Honest to God, by page 14 I noted that this rural jaunt is going to end in rape. They promise “a proper boy’s weekend” to “make a man of you yet”. The two men have “slitted eyes” and their “hands ferreted inside their trouser pockets as they pulled their ball sacks from their thighs”. We open with Mungo being sent off with two strangers for a long weekend in the countryside, to learn fishing and lighting fires and snaring rabbits. It creates a narrative hook (why is this happening now, and what had led to it, and what shall be the consequences?) The problem here, however, is that marketing and structure are undercutting each other. It is a method – “in media res”, “in the middle of things” – which is traditional and highly effective. That however comes later in the arrangement of the novel but chronologically before the beginning of it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |