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Life is like a game of croquet British novelist Kate Atkinson's first book was the brilliantly funny Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which was named 1995's Whitbread Book of the Year (a prize first authors would kill for). Her second novel is even better. Human Croquet is named after a game, in the same class as Charades, in which human beings take the place of hoops and, when blindfolded, croquet balls. People bang into each other, roll away, fail to give guidance, take random paths, win or lose with teams they didn't choose. In other words, it's just like life. It's also like another parlour game, called Happy Families, that people in Britain always refer to ironically. Charles and Isobel Fairfax are the two children of an ill-fated couple who "roll away," leaving them to be raised by a tyrannical grandmother and the aunt from hell. Their world is filled with strange neighbours and odd occurrences, as the story travels through time to meet previous generations in various centuries, past and future. It's not as complicated as it sounds, mainly because it isn't written in a portentous tone but a jokey one that protects us from the essential tragedy of it all. Once again, the theme is
that children need parents. Without them, life becomes a game of chance.
Human croquet is a game of blood, broken limbs and bruised hearts.
It is sad to read, but Atkinson, because she has a historical world
view as well as a domestic, contemporary view, turns it into poetry
that is sometimes surreal. There is a splendour to the children's
survival. This is easily the best novel I have read this year. |