsider Anthony Blunden, a glamorous yet troubled boy. Their friendship intensifies when they are singled out by an idealistic English teacher and encouraged to explore the 'more serious things' in life. But in the hothouse of the school, a slight seems of earth-shattering importance, and Bruno soon finds himself caught up in his friend's fantasies of revenge." "Years later, Bruno leads an uneventful life - dull days in the office made bearable by consoling drinks with his friend Jenny - until the sudden reappearance of Anthony forces Bruno to confront the darkest corners of his past. Now he must decide how far he is prepared to go to assuage his guilt - and how far Anthony will let him.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, British Literature, Literary Fiction, Gay

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Gregory Norminton is a writer and environmentalist born in Berkshire in 1976. Educated at Wellington College, he read English at Regent's Park College, Oxford and studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.He presently lives in Edinburgh.

Reviews

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite brilliant! Experiences of two boys at an English boys boarding school and the unresolved trauma that ensures when the two meet up years later. Had never heard of this book or the author before. Great pacing juggling the now and then, I really enjoyed this one!

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of books have used, and will probably continue to use, the 'Now' and 'Then' format where past events not only illuminate, but continue to influence the present. Unfortunately the Now and Then story about a sensitive boy at a tough boarding school who comes under the influence, and falls in love with another boy and how the aftershocks of that relationship still reverberate into the present was, for me, pretty definitively used up by William Corlett in his novel of the same name. It is impossible not to compare Normington's book with Corlett's and the result does no favour to 'Serious Things'.

This is unfortunate because it is a good novel and, maybe I am being unfair and most readers won't make any invidious comparisons and just accept the book entirely on its own, considerable, merits. And this is a very good book, even though there are things in it I dislike, I have no hesitation in recommending it as well worth reading.

One problem is that the action takes place at the time of the major road protest in the early nineties when eco activist chained themselves to trees and machines and there were major confrontations between the activists and police, bailiffs etc., and the book was clearly written when these were fresh in the memory and seemed of lasting importance. Now I do not question that what was being protested about is now even more important - but the events, which seemed so world shattering, have slipped from the consciousness of even those who lived at the time.

The other problem is the relationship between the two boys - it doesn't quite work within the peculiar structure of boarding school life

But it is of the boarding school setting that makes the book worth reading. It is hard to exaggerate how important these schools are in the formation of Britain's governing class. It is hard to image that those who ran Britain's boarding schools in the 1960s and 70s were mostly convinced that they were institutions doomed to extinction by changing fashions, as well as punitive taxation. Now boarding schools are more entrenched in the formation of the children of the elite (though now a Worldwide elite rather than purely a narrowly British one) then ever.

One thing Norminton catches well is the glacial pace of change at boarding schools. The differences between the 1950s school in Corlett's book and the 1990s school in Norminton's are paper thin. Although there are many boasts that today's UK boarding schools have totally changed from their past incarnations I suspect that when a new crop of novels appear that reflect those changes we will see that little in fact has changed in terms of the way they will affect their students. Whether boarding schools are a good or baleful influence will always be in the eye of the beholder.

Despite what I have said I feel positive enough about this author to search out his other books and I look forward to reading them.

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Serious Things - a book I'd never heard of, and encountered by chance at the library while looking for something else - appears to have all the right ingredients for the sort of story I usually relish. Old-fashioned academic setting! (It's a boys' boarding school in the English countryside.) An enigmatic teacher taking impressionable young students under his wing! A shy, insecure narrator who idolises his privileged, charismatic friend! Dark secrets from the past... that refuse to stay buried!! I've put this on the Secret-History-esque shelf, but it's worth mentioning that it also owes a significant debt to a book I read more recently, Brideshead Revisited, in terms of style and certain elements of the plot. This is obviously deliberate, as there are a number of little references in the narrative (one of the protagonists writes a story with a hero called Aloysius, for example) and a homoerotic undertone to the friendship between the two male protagonists, Bruno - the narrator - and the object of his admiration and lust, Anthony.

