Number 37 - Observatory Mansions - Edward Carey

 

As any regular readers of this blog will know, I fell in love with Edward Carey's writing style last year when I read Heap House (which I bought when I mistook him for Edward Gorey based on the artwork).

This is his debut novel, and more adult oriented than the Iremonger books.

It does feature a lot of the themes that run through Heap House. A run down building inhabited by a bunch of grotesques, an obsession with gathering objects other people see as junk etc. However it is still a very different novel.

It is narrated by Francis Orme, a,,, actually, I'm not sure what single adjective could possibly accurately describe him. He works as a statue on a plinth.  He's blessedly oblivious to everything happening around him even as he describes it to the reader.  He obsessively collects (steals) objects for his rather inappropriately named exhibition (which is locked in the basement and no one is allowed to even know of its existence). He has a narrative voice unlike anything else I can remember reading (including Heap House). he wears white gloves at all times and saves them to his own personal museum of white gloves when they get dirty (with a card explaining why they're discarded, including dates from start to end of wearing and the reason for their disposal). He is not your everyday narrator.

Observatory mansions is his home.  It used to be the stately home of the Orme family, complete with opulent furniture and paintings, attendant servants and acres of its own grounds.  Now it stands in the middle of a traffic island and all the grounds and all the luxury contents gone, including the servants.  it's been split into flats to try to raise money for its upkeep but most of the tenants have died or moved on and now there are only 7 residents in the building. Most of them are as strange in their own way as Francis.

Their insular existence is threatened when a new tenant arrives. She shakes up the lives of all the residents, but especially Francis's. 

This is one of those books that can make you laugh out loud and then cry and then laugh again... on the same page. The family secrets that are steadily revealed in the narrative are shocking and funny and tragic and completely unpredictable. 

The cast of almost grotesques is made completely sympathetic by the brilliant writing style. We accept their eccentricities and foibles and sometimes outright nastiness and still feel sorry for them.  

This isn't a happy book despite the number of laughs.  It isn't a depressing book despite the misery inflicted on the cast of characters. It walks that tightrope with consumate ease, performing backflips on the rope, just because Carey is so talented he can do that just for the hell of it.

I chose this book for my book group and I think it will make for an interesting discussion. I know thee are members of the group whose tolerance for weirdness is not as high as mine. I will find out in the next week or two.