The Fish, by Lloyd Jones.
The fish is not a real
fish. The fish is the family nickname
for him, because that’s what he looks like;
bulging eyes, thick lips and no neck – he’s slow, too – can’t spell for
toffee, and this family prides itself on its spelling and its erudition in
knowing the Latin origins of particular words, according to his teenage uncle,
the narrator of Lloyd Jones’ transfixing novel.
No,
the fish is not Piscean, an ocean-dweller, but his family, regardless of the
public front they preserve for the neighbours, wish that his mother, their
youngest daughter (Older sister Carla is the glamorous one but she is modelling
in Sydney), a teenage rebel in the 50’s well before it was fashionable had at least known about birth control, thus preventing
the birth of a severely disabled and disadvantaged child. And she’s not saying who the father is.
Regardless, the family rally around, trying to help the
new mum who lives with her newborn in a battered caravan (‘I need my privacy!’)
at a motor camp, but she doesn’t make a good fist of things, and Mum and Dad
have to come to the rescue after the new mother overdoses and has to be
institutionalised and rehabilitated. The
fish and his hapless mother come to live with the family, and his young uncle
reluctantly assumes child-minding duties whether he wants to or not as the
fish’s mother deteriorates further into self-loathing, despite the heroic efforts
of her agonised parents who cannot prevent her inevitable destruction. Fish’s mother doesn’t want to live.
It is now up to Mum and Dad to bring up the fish as best
they can and, while he can’t write legibly (or spell) the fish proves
unexpectedly clever and helpful in Dad’s scrap metal business, knowing with
uncanny accuracy where everything is stored, and the price of everything: it seems there is a useful place for him in life:
who knew it would be in the scrap metal business? And who knew that more tragedy would ensue
with the death of Dad from a heart attack caused by a breath-holding
competition underwater with the fish one day at the beach: the family reels from one tragedy to another,
until good news at last: glamorous model
Carla visits (finally!) from Sydney, and makes a huge effort ‘to get to know’
her nephew, taking him for a week to the South Island – and returning on the
overnight ferry ‘Wahine’ – on April 10th, 1968, a day tragically
engraved in New Zealand history when the ferry sunk in Wellington Harbour with
the loss of 53 lives: Carla survives,
but the fish is never found.
This is a tragedy of Shakespearian proportions, a tale of
woe of a family where everyone has secrets and no-one is anything like the
façade they present to the world – and so beautifully written. Lloyd Jones is a master of prose. His account of the ‘Wahine’ tragedy was powerful
and mesmerising; whether I wanted to be
or not, this reader was right there with those who survived – and those who
died, like the fish. SIX STARS.
No comments:
Post a Comment