Bitterness at the back of the bus

IMAGINE DRIVING across Europe on a long coach trip with a mixed group of sexually preoccupied, no longer quite so young lecturers and eager, sexually available students. This is not a sightseeing tour; its purpose is to lodge a serious protest at the European Parliament.

Imagine travelling in the disgruntled company of Jerry Marlow, an Englishman who teaches at an Italian university. When we first meet him - or, rather, hear him - he announces: "I am sitting slightly off centre on the long back seat of a modern coach." He hates buses. `Come to think of it, at the moment he dislikes pretty much everything, including himself. Imagine travelling anywhere with Jerry.

His heart is clearly not with the protest, although it has been organised to defend the jobs of non nationals, such as himself, who teach at the University of Milan. Defiance, not solidarity, has placed him on the bus. Aware that his presence is a mistake, he begins to lament this. And when Jerry laments, he tends to lament and, well, lament: "I immediately appreciated that this was precisely the kind of squalid, absurd and wilful mistake that somebody like myself would make."

While his colleagues are viewing the journey in the context of a practical jobsaving protest/adventure which offers some fun on the side, the self loathing, self absorbed, depressed and depressing Jerry has involved himself in the escapade merely as a way of testing whether or not he has recovered from the end of a life changing affair.

The woman who is the source of most of his problems is also on the bus. Jerry does not so much tell his story as allow us full access to his unedited thoughts and self tormenting memories, which are dominated by regret and irritation. Regret for the romance which collapsed just at the point he was finally prepared to spill up with his wife and move in with his mistress - who, by then, was admitting to having had two affairs during their relationship. As for his irritation, it is directed at the harm less antics of his fellow passengers, none of whom, of course, is as upset as he is. There is also his annoyance at being 45.

Considering that Jerry's endless interior monologue has led him to decide that his marriage failed because of his quietly unhappy wife's obsessional vacuuming and that his former mistress, with whom he remains obsessed, seduced his 18 year old daughter - who still baby sits for her - it seems he is unlikely to find true happiness anywhere.

Europa is Tim Parks's ninth novel. As the best of his previous books, such as his award winning debut Tongues of Flame (1985), Loving Roger (1986) and Goodness (1991) testify, he is a clever writer, at his happiest when working in a first person voice. This is a brave novel: Jerry, given to seeing every woman he meets in terms of sexual rating, is not attractive; he is a coward, a liar, a snob and, above all, a very bad loser.

No one could accuse him of idealising his lost lover, who emerges as a vain egoist more in love with herself than anyone else. Their relationship is revisited mainly through a series of sex scenes, memories of her body and unconvincing intellectual debates. Yet the novel has an energy which is sustained by Jerry's elaborate attempts to chastise himself, interspersed with generous helpings of self justification, spontaneous rants and relentless observations.

Best of all is Parks's characterisation of Vikram Griffiths, the dog loving Welsh Indian organiser of the protest, who attempts to escape the reality of his messed up life and failed marriages by means of blustering good humour and sex with anyone who will have him. Through Vikram's predicament, and also that of the other teachers, Parks establishes some sense of life as lived beyond Jerry's musings. "We are," Jerry concludes, "lost in this foreign country that isn't ours, this Europe that may or may not exist, and we wouldn't know what to do if we went home.

For all its sour humour and unsympathetic portrayal of one man's midlife crisis, Europa is a skilful, shrewd performance from an invariably daring writer unafraid of taking risks with dangerous devices such as repetition, misogyny, random complaints and the more unappealing aspects of human nature.