Karen Heenan-Davies - 1976 - Saville

My first review on this site and it's a shame it was on such a dud novel. But here goes.

Dull, dreary, dire.   I reached the end of David Storey’s Saville yesterday with a sense of relief that my evenings would no longer be marred by having to plod through this tedious tale. And what a plod it was –  500 or so pages of  over-written scenes, mediocre dialogue, scrappy characterisation and a characterless protagonist. The best part was the opening few scenes when a miner and his new wife arrive in some northern colliery- town and spend the day cleaning their meagre little home. After that it was downhill all the way.

The Savilles have a son who is a bit of a strange fish but he dies not far into the novel. Their second son Colin manages to win a scholarship for grammar school;  plays sport, has a few run ins with the teacher and meets a few girls. Instead of university he opts for the faster track of teacher training so he can begin earning some money to keep his parents and two brothers just above the poverty line. But he feels constrained by his home and his upbringing; taking his frustrations out on his siblings.

By the time he decides what to do with his life, we’re at the end of the book and by then – frankly – I simply didn’t care.  Colin Saville just isn’t portrayed in a way that makes me want to take any interest. There’s never any sense of the inner turmoil he supposedly feels in reaction to some of the events that happen to him. Even when his fiancé ditches him for a more wealthy friend, he seems to react as if  someone has just told him the number 6 bus left 30 minutes ago. Having the story relayed through an omniscient narrator doesn’t help. But I also just kept waiting for something – anything – to happen that would lift the story from the realms of the mediocre. I was still waiting when I reached the end.  If ever there was a book that needed a bit fat blue editor’s pencil to walk all over it, this one was it…..even a scene that according to James Campbell in the Guardian is one of the most memorable (when his friend Stafford visits his home and is treated to a tea of bread, butter and tinned fruit) felt over-written.

How Saville won the Booker Prize, I therefore can’t imagine. According to one retrospective critical review, Storey’s work mixes realism with psychological extremism. I must have been asleep during those chapters in that case. 

(This review is cross published on BookerTalk

Laura's Review - Saville

Saville
David Storey
506 pages

This book reads like a student's report of "What I did on my Summer Vacation": a chronology of events told in a factual style with absolutely no drama whatsoever. The student essay has a distinct advantage: it's short. Saville, on the other hand, is a 500-page tome that plods through the life of Colin Saville. The story opens with his parents moving into a squalid home in a Yorkshire mining village. They soon have a child -- Colin's older brother, Andrew, who died before Colin was born. And then Colin comes into the world, grows up, and is awarded a scholarship to go to a decent grammar school. He has various friends, some from his village and others from his school. He works summer jobs. He decides to attend a 2-year college instead of university. He meets various young ladies. He tries hard to overcome his humble origins.

And I'm sorry, but it's all dreadfully dull. There's not a single moment of suspense, tension, or emotion. There were several occasions where I thought a subplot might actually be going somewhere: perhaps a character would turn out to be evil, or some tragedy would befall the Saville family. But no -- even Andrew's death was treated matter-of-factly, and was not mentioned again until Colin was about 20 years old. When he told his girlfriend that his brother's death had a profound impact on his life, all I could say was, "huh?" I'm not sure how I finished it, and I confess to skimming the last 100 pages.

This book suffered significantly from an overdone theme ("dreary English mining village"), coupled with a semi-autobiographical story that was definitely of more interest to the author than it would be to anyone else. ( )

My original review can be found here.