I've been reading Toby Litt ever since I needed a third book to round off a threee for two and picked up a copy of Corpsing at semi-random in Waterstones way back in the year 2000. It's safe to say I'll give anything he writes a try. He's a very very talented author and not scared to take risks.
He has an ongoing project to work his way through the alphanet with his book titles. O seems to be conspicuous by its absence sadly, but P is here in a simplistically beautiful bound edition from Galley Beggar Press. Even the packaging this came in was extraordinary. Inside the box it was wrapped in black crepe paper and felt like a real luxury item to open. GBP are certainly a good press to order from - they really take pride in their products.
Which means the quality of the writing is more than likely to be very good indeed. Why go to that sort of effort for anything less than sublime writing.
And that's what we have in this book. Toby Litt has excelled himself with thia one.
It tells the story of Elliott - a young boy confined to a wheelchair and unable to communicate except though grunts, gestures with his eyes and slight nods. He spends most of his days either parked in front of a window or in front of a white wall. He lives in a home run by nuns, his only contact with his parents is Christmas and birthday cards which are his main method for marking the passage of time.
Despite being stuck in his chair and unable to communicate, he is astoundingly intelligent. He notices everything. He knows how one of his fellow patients is feeling by the colour of her knees. There's a desperate loneliness inside him though. When a new patient arrives, Jim, he feels he's found his soulmate. Jim is blind and dumb though. How can they learn to communiate? How can they ever
be friends and have fun?
The style of writing in this book is adventurous to say the least and grammar takes a back seat and every paragraph is one very long continuous sentence often run on into each other with no punctuation marks in sight not a comma not a full stop or colon or semi colon or anything just a blinding whirl of words where we the readers have to pick and choose our own rhythm and rhyme and reason and follow his stream of consiousness which helps place us squarely inside the head of young Elliott as he tells us of his days and his feelings and his hopes and fears.
And it works. It works amazingly well. It needs concentration, but I found i would hit the flow and internal rhythms of the language inside of a page and then I found it almost impossible to put down.
Elliott is a truly sympatheitic creation. I found myself laughing and crying in equal amounts in this book. I won't reveal how a boy with cystic fybrosis, unable to do anything but grunt manages to communiacte and befriend a blind and dumb friend, but it is genius. I nearly cheered when they worked out their communication method, as well as wiping a small tear away.
Despite the fact that you could argue very little happensd in this book (it starts with a multi page description of a whitewashed wall) this is a compelling read, truly emotional and life affirming.
As much as I've loved the rest of Litt's books, and three of his have hovered in my top ten for many years now - Hospital, Journey into Space and deadkidsongs - I may now have a new favourite.
easy 9/10 maybe more...
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