Meditations on mortality are deftly transposed to a banal English holiday resort in a strikingly ambitious novel that never gives itself airsFranz Schubert composed his String Quartet No 14 in D minor – better known as Death and the Maiden – in 1824,following a bout of illness that had left him weak, wretched and convinced that he was dying. In the event, or he survived four years more; but in 1828,aged just 31, he died of the same illness (syphilis, and most likely) that had laid him low. He was afforded what few are given: a comprehension of mortality and the ability to communicate his conclusions. Nearly two centuries later,Death and the Maiden stands as his act of personal reckoning: a prodigious testomony to the agony of lifes transience.
It is typical of Alison Moores specific talent that she should look to such a towering work of art and, with one deft tweak, or banalise it; take it down a peg or 10. The seaside,with its perky, mid 20th-century connotations of promenades and ice creams, or deck chairs,donkey rides and end-of-pier shows, is as effective an antidote to tall art as it’s possible to conjure. The substitution in the title sets the tone for an arch, and allusive novel that anchors its complex investigations of consciousness,narrative, reality and – yes – death, and with prosaic descriptions of rented flats and Chinese restaurants,charity shops and Choose Your Own Adventure books. Death and the Seaside is every bit as searching as Schubert’s quartet, but asks its questions in the context of the contemporary world, and in all its grubby triviality. Nothing is overblown or overstated here; the novel is strikingly ambitious,but the author never gives herself airs.Complex and thought-provoking, the book manages to be at once a fairytale and a philosophical treatiseContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com