The blurb on the 1968 Gollancz hardback of Vac states “Mr.
Ableman has absorbed the influences of some of the greatest of
writers—Laurence Sterne, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett—to produce a
book that is entirely his own.” This bold assertion is impossible
to refute (less Sterne, more Joyce and Sam), and his third novel is a
peculiar, linguistic afrodizzyact with a sentimental heart, taking an
unconventional marriage and a philandering character-as-author as its
focus. Ableman was a curious mixture of avant-garde adventurer and
timeclock-pusher, meeting Maurice Girodias in the 1950s, mixing with
that pornographic Parisian demi-monde, publishing one novel (I
Hear Voices) with Olympia Press, then back in Britain worked on
sitcom scripts, novelisations (including one of Warlords of
Atlantis as Paul Victor), and companions to shows such as Last
of the Summer Wine, Dad’s Army, and Shoestring for
the BBC. This unfortunate career move has no impact on the
power of the prose on show in this surreal and bracing novel, and
comparisons to Flann O’Brien (if Flann hadn’t been so frightened
of women) are also in order. The blurb attempts to frame the novel as
a “scrapbook compiled in great chronological diversity”, which
helps the reader to imagine a shape on what is a chaotic, comedic,
and thoughtful gambol through a series of set-pieces involving the
narrator’s friends, lovers, and wife, narrated in staccato prose
where each phrase is melodious and unique, reading like a stylised
internal monologue (although the novel switches between first,
second, and third person modes, uprooting each attempt to pin down
this sneaky text). In between these scenes are what appear to be
excerpts from other books, such as ‘Mother and Whore’, outlining
the theory that wives are first whores then mothers, and “one must
return to mother to live.” The “scrapbook” frame posits the
probable notion that this novel is a novel about writing a novel
(something Francis Booth has asserted about Ableman’s 1969 book The
Twilight of the Vilp), so in the tradition of all
writers-as-narrators, nothing here is to be trusted. The opening and
closing sections differ in tone, providing a sincere if less dazzling rumination on marriage and parenthood, what this novel seems
to be “about”, if we must reach for something as tiresome as
a concrete meaning. A terrific work that demands to be read. Ableman’s
novels have been re-issued in the print-on-demand Faber Finds series,
at prices too steep to bag new readers, so I will elevate this man’s
oeuvre to out of print status.
Editions:
Hardback, 1968, Gollancz.
Paperback, 2014, Faber Finds.
Bibliography:
Novels:
I Hear Voices, 1958, Olympia Press.
As Near as I Can Get, 1962, Neville Spearman.
Vac, 1968, Gollancz.
The Twilight of the Vilp, 1969, Gollancz.
Tornado Pratt, 1977, Gollancz.
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