Name: Never Mind
Rating: 3.91304347826087 (23 reviews)

Edward St. Aubyn

Never Mind

Edward St Aubyn

Winner of the Betty Trask Award, Never Mind is the first in Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick. At his mother’s family house in the south of France, Patrick Melrose has the run of a magical garden. Bravely imaginative and self-sufficient, five-year-old Patrick encounters the volatile lives of adults with care. His father, David, rules with considered cruelty, and Eleanor, his mother, has retreated into drink. They are expecting guests for dinner. But this afternoon is unlike the chain of summer days before, and the shocking events that precede the guests’ arrival tear Patrick’s world in two. Never Mind was originally published, along with Bad News and Some Hope, as part of a three book omnibus , also called Some Hope.

I never read anything that felt insane in the way this did.

bernard black

Gavin

Tense, effortless, funny, devastating. A single day among the melting upper-class, building up to a dinner party - but eliding the contempt we might feel with pathos and pain and humour. 

The dialogue is consistently impressive. Victor is the most convincing philosopher character I've seen - neurotic, analytic, too in his head to be harmful. Patrick's model of the world is slightly too sophisticated model for a five-year-old, but the scene in which he's introduced is the most convincing childlike prose:

  Patrick walked towards the well. In his hand he carried a grey plastic sword with a gold handle, and swished it at the pink flowers of the valerian plants that grew out of the terrace wall. When there was a snail on one of the fennel stems, he sliced his sword down the stalk and made it fall off. If he killed a snail he had to stamp on it quickly and then run away, because it went all squishy like blowing your nose. Then he would go back and have a look at the broken brown shell stuck in the soft grey flesh, and would wish he hadn’t done it. It wasn’t fair to squash the snails after it rained because they came out to play, bathing in the pools under the dripping leaves and stretching out their horns. When he touched their horns they darted back and his hand darted back as well. For snails he was like a grown-up.

And the venomous, purely perverse relationship of his parents produces gasping lines like

  At the beginning, there had been talk of using some of her money to start a home for alcoholics. In a sense they had succeeded.


I stumble over David, the charming psychopath rampant. It is too hard to understand intentional evil, even when snobbery, tough love parenting and simple rage are proffered as explanations. I had a petite mort at the end. Really fantastic.

In one sitting.

In the deep south of France, Patrick Melrose has the run of his parents' house and magical garden and the company of his vivid imagination. Yet his tyrannical father rules this world with considered cruelty while his mother makes her escape into alcoholism.

NEVER MIND

Nooshin

Pretentiousness done right. This was the wittiest, most mind-bending novel I've read in a long time, strangely worth every single page even though I already knew all the details. Looking forward to the rest of the journey.

Laura

The most common critique of this novel is that it is a billed as a black comedy. And many people, unsurprisingly, don’t find a book that features child rape to be funny. It doesn’t even matter that the scene itself is horrible and disturbing and portrayed with the gravity it deserves, the fact that there was a rape scene in a comedic book at all is jarring and unpleasant to many. I can’t say I blame them. That being said, I still found this book funny, but in a mean way. That was another issue many had- it’s mean. When reading, one gets the impression that St Aubyn hates his characters, except of course the little boy he based on himself. Even the characters who might be sympathetic are treated cruelly. The abuse of the mother is rubbed into her face, the father never gets his comeuppance, and the other characters stand back watching and not saying or doing anything. And yet, there was something I liked about this novel. The writing is fantastic. St Aubyn knows how to set up scenes and can stick punchlines and witty remarks well. I think most of my liking of this book comes from how much it reminds me of a Waugh novel. It’s funny in the same way one of Waugh’s books are- mean-spirited. More specifically, I was reminded of Black Mischief and The Loved One. In both Black Mischief and The Loved One, awful things fall upon the female lead- she is cannibalized in Black Mischief, and commits suicide after being convinced to in The Loved One. The difference is that Waugh played both those scenes for laughs but St Aubyn played his awful rape scene deathly straight, although the father’s slight panic about what he had done is portrayed as comedic, especially when he tries to rationalize it away. Bottom line, I liked it, maybe you wouldn’t.

Never Mind

Reviews

Highlights