Visman

I’m proud of you all – everyone seems to be out buying their copies. I popped into Waterstones and Blackwells today – found one copy of each new Bloomsbury book in Waterstones, and about a dozen of each in Blackwells. Tick, gold star.

Now onto other recent reads – and another Bloomsbury book, actually. One of my favourite books read last year was Yellow by Janni Visman – to read my thoughts on that brilliant book about agoraphobia, jealousy, and cats, click here. It was only a matter of time before I went back and read Visman’s first novel, Sex Education. Now, usually I like to post a picture of the book cover, but with Sex Education I’m not going to… it’s a close-up of bikini-clad gals (and by close-up, I mean we just see neck-down, thigh-up). Not really the sort of picture I want to put on here, especially after somebody called me ‘knowingly old-fashioned’ (which I take as a compliment!) So you’ll have to make do with a sketch I’ve done for the occasion.

Sex Education is a tale of competition, jealousy, friendship and passion between friends Maddy and Selina. We see the girls from young childhood, through puberty, to adulthood – all the way through the characters have an uneasy balance of closeness and rivalry. Selina usually gets the better of Maddy, and is the more powerful of the two, destroying while Maddy creates. Throughout the novel various other characters are introduced as appendages to these – another friend, a boyfriend, a parent – but bubbling through is the intense relationship between the girls, and the effects it has on each.

To start with the good – I read it in one sitting, which is unusual for me and my short attention span. A very involving novel, which is very nearly very clever. But, having had Yellow, I can see how Janni Visman was on a stepping stone. The intensity is not quite as intense as Yellow; the insights not so insightful, the tautness not so taut. Occasionally Sex Education feels a little like a grown-up Jacqueline Wilson book. Which is far from the worst thing a book can be, since Jacqueline Wilson writes intelligent, involving children’s books – but where Yellow was starkly memorable, Sex Education is occasionally a little predictable. Yes, it’s a presentation of the rivalry between friends, and the damaging effects of jealousy – but a quirkier edge would have catapaulted the novel into a higher league. I’ve no idea how the quirkiness could have been added – but obviously Visman did, because she delivered it in Yellow.

I have been having good luck with books recently. You may remember that I impulsively bought Yellow by Janni Visman, after having barcoded it in the Bodleian – based on the blurb and the cover, and the fact that Amazon has lots going for a penny. Well, I couldn’t resist – it’s now been read, and I can declare it excellent.

Stella is agoraphobic, to the extent that she cannot leave her flat at all. She lives there with her partner, Ivan, and her cat, George. When Ivan moved in, she made three rules:

No stories from the past.
No unnecessary anecdotes.
No questions.

“Suits me fine,” he said.

Stella is also neurotic. Not in a Monica-from-Friends-hilarious-way, but in a studied attention to details and fixation with routine. She wears the same colour shoes for months, and the decision to change from blue to red is momentous. As an aromatherapist, she has a steady stream of clients come to her treatment room – all of whom call her Ms. Lewis, and from whom overtures of friendship are unwelcome. Throughout the novel, Stella treats her own and others dilemmas with treatments from the ordered phials in the one metre square cabinet: ‘To a glass of water I add five drops of Bach Flower Remedy White Chestnut for “constant worrying thoughts and/or mental arguments”. I note I need to order another bottle.’

One day Ivan is wearing an old gold bracelet with his name on it, and ‘True love forever over every single rainbow XXX S.L 1978’ inscribed inside. Who is S.L.? They are Stella’s initials – they are the initials of her sister, Skye. Whose else could they be? ‘Yellow is the colour of gas, of fear, of jealousy.’ As her partner, her sister, her new neighbour and even her cat begin to behave strangely, Stella’s jealousy and paranoia become deeper and deeper and increasingly damaging. But is there some justification?

Janni Visman’s novel is short, but immensely powerful. The first person narrative is sparse and often detached; the voice of a woman trying to control her worries by ordering them. As a portrait of paranoia, this is intense and affective – gripping and taut, occasionally disturbing but always compelling.

Visman cites Hitchcock’s Vertigo as partial inspiration (see a great interview here), but (especially since she trained as a fine artist) this painting, shown alongside the book, could have been made for the book, and was the bookmark I used – Vilhelm Hammershoi’s Interior, Sunlight on the Floor 1906.