The story told partly in flashbacks, with Bruno, now a civil servant in his early thirties, remembering his schooldays in the early 1990s. In the present day, he re-encounters Anthony, who he hasn't seen since they were sixteen, at a party. We know from the start that something awful and unspoken happened between the two in the past, and that Bruno left Kingsley (their school) in apparent disgrace, but it takes a long time before we get even the subtlest hint about what this event actually was. Even by the halfway point, there's little more than a few vague suggestions that whatever-it-was took place in the Lake District and involved the boys' English teacher, Mr Bridge. The incident itself - during a school trip, lost on a misty hill walk, the boys decide to play a trick on Bridge and this results in the teacher falling to his death - isn't revealed until about 80% of the story has passed and is precipitated by nothing more serious than Mr Bridge criticising Anthony's attempt at a satirical novel and thereafter disassociating himself from the boys. That said, the insignificance of this catalyst - the fact that spoilt and paranoid Anthony is so slighted by it, and Bruno desperate to defend him by any means - is kind of the point.

I feel like I should have loved this story, and indeed, the latter part of it captivated me. But it's far from perfect. Norminton doesn't seem quite sure whether he's portraying Kingsley as an idyllic representation of stereotypical upper-class England and its values, or a shabby, depressing psuedo-prison; therefore, my mental image of the place swung wildly between a junior version of Oxbridge and some kind of borstal for the duration of the book. The flashbacks don't feel like they're set in the 1990s at all; the language/dialogue is frequently archaic and it's difficult to remember this is meant to be a modern story. (I've just discovered all of Norminton's other books are historical novels; it shows.) The beginning of the book is very slow-moving and much of the first two-thirds seems unnecessary; I can imagine a lot of readers giving up in frustration before it actually gets good. The ending is unexpected, if a bit implausible. I like the fact that the sexual tension between Bruno and Anthony, which is constantly alluded to, is never rationalised or explained away, and Anthony's whole character remains a bit of a question mark, only seen through the distorted lens of Bruno's feelings for him - first love, then hate.

Serious Things is slow-burning, but rewarding if you stick with it, and is probably worth a read if anything about the plot as I've outlined it here appeals to you. On the other hand, if anything about the plot as I've outlined it here appeals to you and you haven't read The Secret History, do yourself a favour and read a true modern classic with a similar storyline. I envy those who are yet to have this experience, while I spend my life seeking out books that resemble it and finding them lacking. This effort, not one of the worst I've come across, gets a solid 3.5 stars.

[Mirren Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gregory Norminton is an author I've just come across and this is the first of his novels I've read. If they are all of this standard then I'll certainly be reading them all in turn!

Serious Things is an unusual tale of two boys in boarding school, who make an unlikely alliance to help get them through the rigours of school life. There is a devastating incident towards the end of their time in school, which eventually has destructive outcomes for them both as the past they had tried to bury 'resurfaces'. The story is told by one of the two main characters, Bruno, in a serious of chapters that take turn about from the present 'Now' and the past 'Then'. The present and the past progress in synchronisation, separated by thirteen years or so. It's a storytelling device that works really well to reveal the backstory a piece at a time whilst also allowing us to follow Bruno's current life as it happens.

The characterisation is brilliant - the reader can see and hear Bruno and Anthony - the other boy - so clearly, such is the quality of the imagery in the words. Gregory Norminton is one highly accomplished author - his writing style is so lyrical and elegant. It appears effortless. There are many paragraphs that I read several times over to more fully appreciate their beauty. Here's an example:
". . .It was the sour, sexual whiff of scandal that had set boys talking; ordinarily we were oblivious to the private reality of our teachers. If they existed at all, it was only to support or thwart us. How strange, then, to realise that we weighed no more in their lives than they did in ours. It was hard to make sense of other people; just as well, perhaps, that some things stay hidden. To feel the whole world's pain would be unbearable." (p. 158).

The ending is quite a surprise, and I, for one, was sorry for the book to come to its end. (Elaine)

[Blanca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book, a lot (it's set in a British boarding school, one of my favourite settings for a book or a movie) and the story is interesting and intriguing, but somehow it let me unsatisfied. Bruno's character was deeply portrayed, but I felt that Anthony and Mr Bridge were underdeveloped, half baked characters, like they lacked enough depth. Anthony was a promising character at the beginning, and the writer makes us clear that he is selfish, manipulative and vindictive. But I wanted to know more about him. Was he just a spoiled rich kid or a plain sociopath?

