FICTION: CATHERINE HEANEYreviews The Rehearsalby Eleanor Catton, Granta, 317pp, £12.99
THERE’S A moment towards the end of Eleanor Catton’s ambitious debut when one of the central characters makes the observation that “there are people who can only see the roles we play, and there are people who can only see the actors pretending. But it’s a very rare and strange thing that a person has the power to see both at once”. In many ways, this statement encapsulates many of Catton’s central concerns in this inventive and confidently written novel, as she plays with ideas of characters versus “actual” people, and performance versus “reality”. Taking as a starting point the notion that, within the construct of the novel, all characters and actions are essentially fictional, she pushes the boundaries a little further, playing with ideas of truth and imagination, and blurring the lines between them. (It’s no doubt this daring and seriousness of intent that prompted Joshua Ferris to refer to the book as offering “a glimpse into the future of the novel itself” – heady puff indeed.)
The story opens as a high school reels in the aftermath of a sex scandal, a teenage student having had an affair with her 31-year-old music teacher. The moral outrage of the parents and school faculty, who talk of rape and abuse and “the victim”, are in stark contrast to the bewilderment and jealousy of the girl’s fellow students, who feel their friend has betrayed them by entering the world of adult sexuality without their knowledge. It’s in the ambiguous territory between these two poles that the narrative is played out, told largely from the point of view of Isolde, the younger sister of the disgraced student, and other classmates, who share their musings and imaginings with their sphinx-like, acid-tongued saxophone teacher.
Intertwined with this story is a second, which follows Stanley, a sensitive young man embarking on his studies at a prestigious drama school. The Institute is a place seething with competitiveness, creative ambition and self-regard, and Catton observes its microcosm with a cool, sardonic eye. As the year progresses, Stanley vies with his fellow students for the approval of the pompous (and occasionally cruel) Heads, and struggles to gain a foothold in the social hierarchy, all the while desperately trying to be “seen” by his teachers and the world at large.
The two strands of the novel come together as Stanley’s first-year class take the school sex scandal as the subject of their end-of-year project – the play within a novel allowing Catton to introduce yet another fictional dimension to the narrative. She makes clever use of the language of theatre, describing lighting and musical effects to shift scenes from the “real” world to a staged setting (“The overhead lights have dimmed and she is lit only by a pale flicking blue, a frosty sparkle like the on-off glow of a TV screen”), often leaving the reader unsure as to whether an episode is real or imagined. This ambiguity is furthered as characters are referred to as actors: Bridget, one of the novel’s central figures is “good at voices. She actually wanted to be Isolde, because Isolde has a better part, but this girl is pale and stringy and rumpled and always looks slightly alarmed, which are qualities that don’t quite fit Isolde, and so she plays Bridget instead”. It is to Catton’s credit that this device – which has the potential to get extremely tedious – doesn’t detract from the unfolding drama. This is an immensely readable novel, with a couple of unexpected plot turns, and the author is careful not to sacrifice her story on the altar of experimentation; it is meticulously structured, the chapters alternating between the girls’ story and that of Stanley, narrated in the present tense and the past respectively.
The sophistication and subtlety of the writing is all the more impressive when one takes into account the author’s tender age of 24. Catton, from New Zealand, is possessed of a remarkably mature voice, using language confidently – occasionally to dazzling effect – and creating whole worlds of thoughts and emotions for her characters. She vividly evokes the hothouse atmosphere of both schools and the kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions and desires that shape young adults – innocence giving way to experience, the prudishness and cattiness of teenage girls versus the crude, gruff bravado of their male counterparts, and the embarrassment of teenagers as they fumble their way into their first sexual encounters. She also explores the idea of power with an insight beyond her years – the dynamics and struggles between teachers and students, mothers and daughters, popular kids and scapegoats, the beloved and the unwanted.
And because of her youth, one is more inclined to forgive Catton for relying at times too heavily on narrative devices, or letting the cleverness of her ideas take precedence over a more old-fashioned credibility. Perhaps the book's most serious flaw is the lack of a deeper emotional core – the self-consciously fictional nature means one cares less about the characters. Yet for all that, The Rehearsalmarks an exciting arrival on the fictional stage – it will be interesting to see where its prodigiously talented young author goes next.
Catherine Heaney writes for The Glossmagazine