EVEN if Joan Didion's lumbering, pretentious thriller, The Last Thing He Wanted (Flamingo, £14.99 in UK), were half as coolly sophisticated as she appears to believe it is, it would still be a merely average novel. No, wait - better make that average, dull and aimless.
Central to the many obstacles in the path of the hapless reader in search of a story is the bored Didion's lack of humour and her preoccupation with style - or at least the cryptic, repetitive, fractured, syntax defying, echo chambered, theatrical lingo which she apparently considers high literary style, her very own "drop dead, I'm so slick it hurts" argot. Here is an example:
Elena had already been caught in the pipeline, swept into the conduits.
Into the game.
Into the plot.
Into the setup.
Into whatever you wanted to call it. Or how about:
It was the figure that broke her heart.
The evenness of the figure.
The size of the figure.
The figure that was part of what she believed to be a delusion, the figure that had been the bel canto of her childhood, the figure that was now a memory, an echo, a dream, a romance, an old man's fairy tale.
Seldom has the humble paragraph - some of hers run to two words - acquired such ponderous significance. Why does she write: "She would call Barry Sedlow./ The first thing to do was get in touch with Barry Sedlow"? Why all the repetition? Does she find paragraphs exciting and/or suspense filled? Does she feel her reader may require variations of the same facts repeated a few times before he or she is able to grasp the implications? How stupid does she reckon readers are? Slightly stupid or very? As a slightly stupid reader, I found the vaguely plotted narrative confusing, the archly taut prose immensely irritating.
Why do all the characters express themselves in the kind of spat out dialogue reserved for second rate television drama? From early in the narrative it becomes clear that the only excitement on offer is anticipating Didion's next offence against standard English as spoken or written - never mind all notions of conventional narrative. The shadowy non heroine at the centre of this half heartedly convoluted tale of intrigue and conspiracy never becomes a character. The most interesting thing about Elena, the out of work reporter who finds herself agreeing to escort a shipment of anti personnel mines to an unnamed Caribbean island - because her dying Daddy couldn't make it - is that she arrives on the remote jungle airstrip dressed in a black silk shift. Not even the most heartless reader could ignore this plea for human understanding, or at least sympathy for a character whose creator is really far more interested in herself.
The non plot never gathers momentum. Why? Because the intrusive author prefers engaging in metaphysical asides, such as: "The persona of the writer does not at tract me". The entire book is a self regarding exercise, as if Didion were saying: "Look at me, I'm so famous I don't really have to write coherently anymore."
She continues, unimpeded by any sense of irony: "Nor am I comfortable around the literary life: its traditional dramatic line (the romance of solitude, of interior struggle, of the lone seeker after truth) came to seem early on a trying conceit. I lost patience somewhat later with the conventions of the craft, with exposition, with transitions, with the development and revelation of `character'." No kidding. Earlier, we are informed:
I still believe in history.
Let me amend that.
I still believe in history to the extent that I believe history to be made exclusively and at random.
Earlier still:
History's rough draft.
We used to say.
When we still believed that history merited a second look.
The Last Thing He Wanted is an excuse for Didion to sit down, click her fingers and call for attention. It is her first novel for twelve years; who cares? Even her most ardent fans would have to concede that Didion is more effective as outraged reporter than as novelist. In Miami (1987) she demonstrated that she is a sharp, opinionated, aggressive, often angry observer unafraid of airing her views. This can make for stimulating reportage, but it does little for fiction, which must do many things other than merely tell a story. One could refer to Didion as a Cassandra except that by now everyone knows the world is a corrupt place. Sad to say, Didion's legendary cynicism is looking threadbare.
And so Elena wanders about, estranged from her husband, on borrowed time with a daughter who has just about run out of belief in Mom, while Daddy has never been the most ethical of individuals. Elena's journalistic career appears to have faltered. Her health is not too good either. Above all she has reached a certain age, and with it has developed a sombre self knowledge: in other words, no men.
Ultimately the reader is left wondering why Joan Didion writes fiction when she might be happier penning cautionary sermons castigating the folly of humankind.
If you are looking for a thriller, or even, a thrill, look elsewhere.
