For the last couple of years, the first book I've read in a year was the Man Booker winner of the previous year. But since the Man Booker people decided to break with tradition by awarding the award to two novelists, I figured I can break my own little tradition too. Not that I don't want to read both novels, they just haven't found their way into my home yet.
So my first read for this year is, and this is in keeping with tradition, the book I was trying to finish last year but that took me longer than expected. In this case, three whole weeks longer. That is probably not a good omen. In 2015, when I was doing my 52 book challenge, I read three David Nicholls books in one year. I remember loving Starter for 10, crying my eyes out over One Day, and feeling slightly disappointed with Us. But overall, I loved his novels. So when Sweet Sorrow came out, a novel about one summer in which love turns everything around, revolving around Romeo & Juliet no less, I was very eager to read it.
I enjoyed the first chapters very much. The main character, Charlie Lewis, brought to mind the protagonist of Starter for 10; clumsy, disorganised, dishonest, but lovable in his own chaotic ways. Charlie isn't doing all that well in school, is maybe hanging out with the wrong crowd a bit, but is cute in his awkwardness. He stumbles upon a group of fellow teenagers rehearsing Romeo & Juliet and finds himself eager to join because of one girl participating; Fran Fisher. She is the most magical creature in the whole world and he finds himself inexplicably drawn to her. In this first part, there are some great reflective and descriptive pieces of writing. There is one about 'love at first sight', which goes on for a whole page but includes bits like "It's true that I thought she was lovely, but I thought this about someone five to ten times on any given day and even alone, I thought it while watching TV. It's true that during our first encounter a clear, insistent voice in my head had told me concentrate, this will matter, concentrate, and true, too, that part of this was probably just sex, the noise of which underscored almost any conversation that I had with a girl at that time, like a car alarm that no one can turn off."
But as the story progressed, I found myself liking the main character less and less. Sure, he'd had a shitty childhood, and shitty friends, but he is finding a lot of excuses not to be a better person. Not to work at being a better person. He is mostly ashamed of himself, ashamed of his father, ashamed of his theatre friends to his 'real' friends and the other way around; somehow this character is ashamed of his own existence. Without changing anything about it. And all the witty, wry commentary on life and love and teenage drama goes out the window.
Even worse, I found nothing whatsoever appealing about Fran Fisher. Literally nothing. I cannot see how she can be the great love of his life; she is constantly telling him to change himself, to man up, to put in work, she is letting him dance on a string for her by insisting he joins the theatre company before she will even go out for coffee with him. And if he were able to look back on this (the story is told from the perspective of a forty-year-old Charlie) with some detachment or perspective on the whole this would be okay, but he appears to be the exact same character, despite some of his theatre friends pulling out of his rough situation and trying to make something of him. He's never seen doing anything for himself. Neither is Fran, who is preoccupied only with herself. This is why I put the novel down for several days on end: I really couldn't be bothered to find out what would happen to them. On the back of my copy of the novel is a recommendation by Graham Norton, saying "Capturing perfectly a moment in time we've all experienced". I sincerely hope that not everybody has run into this kind of first love, as it will set you up for a life of broken hearts.
Okay, back to the good parts. For there are some. The novel takes place in 1997, with the characters being 16; I was 12 that year and recognise many of the cultural references and ways 'things are done' around that time. The language, as displayed above, is beautiful as ever, the plot lightly follows Romeo & Juliet's story without being too obvious. It is less arduous than Us, but a long way away from the light wit of Starter for 10 and the deep, emotional love of One Day.
With David Nicholl's writing speed, I'm afraid it'll be another four years before he produces another novel. I sincerely hope his next novel is more like his earlier writings.
