In Nothing to be Afraid of (also
reviewed on this blog), Julian Barnes’s entertaining and immensely readable
meditation on death, appears a writer who is identified only as ‘P’. ‘P’ is
Catholic and is concerned that when he dies he will be separated from his wife
and children who are atheist (and presumably will not be admitted to wherever ‘P’
hopes he is going).
I read in article in the Guardian that ‘P’ is the author
Piers Paul Read.
Geoffrey Jomier, the protagonist of
Read’s sixteenth novel, The Misogynist, is not catholic. For the best part of the novel
Jomier is an atheist. He is also a retired ex-barrister who leads solitary
existence in Hammersmith, on the wrong side of Shepherd’s Bush, several pegs
down from Kensington where he used to live until his divorce from his wife
Tilly. Tilly had an affair with Jomier’s friend Max, who is richer than the
average Sheikh in Abu Dhabee. Even though Tilly is the guilty party (in
Joimer’s eyes, and many would share his grievance) it is she who has done well
out of the divorce. Their house in Blenheim Crescent was sold and two thirds of
the proceeds went to Tilly; Jomier ended up paying the mortgage on Tilly’s new
house and a monthly sum for each of his two children until they turned
eighteen. It is not therefore surprising that Joimer is bitter than the lemon I
squeezed in my gin and tonic last night, even though the divorce that ‘took him
to the cleaners’ and reduced his ‘disposable income suddenly’ to ‘a quarter of
what it was before’, happened many years ago. To add insult to injury, the
infidel Tilly is now married to her hirsute lover, Max, happily for all outward
appearances, and lives in a large house in a posh part of London. (The house
for which Jomier paid the mortgage is now rented out, swelling further Tilly’s
already considerable income; is there no justice in the world?)
Jomier is now in his sixties. He is
single. He has a lot of time on his hands, which he spends (a) transcribing the
diaries he has kept over the years in electronic format until they merge with
the present diaries which are already in electronic format (which gives him
ample opportunities to think about his dead friends many of whom led less than
perfect private lives), and (b) pontificating on all manner of things— from
immigration to feminism, in a manner and style that are not dissimilar to those
of his creator’s columns in the Daily
Mail. Jomier resents that the ‘elegant squares in Belgravia remain empty
because the non-domiciled millionaires are elsewhere’. He does not approve that
titles are bestowed on immigrants (‘Sir Joshua and lady Zion, Lord and Lady
Japati, Baroness El-Aksa, Nazir Bookerbanana, OM’). Bradford and Leicester have become ‘Islamic
cities’. He does not think that feminism, on the whole, has been a positive
force; it is, he is sad to note, the principle reason for the break-up of
marriages in the UK. Jomier might be an atheist, but no one in his right mind
will accuse him of liberalism. He probably considers ‘liberal’ as a term of
abuse. Liberalism, as far as Jomier is concerned, is ‘about being
non-judgmental about people’s sex lives, but hyper-judgmental about pollution
and fox hunting and Tesco and Margaret Thatcher.’ At one stage Jomier lists the
‘Seven Sins of the Secular State’, which are: ‘Racism, Misogyny, Homophobia,
Elitism, Smoking, Obesity, and Religious beliefs’; and concludes that he is
innocent only of faith and fatness, and he no longer smokes.
In between his lamenting about the
deplorable state of affairs of the modern world and reminiscing of his dead
friends, Jomier visits his son Henry, who works in the city. Henry lives with
his ambitious wife, who is a corporate lawyer, and two children. Henry is (by
Jomier’s current standards) rich and lives in a half-a-million worth house in
Queen’s Park (which is now worth twice the money he paid for) but is unhappy
because his friends are richer than he and live in houses in Notting Hill
(which have quadrupled in price). Jomier also has a daughter, named Louisa, who
is married to a rich Argentine farmer (whom she met in her gap year) and lives
in a joint Catholic family—five children and a mother-in-law who rules with an
iron fist—in Buenos Aires. You will not be surprised to learn that Jomier has a
low opinion of his son-in-law whom he regards as an unsophisticated and
uncouth. As for his son, Jomier worries that he is turning into a bumptious
version of himself. Jomier and his ex-wife, Tilly, despite years of separation,
have not come to form an easy, relaxed relationship. They see each other only
at the birth-day parties of Henry’s children where they scrupulously avoid eye-contact.
