Losing Nelson [Paperback]

Cleasby employs an amanuensis, "Miss Lily", to help him out but she only makes matters worse as her view of Nelson is less sympathetic (and more realistic?) that Cleasby's. Can Cleasby resolve the problem or will it destroy his image of Nelson and thereby undermine the frail supports holding up his life?

Unsworth enters the peculiarly male world of total obsession with one subject. As with so many men, Cleasby submerges himself in an obsession with Nelson in order to avoid the difficulties of social interaction with other people. His vulnerability is not overcome, rather it is masked by what he thinks is his expertise and confidence in all things Nelsonian.

It seemed to me that such monomania is seldom encountered in women, but disturbingly common in men, where obsession can be total - trainspotting, sport, cars, writing on-line reviews and so on. Miss Lily has a much more humane, more rounded view of Nelson precisely because she is coping with the emotional ups-and-downs of life rather than hiding from them.

Added to this, Unsworth examines the often myopic nationalistic view of history. Cleasby never asks himself whether or not the British view of Nelson is truly a balanced one, never challenging the reasons why history is sometimes written like it is, as much for the needs of the present as for getting an accurate view of the past. Cleasby clings on to the image of Nelson rather than the reality of Nelson the human being because he needs to.

I thought that Unsworth's handling of these themes was excellent. Watch out for an appearance by the author himself as a character in the novel!

G Rodgers

Unsworth has also written a subversive work of biographical art - the author notes in interviews that Losing Nelson in fact began its life as a commissioned biography of the supreme British hero. With vigorous economy Unsworth covers the main biographical bases and provides the reader, almost miraculously, with both sides of the interpretation with which Cleasby and all Nelsonographers must grapple. (Indeed, more plentiful source citations would have been helpful, although Unsworth does a nice job of working some of his documentation into the narrative - several times causing me to smile and shake my head in admiration at his cleverness in doing so.)

The book also works as a complexly interwoven meditation on the related themes of fame, heroism, nobility, patriotism, and virtuousness - again, from both sides, but adding another familiar dimension to Unsworth's "angel-of-light" and "angel-of-darkness" considerations, recalling the two sides of Henry V - the unabashedly jingoistic view of Prince Hal (Nelson) versus the play's pragmatic Falstaffian overtones that probe unsettlingly into "what IS honor?" This is a most timely aspect of the book: each era creates its own heroes - think of what we lionize as "heroic" and those whom we call "hero" - and Unsworth is as careful in presenting the building blocks of Nelson's fame as he is unsparing in dissecting the dynamic (for it IS a process) of heroism and its perpetuation.

Losing Nelson is also a modernist (not postmodern) psychological narrative of considerable virtuosity. Unsworth handles his twin-track materials with breathtaking seamlessness, sometimes moving incrementally through segues from Cleasby to Nelson (almost like the walking Henry Hull changing into the Werewolf of London as he passes behind successive pillars) and sometimes back and forth inside Cleasby-Nelson. One finishes some passages of this book simply to sit back in startled wonder: "how did he manage THAT?" Unsworth is a flawless craftsman, a master of pacing (the true narrative art) who knows when to divulge a tidbit of information and when to withhold. And he never cheats the reader.

Sprinkled throughout the novel are marvelous, beautifully realized characters. We have the astonishing Cleasby himself - what a creation! Brilliant and method-to-his-madness "on to something," edgy, obsessive-compulsive, scarred by a domineering father, of bizarrely diffuse sexuality. There are the cleverly written debunkers, including Miss Lily the Avon Services "Kelly Girl" temp who transcribes Cleasby's handwritten Nelson study, and her sparely but devastatingly drawn son, as well as the expatriate whom Cleasby hopes holds the key to the Naples episode, and the assorted oddballs, cranks, and losers who hang out at the London Nelson Society.

Much has been made of the Unsworth's "surprise" ending. I believe more than a few readers will anticipate some variation of the ending - I did, through no special perspicacity but simply as a hand-wringing reader, wholly enjoying his immersion in the Nelson-Cleasby universe and, riffling through as many unsatisfactory ways the book might end as I could imagine, hitting upon the one - one I had feared - playing it out, and thus feeling slightly let down at the end. As the dust jacket observes, "Something has to give way, and give it does - in the most astonishing and entertaining of ways." Having lived so intimately with Charles Cleasby, I wanted something better for him, and certainly something less - well, I'll say it, and I don't think it's a spoiler - hackneyed. For me, an unsatisfying conclusion to an otherwise brilliant novel, my first of what will be many journeys with Barry Unsworth.

The only drawback is that the parallel plot device has become something of a cliche in recent fiction and cinema. Two ready examples are Michael Cunningham's <The Hours> and Charles Sturridge's adaptation of Dana Sobel's <Longitude>. When one end of the scale outweighs the other, things get out of balance. The feat requires careful measurements. In Unsworth's case, the Nelson chapters are just a great deal more interesting than those devoted to the intentionally mundane machinations of the mentally unstable Cleasby and his female ameneunsis, Miss Lilly. It's difficult for a reader to care about this particularly unsympathetic main character. There is rather a whiney quality to his musings that makes him unpleasant to be around. I grant that this is part of Unsworth's intent. NO one enjoys being in the company of neurotics for any length of time, but still. That Cleasby comes to terms with his past later in the novel is not enough to counteract the fact that he is an anal compulsive bore, when it comes right down to it.

This book, despite these shortcomings, is well worth a read, as there's no disputing that Unsworth is a capable novelist with a true sense of style. Though the Cleasby plot-line sags, Lord Nelson comes to the rescue, though his visage is marred by a few warts we might have overlooked in previous portraits. I recommend this book and look forward very much to reading the same author's Booker Prize Winning 1992 novel of the slave trade, <Sacred Hunger>.

BEK