C by Tom McCarthy

Tom McCarthy’s C is a bildungsroman (a novel that charts the growth of an individual) with a difference: the main character is a cipher, with no attempt made to plunge into his psychology. McCarthy has spoken loudly of his distaste for the humanist novel which goes into great depth about a character’s feelings and emotions. In C he replaces the ‘emoting subject’ with Serge Carrefax, a character who is always present but neither truly there. His life becomes something around which McCarthy weaves his themes of technology (wireless radio, communication, flight), accretes symbol after symbol (silk, insects, and flight) and indulges in word play (Serge's name evokes an electrical surge and the concept of flight and air when pronounced by his French mother).

That the novel works and works extremely well is a testament to McCarthy’s skills, as this could quite easily have become a pretentious exercise. In fact, contrary to all the talk of experimentalism and difficulty, McCarthy has actually written a very readable novel (with frequent attempts at humour). Yes, there are scenes which are quite technical and yes, you have to abandon any hope of sympathising with the empty vessel that is Serge, but the narrative is entirely linear (there is no playing with chronology) and you are always clear as to what is happening. Compare that with novels by Burroughs and Joyce - where one is often struggling to work out what on earth is happening and to whom - and the novel is an absolute page-turner!

Another interesting aspect of C emerges when you consider that McCarthy has declared himself a re-mixer or DJ. Almost every scene in this novel has echoes in previous works of literature: the drug-taking reminds you of Burroughs; the scene in the European spa of Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain; some of the word-play is taken from Joyce. That the novel frequently talks of echoes resounding through time makes this all the more relevant to the McCarthy’s themes.

Is this my winner… well, we’ll just have to wait and see!