Bad News

This is so not my regular read. The drug-addled idle rich, awash in ennui? Hell no.

Still, I enjoyed the heck out of this slim volume, the second of five in the Patrick Melrose series. There is not really a single likeable character in the mix, everyone is out for themselves, including Melrose himself, though, while he's a slave to all his desires, he's also constantly balancing the knife-edge of suicide-by-indulgence.

All in all, it's as fascinating as watching a slow-motion car wreck.

Though I didn't--enjoy is hardly the word--though I wasn't quite as engaged with this book as the first Melrose novel, both have some brilliant writing about really nasty people and painful circumstances. This one captures the massive amount of planning that characterizes the unmanageable life of an addict, and takes one on that self-absorbed roller coaster ride of sarcasm and superiority paired with the most humiliating self-inflicted suffering. Claustrophobic, unsettling, uncomfortable, yet this reader was pulled along to the next chapter and the next. While I can't imagine reading all five Melrose novels straight through, I also can't imagine not eventually reading them all. I just need a breather in between.

From the first Patrick Melrose novel, [b:Never Mind|13514899|Never Mind (The Patrick Melrose Novels, #1)|Edward St. Aubyn|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1336063799s/13514899.jpg|19070801], it was overwhelmingly evident that poor abused Patrick was not going to have a happy life. ‘Bad News’ confirms this with a vengeance. It takes the reader to 1982 and follows Patrick to New York, where he picks up his father’s ashes and goes on a drug binge that he is lucky to survive. Between doses of coke, smack, etc, Patrick attempts small talk with miscellaneous family friends and acquaintances. These interactions are the best part of the book, as St Aubyn has an incredible talent for evoking social nuance. Whilst mouthing platitudes show more about his father, the acquaintances studiously ignore the evidence that Patrick is a physical wreck, drug addict, and abuse victim. An exemplary incidence of this occurs in this exchange between Patrick and a certain Mr. Banks:

“I don’t think that people noo so much about how to bring up kids in those days. A lot of parents in your fawther’s generation just didn’t know how to express their love.”

“Cruelty is the opposite of love,” said Patrick, “not just some inarticulate version of it.”

‘Bad News’ is as viciously well-written as [b:Never Mind|13514899|Never Mind (The Patrick Melrose Novels, #1)|Edward St. Aubyn|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1336063799s/13514899.jpg|19070801] and Patrick’s spiral of self-destruction is painful to read. I was reminded somewhat of [b:The Goldfinch|17333223|The Goldfinch|Donna Tartt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1451554970s/17333223.jpg|24065147], although Patrick’s substance abuse seems more extreme and hopeless. Theo Decker at least had friends to reach out to, whereas Patrick appears unmoored and alienated from everyone who isn’t actively selling him drugs. If I hadn’t known that there were several more novels in Patrick Melrose series, I would have expected him to be dead of an overdose before the end of this book. show less

Darker, if possible, than the first book in the series. The writing is brilliant, the humour blacker than black and the pace non-stop. With all the frenetic drug taking, there is little chance to feel sad for the young boy from book one, which is perhaps the point. With the plot set entirely over one drug-hazed day in New York, I felt the same divorce from any real feeling as the protagonist did. Glad the next book has ‘hope’ in the title.

Jó ismerősünk, Patrick Melrose a regényfolyam záró két fejezetében nekilát, hogy elnyerje jutalmát: a társadalmi konvenciókba való harmonikus betagozódást. Feleség, gyerek, miegymás, egy dolgos élet díja, ahogy mondani szokták. Kívánja a normalitást, de mivel a múlt árnyai ott állnak mögötte, és reszelős, kárörvendő kuncogással a kezüket dörzsölik, ezért viszonyuk leginkább Tom és Jerry kapcsolatára emlékeztet, ahol Patrick Tom, a normalitás pedig Jerry, aki bár könnyű prédának látszik, de hát tudjuk, végül meg fogja szívatni a szürke kandúrt. Ha az első három kisregény középpontjában az apa, az apa halála és az apa okozta traumák álltak, itt az anya, az anya betegsége show more és halála körül tömörül a szöveg – és ha az öreg nemző esetében az volt a kérdés, amit tett, az anya esetében az, amit nem tett, és hát magunk közt szólva ez is elég súlyos örökség.

Erős kérdésfelvetések és botrányosan szuggesztív képek sorjáznak itt is, bár megvallom, én az előző kötetet egy picit jelentőségteljesebbnek éreztem. Most mintha Aubyn túl sokat támaszkodna Patrickre, arra, hogy ő hogyan vezényli le a környezetével folytatott szikrázóan szellemes dialógusokat. Persze meg kell hagyni, Patrickre lehet is támaszkodni, mert az ő kétségei, vívódásai és tündökletes iróniája (ami gyanús átfedést mutat a narrátor szintúgy tündökletes iróniájával) jószerével elviszi a hátán az egész sztorit. Sőt, időnként még a sztori hiányát is. Ő világítja be Aubyn regényciklusát – ha osztanának Nobelt nem csak életműveknek, de főszereplőknek is, bizton számíthatna egy nominációra. Az én szavazatomat már bírja. show less

I get that Patrick Melrose is meant to be a sort of anti-hero, but it's for that reason that I have little empathy or identification with him, which to me is a primal literary sin. Above all, a protagonist MUST be somewhat sympathetic for the reader. Not so here. The writing is superb, but the character and story don't resonate with me.

That was one hell of a celebration, Patrick.
This spree of alcohol and drug-fueled self-loathing drags the reader along in a juddering skid through his familiar gutters.
The density of the metaphors is outdone only by the recklessness of the drug use. Both were magnificent.