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was impressed with how this narrative of two young boys is presented in a unique way narrated by one of the two preemintent characters in the story. The book emphasizes the psychological effects of our actions and the importance of how our lives are influenced by how we respond to those actions.

The story tells of two lads at a traditional boarding school who develop a close bond that will influence the rest of their lives. Anthony Blunden has Bruno Jackson, the quiet and lonely son of British expatriates, completely smitten. The boys are inspired to investigate the "more serious matters" of life outside of college after being taken under the wing of an idealistic English teacher. But, in the intense environment of the school, a slight from their mentor looks to be of utter significance and will have irrevocable effects.

Years later, with those memories all but forgotten, Bruno lives a blameless life. Anthony's unexpected reappearance pushes him to look back on his dark past and determine how far he is willing to go to appease his conscience.

Overall it is both riveting and a subtle novel about an undetected crime and its corrosive legacy for the schoolboy culprits, by a young writer that I would recommend to all.

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a Gregory Norminton fan since his superb Arts and Wonders, and while neither Ghost Portrait nor Ship of Fools have reached the heights of that one though still being pretty good, I was willing to follow him when he wrote a contemporary mainstream novel despite that I very, very rarely read such.

I have not regretted it since Serious Things is an extraordinary novel of redemption. The narrator, an overweight, shy, gay bureaucrat aids and abets in a prank that has serious consequences as a student at a posh public school. You see, he had a crush on the prank instigator, an aristocratic nose in the air student that somehow sort of befriended him, mainly because he needed admiration.

Our narrator lives with this childhood sin weighing heavily on him all his life until in his mid thirties he meets by chance his former friend, now a rich banker with a trophy wife and seemingly not bothered by the past.

In alternating present and past chapters we follow the two friends to the inexorable denouement...

[Sunflower · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stumbled across this in the Library- not literally of course, they have shelves there, like most libraries. However, a book about boys in an old-fashioned boarding school, the narrator having been sent there because his family are expats living in Malaysia, and who happensto have a love of English and words.....how could I let it languish unread? The description of the boarding school life is very realistic, as are the friendships and rivalries,favouritism and betrayals.
In this book an event which happens in their penultimate school year haunts Bruno (the narrator) throughout his life until a chance meeting with the man who was his friend and co-conspirator at the time brings it to the fore again. He is unable let this go, and deals with his pain in sometimes surprising fashion, until he finally is forced to absolve himself. A quick read.

[Martin Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took this in as an audio book, well read by Roger May. I might not have completed it otherwise ... audio can get me over the hump like that ... because I'm not fixed on boarding school tales of repressed homosexuality as a type. That genre has had its day. But as this one wound itself tighter it did intrigue me - largely for its phenomenon of having a pretty unlikeable narrator who did little to endear himself. Somewhat like Julian Barnes's THE SENSE OF AN ENDING, the narrator's very frankness was the catch. And its ending ... well, I didn't see it coming and was glad to be unsettled in that way.

[sisterimapoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly good quick read. Nothing that special though. I found it hard to have much engagement with any of the characters - even those we were supposed to like. And the big 'event' that the story revolves around felt a bit 'is that all?' when we got to it. But atmospheric of a certain type of schooling at a certain time of life and how it might feel when adulthood collides with a past you think you've left behind.

[Zéro Janvier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bruno Jackson, le narrateur de ce livre, est un drôle de héros. Un anti-héros, diraient certains. Il est au centre d'une histoire qui navigue entre son adolescence dans un collège anglais et le présent, où il retrouve un ami d'enfance auquel il est lié par un sombre secret que le roman nous invite à découvrir. Si le personnage principal est parfois ennuyant, le mystère qui entourage Anthony Blunden, son ami, donne un peu de piment à l'histoire et donne finalement un roman plaisant à lire.

[Jo Marchant · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really did not know what to expect from this book and I really enjoyed it, a bit of a slow burn but some real social lessons in here. The priviliged attitude that a lot of people have over the more humble attitude to life of others. I enjoyed this and will look out for more by this author

[Andy Weston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better than I thought it would be. Built up to a good ending.

[Georgina Lidgard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant! An ending I didn't expect.