They take turns in spending Christmases with their children, Jomier worrying
inwardly that his son’s family prefers Tilly over him. Being single and
unattached and of certain age, Jomier gets routinely invited to parties
organized by friends. At one of the parties Jomier is introduced to Judith, a
yoga-teacher and a divorcee. Jomier embarks on a relationship with Judith,
which, assisted by weekly meals at Indian restaurants and Viagra in the
bedroom, proceeds smoothly—the two even spend a Christmas together in
Venice—until Jomier receives the news that his daughter Louisa is gravely ill
with a ‘mysterious’ blood disorder. The Doctors in Buneos Aires can’t diagnose
exactly the condition, so Louisa is brought to London (cue for Jomier to rail
against the NHS and doctors). Louisa’s illness comes to have a profound effect
on Jomier’s views about the world, relationships, and theology in a way he does
not envisage. As the novel comes to its end, we meet a Jomier who is more
relaxed about things (although he would probably still recoil if called a
liberal).
In Geoffrey Jomier, Paul Piers Read has
created a character that is not dissimilar to many in Kingsley Amis’s later
novels. Jomier is a deeply cynical and profoundly disillusioned man, who holds
sour views on the 21st century Britain (London, to be more exact),
which border on being reactionary. Yet he is not offensive. That is because he
has a knack of expressing himself (again like many of Kingsley Amis’s
protagonists) in a manner that brings a smile to your face, even as you
disagree with the views themselves. There is an air of innocuousness about
Jomier. His whole demeanour is of a man who has accepted that he is second-rate
and is accepting (although not happily) of his less than scintillating career
as a barrister (his application to become a QC was rejected) and failures in
personal life. Therefore, when he expresses outrageous views such as ‘man’s
penis was created by God to inseminate the female of the species’ or
‘inconsistency, like menstruation, is a female attribute that one knows but
does not mention’, instead feeling outraged, you are likely to exclaim ‘Cheeky
Bugger!’ Jomier makes liberal (the only
area where he is liberal) and mostly effective use of irony. Only occasionally
do his musings take on the unappealing hectoring tone.
The Misogynist is a sharply observed novel. It offers the reader the worldview
of a man in his sixties, who increasingly finds himself at odds with the values
of the society around him. There are passages of droll comedy in the novel, for
example Jomier’s pedantic counting of the expenses of the Christmas holiday he
has with Judith and his anxiety that the expenses should be divided exactly as
he and Judith agreed at the beginning, not realising, amidst the obsessive
computing, how it would make him appear. Jomier is an acute observer and has an
unfailing eye for the inconsistencies in others; yet he remains, for the best
part of the novel, oblivious to his own inconsistencies and failings, which he
tries to rationalise with his animadversion of political correctness,
liberalism, feminism. Jomier’s powers of observation are at their best and most
caustic when he is describing women. The first things he notices about women
are their breasts and bottoms. However, there is a barely concealed vein of
revulsion when he describes female body parts (pubic hairs are like lichen,
vulvas are slimy), although, to be fair to him, he is equally unsparing when it
comes to his own sexual functions. He can’t get an erection without Viagra and
when he does manage to ejaculate, it is neither pleasurable nor ecstatic—‘not
the gusher from a newly tapped oil well but a coughing splutter from a rusty
pump’ (that is an imagery you don’t need).
The Misogynist is a neatly crafted novel. When the final twist comes in
the story it seems an appropriate culmination to the trajectory of Jomier’s
life.
In The Misogynist Piers Paul Read has
managed the feat of making a man who holds deeply unfashionable views almost
likeable. At one stage Jomier says that he likes people who share his sense of
humour, catch his ironies, people who are oblique, unassertive, cynical, and
disillusioned. He could almost be describing the English national character.
Even if you share only some of the attributes with Jomier, you will enjoy this
darkly humorous, satirical novel.
