Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Title: So I Am Glad
Author: A.L. Kennedy
Publisher: Vintage
So I Am Glad is a curious novel. Saying what it is about is easy, explaining how that works probably less so. When a strange man comes down the stairs and into kitchen of a shared house in Glasgow, Jennifer assumes he is Martin, the new guy who is going to stay with them for awhile. Rather he is an amnesiac, with no memory of who he is or how he came to be in the house. Not long after his appearance he realises that he is in fact Cyrano De Bergerac, which is odd given he remembers dying 300 years earlier. When he decides he is being a burden on Jennifer he decides to leave the house, but with nothing to his name and in a foreign time/country he has limited options. Jennifer has had growing feelings for Cyrano, which given that Jennifer doesn't tend to have feelings about much is quite something. So she is quite distraught by his disappearance - a period which sees both of them hit bottom. With reunion helping the two to some degree, but the darkness of the time between needs to be resolved.
Quite how a 300 year dead French man ends up in Glasgow is never really covered, its not really a worry when it comes down to it. The core of the book is Jennifer who from my reading of Kennedy's work to date seems to be one of her classic characters - to some degree appearing perfectly normal, while being animated by an inner turmoil. Though given how calm Jennifer claims she is turmoil is likely too strong a word.
Kennedy writes Jennifer as narrator, so much of the story is through her thoughts and reflections. Tending towards emotional ground, as this is essentially for the most part a love story. There is also a strong thread of darkness through both characters - Jennifer has had violent relationships, and Savienen comes from a different age where men killed each other for honour, which sets him up for the life of violence led while outside the house.
Of course one hopes that an author gets better with each new work. So it should not really be a surprise that I found that I enjoyed the recent novel Everything You Need to a greater extent than this previous novel. Still over all I did enjoy So I Am Glad, and am likely to continue to explore Kennedy's work back the way while waiting for another forward step.
RVWR: PTR
August 2003
