Monday, January 15, 2018

The Dwarves of Death by Jonathan Coe

Jonathan Coe is a novelist whose fiction I've long intended to read, having only read his B.S. Johnson biography "Like a Fiery Elephant" in the past. Most well known for his fourth novel "What a Carve Up!" I plumped instead for the short novel that precedes it "The Dwarves of Death" partly because it adds to that interest micro-genre of novels about imaginary bands.

There are three imaginary bands in this 1990 satirical thriller, the Alaska Factory, the Unfortunates (after the B.S. Johnson novel) and the titular Dwarves of Death. Bill is the keyboard player in the first of these. He dropped out of Leeds University to follow his piano teacher to London, and has an admin job whilst moonlighting occasionally in a jazz bar, a place where he accidentally met his sort-of girlfriend Madeleine. "The Alaska Factory" are a mismatch and Bill's synth, which he lugs across London on the bus, isn't a good fit. His band's shadowy manager, Chester, suggests he leaves them and joins The Unfortunates, a darker band, whose sound needs filling out.

Bill is our genial narrator, but an unreliable one, in that he gets nearly everything wrong. Part dreamer, part innocent, he also is self-obsessed, not noticing what's around him. His old girlfriend from school, whom he has not been in touch with since coming to London, he realises seemed to see right through him - know before he did what he wanted to do. What he wants to do in London is vague. His relationship with Madeleine is one of bad dates and poor communications, and they never get further than a kiss. When she says she wants things to change, he misinterprets it as she wants him to marry her, when she's finally trying to bring the whole thing to a close. He shares a flat with Tina, sister-in-law of his piano teacher, on a grotty south London estate, but never sees her as she works shifts. They leave each other increasingly terse notes. Its obvious that Tina's boyfriend is abusing her, but not to Bill. The third woman he has an interest in is a Scottish barmaid at the pub that the band meet in.

This predictable life of late '80s London, is a recognisable but sterile one. A city in decline. Britpop hasn't yet happened - and there's no mention of the house music or other black formats which leading to warehouse parties around the M25. The Alaska Factory sound like they might be a Keane before their time - Bill's tastes run to the melodic, whilst The Unfortunates are much more intense, probably a late goth band of some sort. Yet the music is a bit of a red herring. For the story starts - and is flagged on the cover - with Bill's first meeting with the Unfortunates, in a house that their manager has provided for them. Left behind with the singer as they head to rehearsals, the singer waits in for a parcel from the shadowy man who lets them have the house. Its a mistake. Two assassins, hooded, come in to kill him. Bill hides in a corner and escapes - but is suddenly a fugitive. He never gets to join the now singerless and aptly named Unfortunates.

The novel then goes back to how it all begins and we get a comic tableau of his London life. He's like a Nick Hornby character, but without any pretension of success. The writing is often engaging and comic even as we cringe at Bill's description of situations - spending his money to taking the very ordinary (but beautiful) Madeleine to see an Andrew Lloyd Webber and spending all his time slagging off it and her love for it. Actually, as much as Hornby, its Ben Elton I recall, whose first novel "Stark" was a well read favourite from 1989. As a comedian Elton's novel was more a series of skits strung together with a bumbling hero - and in some ways "The Dwarves of Death" - its thin plot aside has a similar characteristic. An elongated piece about waiting for a bus in South London could almost be a piece of contemporary stand up.

For it turns out the Dwarves of Death were the most obscure of the obscure punk bands to come out of Scotland. Luckily Bill's friend from home is an obsessive collector and even sends him his impossible to find 2nd single. It turns out that there is a coded message in the b-side of the single - and Bill has unwittingly got involved in a revenge drama involving the barmaid and the owner of the recording studio they use.

The plot feels a red herring in many ways - Chester's getting Bill to join the Unfortunates is a pure plot device - and in what is a readable, satirical story, we realise that this is much more a dark coming of age story, with Bill having tried London, having got into all sorts of unexpected trouble, before finding what it is he really wants from his life.  Even though its set in 1988, it feels more dated in its style than its subject, the writing chatty but occasionally infuriating, as Bill, a likeable sort, proves to be a bit of a well meaning fool. That pre-internet world - where you would write a letter to old friends, or leave a message on an answerphone and not know if it had been picked up - is brought to live vividly.

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