Ten years ago, Bloomsbury sent me a set of Barbara Trapido books for review. Ten years ago! And, yes, I read and reviewed (and really liked) Brother of the More Famous Jack back then, but it has taken me a decade to read my second Trapido – Noah’s Ark (1984). And I’m still rather unsure what I thought about it.
My first thought, as I read the opening, was how good the writing was. Here is most of the first paragraph, which I’m going to quote at length because I think she does such a good job of throwing you into an intriguing and unconventional world:
Ali Glazer was stitching up her husband’s trouser hems, but had paused to glance up at the kitchen pin board in some fascination. The photograph of a man, bearing a disconcerting resemblance to Thomas Adderley, had been torn from a Sunday magazine advertisement and pinned there by Ali’s older daughter Camilla. The girl herself had had no awareness of that resemblance which now so forcibly struck her mother and had fixed the picture there merely because she liked the man’s collarless Edwardian shirt. The man – in keeping with the clichés of capitalist realism – was manoeuvring a white stallion through a dappled glade of redwood trees and was advertising cigarettes. Ali noticed that Camilla had fixed him rather high on the pin board where he beamed out, as from a higher plane, above the two postcards pinned side by side below him. This hierarchical arrangement struck her as altogether suitable given that she had always elevated and revered Thomas, while the postcards had come from people to whom she felt predominantly antipathetic.
I say ‘unconventional’, but I suppose Ali’s world is rigorously conventional. It is only her outlook, or the perspective that Trapido gives us, that makes it feel quirky and unusual. I was completely beguiled by that writing, and keen to immerse myself in whatever came after the first few pages – would Ali reconnect with Thomas? What would this mean for her marriage to the benevolently controlling Noah, who obviously doesn’t think that Ali is capable of very much, and mistakes her imaginative eccentricity for something inferior to his rational good sense?
Then Trapido did the thing that so many novelists do, and which always puts me off. We go back into the past. That was one scene in the present, to set a stage that we will work our way too. I never know why this is such a common trope, as I always find it deadens a novel. Oh well, I suppose I’ll put up with it.
We skate back to Ali’s past – between marriages. She has split up with her obnoxious ex-husband Mervyn, and is trying to work out how best to live life as a single mother – when Noah walks into her life, besotted and determined to sort out the disordered way in which Ali has allowed herself to become a doormat. Having seen how Noah treats her in the present day, we do get some benefit of hindsight, as it were, but it also removes some of the tension of wondering what will happen.
And the novel continues to be eccentric. We jump forward in time, or across continents, with very little warning. Trapido’s own eccentric authorial gaze refuses to let us get settled. Her writing style is never unduly odd, and certainly never breaks with the conventions of grammar etc., but the things she chooses to highlight often keep the reader on his/her toes. We spend more time being shown how different characters react to the prospect of head lice than we do to major life events. Everything is slightly off kilter. And I think that’s good?
I have to admit that I was a bit thrown by the novel. That started when one adult character starts lusting after an 11 year old Camilla, openly and in front of others, and nobody says anything. The hints of paedophilia are infrequent and never followed up in any way, but elsewhere, Trapido writes about sex in a jarring way, with sudden and momentary explicitness. And then I found the disconcerting way she puts together sentences and scenes was building together into something I couldn’t quite grasp. Much of the time I really admired it, but it made it difficult to identify the centre of the novel – to have anything concrete to hold onto.
Perhaps it’s a case of needing to be in the right mood for Trapido. I was definitely in that mood when I started the novel, and was loving it. The writing was really wonderful. By the time I finished it, the mood was faltering. Had I read it at a different time, I suspect I’d be writing an unadulteratedly glowing review of Noah’s Ark. I still think she is a richly inventive and unusual writer, but I’m going to be selective about when I start reading her again.
Barbara Trapido is my favorite contemporary fiction (not including mysteries) writer. I’ve read several of her books and liked them all. I haven’t read Noah’s Ark. I even had a very brief correspondence with her when I wrote her a fan letter!
Oh lovely! How nice to get a letter from her – did she write a letter like she writes a novel??
If only! She wrote a one page letter thanking me for taking the time to tell her how much I enjoyed her books. Very gracious.
Difficult… There are elements there I would struggle with a little, and even if the writing is wonderful that isn’t always enough to make you love the book. Mind you, I’ve never read Trapido, so what would I know! ;)
She is definitely mad as a box of badgers, as a writer, so those moments with real consequences felt a bit jarring. I definitely preferred Brother of the More Famous Jack.
I have never read Barbara Trapido, and as Karen says I think there are aspects I too would struggle with. As for that device of going back to the past, I find I don’t mind it if the writing is very good, but really it’s a bit overused I think.
Other Trapido fans seem to suggest this isn’t a good place to start, but I think you’d like Brother of the More Famous Jack.
I sometimes like Trapido and sometimes not. I loved Brother of the More Famous Jack and the very first Trapido I ever read, which was, I think, The Traveling Hornplayer. However, I have found some of her others less entrancing. This is probably the only one I haven’t read yet.
Oddly two people have read everything except this one! I wonder why Noah’s Ark is left adrift…
I’ve read all of Barbara Trapido’s novels (as best I can tell) and can highly recommend the linked ones (Brother, Temples, Juggling, Hornplayer), partly because of the writing but more from the shifting perspectives—all four have different central protagonists and each novel echoes back to give very different dimensions on the characters and events you thought you knew. The four add up to one of the more inventive and literate late 20th century family sagas. (While I did enjoy Noah’s Ark, I thought it far less interesting than the others, for what it’s worth and probably not a good one to begin with.)
I hadn’t realised they were linked! I read Brother so long ago that I’m not sure I’d remember any of the characters, but will do a refresher before I get onto the next.
I agree with Jack above that Trapido’s linked novels are her best. I adore them all but especially Temples of Delight. I liked Noah’s Ark, but I do agree that you have to be in the right mood for it. In case anyone is interested, I wrote a piece about her some years ago: https://bloom-site.com/2013/03/18/the-joyful-mystery-of-barbara-trapido/ One of the best parts was that I got to interview her, and we had a very long rambling conversation. (She’d just come back from a literary festival in, I think, Mauritius and was jet-lagged.) I could only use a fraction of it for the published Q and A. And then the next day she sent me a charming and delightful email apologizing for all the rambling which made me love her even more. She is definitely close to the top of my list of favorite contemporary writers, and I hope we’ll have another book from her at some point.
How wonderful to interview her! I did hear her speak in Woodstock years ago, and it was delightfully rambling.
I adored Trapido’s books at one time and then got out of the way of reading them. I think I may have another look.
By the way, browsing on YouTube for a play to listen to (I like old BBC radio dramas) I found Brian Sibley’s adaptation of Miss Hargreaves – have you heard it? Lots had to be cut out, but it is still delightful and oh, so sad. https://youtu.be/aGB3MmqSsPs – and there’s another book I immediately want to re-read!