Novel of two narratives unveils cautionary tale for our times
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Multiple award-winning Sri Lankan expatriate author Michelle de Kretser has recently produced Scary Monsters, a novel that both resembles and exceeds her previous work. Her previous novel The Life to Come, is situated in Sri Lanka, Australia, and France where she was born, immigrated to, and completed her graduate studies, respectively. Although the island is not mentioned in Scary Monsters, the background information provided suggests that it could be Sri Lanka while the other two locales remain the same. If The Hamilton Case is punctuated at times by excerpts from the advertising jingle that promoted Hentley shirts over Radio Ceylon in the 1960s; here, she takes, as her point-of-departure, the David Bowie song “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps).”Although there is no one-to-one connection between the song and the novel, the “post punk,” discordant sounds and the sinister lyrics echo the dystopian, Orwellian working conditions Lyle, an immigrant, is subjected to in the “Department.” Ensconced in the “Evaluations” section, he indulges in “unlawful surveillance of private citizens,” according to his son Sydney, and reports potential security risks to the authorities. In the other narrative, Lili who is born in Asia and a resident of Australia, is temporarily teaching in the South of France while awaiting the response to her application for graduate study in England. She is desperate to become a “Bold, Intelligent Woman,” a la Simone de Beauvoir, but is plagued by hallucinations of being raped or murdered as she obsessively reads news about the Yorkshire Ripper and other forms of violence prevailing in Europe.
Always one to experiment with form, de Kretser has surpassed herself here by producing a work with two front covers depicting the lives of Lili and Lyle which require the reader to turn the book upside down to switch from one perspective to the other. There are, in addition, two sets of acknowledgements, copyright pages, and other duplications. This strategy could have been adopted to sustain Lili’s comment on expatriation “When my family emigrated, it felt as if we’d been stood on our heads,” or to challenge the reader’s ludic imagination to creatively interpret the text.
Although enlivened by occasional touches of humour, the Lyle section presents a bleak universe. Since practising Islam has been banned, Muslims (and expatriates who break the law) face deportation. Lyle and Chanel even rear a dog to establish that they are not of this outlawed faith. Lyle internalizes Chanel’s adage “Don’t look back. It’s not the Australian way,” and ignores his roots to make himself totally acceptable to Aussies. Despite being good at his job, he deliberately keeps a low profile, slavishly covers for his boss, and aspires to nothing more than “the middling level of seniority” because major promotions would take away the “invisibility” he craves as an expatriate. Mel and Sydney, their children, are unimpressed by such contortions to appease an abhorrent, racist “Loserland” and emigrate to the US.
Lyle’s wife Chanel is temperamentally his opposite. A pragmatist and unabashed social climber, she yearns to move to a more elite neighbourhood. To secure finances for this “upgrade” she urges Lyle to invoke the “Amendment” and have their relative Bram, a doctor, certify that the caring Ivy, her mother-in-law who has sustained the family in multiple ways, should be euthanized despite there being no certainty that she is suffering from a terminal illness. The plan is to sell her remaining assets to bankroll the project. Such a diabolical move was anticipated in the first chapter when their pet dog Alan is put to sleep after it left a few drops of urine on the couch. The aged are considered dispensable commodities and de Kretser skilfully demonstrates Lyle’s procrastinations and mental dilemmas before he accedes to Chanel’s scheme and persuades Ivy to sign the consent forms. Humanity is so degraded that this “execution” is to be preceded by a soiree at which friends, family, and the soon-to-be deceased join in a ghoulish celebration.
Environmental concerns have reached critical proportions in this dystopian world with “a permanent fire zone” and poor air quality that bring about debilitating health conditions. But agitating for reform is not permitted and punitive measures await those who dare to do so. After moving to the US, the environmentally conscious Sydney, gives up a promising career, and takes extreme actions such as living in an unhygienic commune to further the cause.
If compliance and becoming an “authentic Australian” are Lyle’s ideals, Lili rebels against such strictures and feels some hope in late 1980s France where left-wing progressives are on the verge of securing power. “In those days I believed the past could be left behind like a country,” she declares. Her story is decidedly a literary counterpoint to the other with numerous references to art, theatre, fiction, and figures such as Camus, Sartre, Althusser, and Barthes.
The initial promise that such an intellectual background, Lili’s grasp of politics, and the belief that her presence in a more accommodating country would lead to fulfilment does not materialise, however. She becomes disillusioned on seeing North African immigrants being treated harshly by the authorities, finds it difficult to combat her inner demons, and feels betrayed when her mentor and friend Minna who had encouraged her to be socially committed and subversive turns out be a dilettante at best and a hypocrite at worst. Lili’s act of sleeping with Nick, Minna’s long-term boyfriend whom the latter had abandoned, could be construed as an act of compassion but is conceivably part of the overall cynicism that prevails when it is discovered that even the victory of Mitterand’s left wing party brings little relief.
In a recent personal exchange, I pointed out to de Kretser how the language she employed to describe sex had been transformed from the suggestive in The Hamilton Case to the explicit in her later work. She responded that “suggestion rather than explicitness was more suited to the 1930s.” Linguistic versatility is indeed one of de Kretser’s greatest strengths which is especially required in a novel of two narratives. The Lyle story successfully captures the suburban setting and office environment that she projects on to a futuristic Australia. Depending on the circumstances, the language is transactional, or “flat and featureless” like Lyle’s job. In the Lily section, however, the descriptions are elemental, charged, and unrestrained especially in characterising female desire. At times it reads like a feminized version of Henry Miller’s Quiet Days in Clichy.
The chorus of Bowie’s song that begins “Scary Monsters, super creeps, / keeps me running, running scared” perhaps establishes that the novel is a cautionary tale for our times though situated in 1980s France and a future Australia. We too should be “running scared” from biases and prejudices that marginalise minorities, appeasing those in a host country to the point of self-abasement, making social advancement such a priority that the aged are considered expendable, ignoring environmental issues until the consequences are irretrievably dire, being unable to distinguish between true and posturing social activists, and assuming that expatriation will bring about social justice and wholesome living.
Scary Monsters will indubitably appeal to a diverse readership.
The reviewer is Professor Emeritus University of Peradeniya
| Book facts | |
| Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser Published by Allen & Unwin, 2022. Reviewed by Dr. Walter Perera |
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