So Many Ways to Begin, by Jon McGregor
This is a book about small things. Ordinary people, everyday life, household objects, the passing of time. It's introspective and subtle; it's a man reflecting on the course his life has taken (a course that isn't quite as dazzling as his younger self might have hoped). But McGregor uses these small things to give insight into big things. There is passion, drama and grit in even the most 'normal' of lives. Every person has a history, every object tells a story, every outcome fluctuates in the flap of the butterfly's wings. It was quite good, but I wouldn't rush to read more McGregor. This review details why.
'So Many Ways to Begin' is mainly about David Carter, a man who has achieved mediocrity and has many regrets. David narrates the whole novel, half in his present middle-age and half in flashbacks of his youth and early adulthood. David is husband to Eleanor, father to Kate, and works as a museum curator. These are the 'small' things. The drama comes through in McGregor's examination of David's relationships, because the things that cause them strain are pretty huge.
David's relationship with his mother is near destroyed when, as a young adult, he finds out she is not his birth mother. Left at a loss for how to understand his history, he spends much of the rest of the novel trying to seek out his biological mum, who has returned to Ireland in shame (and infuriatingly in anonymity). His relationship with Eleanor falters over years as she struggles with debilitating depression: their love changes shape and is stretched to its limits as she tries to navigate the darkness. His relationship with his daughter Kate shifts in intensity as he strives not to repeat the faults of his and Eleanor's own parents (Eleanor's mother was a cruel disciplinarian), loving her instead with a fierce protectiveness.
Then there is the relationship with David's birth mother, which grows in his imagination as he searches for her. This phantom relationship was perhaps the most compelling of them all: McGregor explores quite tenderly the pain of trying to understand someone you never knew, trying to construct a person from scant scraps of clues. David pursues this elusive woman with a dogged hope that he will recognise her, and this bittersweet yearning is at times very moving.
Thus there were moments of real emotional height even in the smallness of our character's life. This fluctuation came through nicely in McGregor's prose, which I enjoyed: his wrote in a careful, observant style that paid attention to every minute detail. This allowed him both to celebrate the ordinary moments and to magnify the passionate ones - from the fall of Eleanor's hair as she irons a shirt to the crease of her brow as she succumbs to tears, McGregor's eye picks it all up in HD. He also made the interesting move not to use a single pair of speech marks in the whole book. This lent the whole novel a contemplative feel, as though everything is a memory that David is mulling over and reliving. Being inside David's head undoubtedly contributed to the intensity of feeling.
One thing I particularly liked about 'So Many Ways to Begin' was how it used objects to tell its story. David's work as a museum curator informs the structure of the whole novel: every chapter is attached to an object from his life, and the narrative unspools through the origin and backstory of each object. These items are mundane and ordinary - receipts, keys, tickets, photographs, birthday cards - but they hold so much meaning. Every object points to a specific moment, be it a day or an event or a conversation, and it's through these mementos that David's personal history unfolds. The bits and bobs we accumulate are the museums of our lives.
Despite this interesting use of material history, however, this book's overall lasting impression on me was somewhat uninspiring. Firstly, I just didn't really like David. It's very possible that I wasn't supposed to like him - he was, after all, an emblem of ordinariness and frustration, neither of which are especially attractive qualities. I found him boring, sometimes stubborn and at other times spineless, and I did not approve of the way he treated his wife. His circumstances may well have been difficult, but in my view his actions were inexcusable.
Secondly, and more broadly, I found it difficult to relate to this novel in general. This was certainly my own mistake in choosing to read it, but a novel about male mid-life crisis is never going to hit the spot for a young female reader unless it's really good (like Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman', for example). I expect some of this book's power lies in the way it chimes with the ordinary man's experience - but I have neither a spouse nor a child nor a twenty-year career, so I cannot claim to have been deeply moved by its observations, only mildly intrigued.
Overall, this was an interesting book, exploring beginnings and endings and the paralysis of regret, through the lens of the ordinary objects a person collects throughout their lifetime. It found big feelings in small moments, and unfolded a family drama that was at times passionate, moving and disturbing. But unfortunately, unlike David Carter's collection of life objects, I don't think the memory of this book will last.
You can buy 'So Many Ways to Begin' from Waterstones by following this link (I'll receive a small commission if you do):
So Many Ways to Begin, Jon McGregor - Waterstones
