Friday 8 August 2008

 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Clemency Burton-Hill
Clemency Burton-Hill

Clemency suggests


Black Swan Green

Missing the middle path

David Mitchell
Sceptre, 371pp, £16.99,
Sebastian Smee
Wednesday, 10th May 2006

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Reading David Mitchell’s fourth novel, which is told through the eyes of a 13-year-old boy, reminded me why girls have little or no interest in the contents of boys’ heads until they are well out of their teens. It’s horrible in there. Thirteen-year-old boys, in particular, are revolting concoctions of fear and loathing, of hormones and confusion and clumsy self-assertion.

This presents Mitchell, a writer of enormous talent but uncertain depth, with a problem. The truer and more lifelike he makes his narrator’s voice, the more he risks boring us silly with early teen preoccupations. But the more he uses art (in the form of stylish writing, good plotting, poetic feeling) to overcome this danger, the more he risks hitting false notes and puncturing the story’s painstakingly constructed reality.

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