Review: Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn

Reading this book is sort of like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I didn't like the people (nor did they like each other.) Judging from other reviews, however, I am probably not giving the series (of which this is the first) a fair shake as the character of Patrick, here a child (who gets raped by his father, a warning for those of you a bit squeamish) matures in a variety of directions in later books. St. Aubyn has said the books are virtually autobiographical, a sad thing indeed, although from reviews I gather he overcomes conditions I would consider disastrous.

I bought this book based on several negative reviews in which the readers all excoriated the author for creating such a despicable character. Having loved Highsmith's Ripley series -- and how could anyone be more despicable than Ripley -- I couldn't wait.

This is a series of five novels, the most recent just published, that follow the lives of upper crust British society. And crust they are, but not in the hot-bread-lip-smacking-dripping-with-butter-crust we all love, rather the crust on a pile of manure after it's been baking in the sun for a while.

David, a very handsome man with a checkered past, married Eleanor for her money. He dominates and treats her miserably as he becomes part of the landed gentry. "The expression that men feel entitled to wear when they stare out of a cold English drawing room onto their own land had grown stubborn over five centuries and perfected itself in David’s face. It was never quite clear to Eleanor why the English thought it was so distinguished to have done nothing for a long time in the same place, but David left her in no doubt that they did. He was also descended from Charles II through a prostitute. ‘I’d keep quiet about that, if I were you,’ she had been told."

But most of the book is about David's childhood


I MUST quote this line from Paul's excellent review that captures the spirit much better than I ever could: " it was like eating a whole box of chocolate coated scorpions, crunch crunch, their little exoskeletons shattering on my palate and the poison flooding all my internal organs and me saying mmm-mmm, more please. " [http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/425509669]

The writing is exceptional.