Unusually, A Common Reader is writing a bad-tempered review. I can’t see how The Slap could attract any other sort, because its a truly “feel-bad” novel with almost nothing to recommend it. Usually a Booker long-listing is some sort of recommendation that a book may be worth reading. However, I found The Slap to be banal (in the sense of being commonplace and predictable) and crude, more like a script for a television series such a Mistresses or Footballers Wives than a serious novel.
The style of writing reminds me very much of British crime writer Martina Cole, who’s work contains an equal number of unpleasant characters who also spend their time abusing each other. At least Martina sets out to shock: her readers know what they are getting, but with its Booker long-listing, surely The Slap is supposed to be something rather better?
It’s a long book (483 pages). Round about page 250 I found myself getting cross with myself for choosing to read a book solely because of its Booker status, but I persevered to the end through further episodes in the lives of this miserable crew. The Slap is not particularly well written – while it held my interest, it didn’t make me feel good about myself for carrying on with it – this is not an uplifting reading experience! There are no surprises in it, no character development, nothing to make you feel that the author has any fresh insight into the human condition. For me, a “good book” will make me feel sorry when it ends and sad to let its characters go – with The Slap I heaved a sigh of relief that I would never have to think of any of these people again.
The story is very simple. A barbecue is being held, and when two children are fighting, the father of one of them slaps the other child. The parents of the slapped child are outraged and report the matter to the police. Each subsequent chapter follows one of the various characters during the period leading up to and immediately after the trial. Most of the characters are unpleasant in a wide variety of ways, the only exception being an indigenous Australian who has converted to Islam (but even he seems to have no desire to contribute to the resolution of the grievance but only to protect his family from its effects).
What does The Slap say about the human condition? That humans have no capability for self-awareness, that we act entirely to suit ourselves with no thought for others, that we are bound by our upbringing and our native culture and cannot conceive of ways of thinking other than our own, that we are dominated by our physicality, defined by our need for gratification whether through sex or drugs.
There is no culture in Christos Tsiolkas’ world. It is a place of binge-drinking, illicit and often violent sex, the quest for revenge for even the mildest slight. Its an entertainment culture of mindless existence with no thought for anything beyond parties and pubs. All the characters are like spoilt children, wanting to get their own way and having no thought about the effect their actions may have on others. Its nihilism would work if the writer had the skills to present some sort of comment on the lifestyle depicted, but it seems to be nihilism for its own sake, an unremitting stream of negative actions and emotions revealing the hell of human existence with none of the literary style which would make the reader feel there was any point in reading about it.
The author seems to hate his characters and has created a set of stereotypes on whom he can vent his spleen – the self-made businessman who goes home and beats up his wife, the drug-taking teenagers, the earth-mother ageing hippy who breast-feeds her three-year old, the conference attenders who screw around while high on speed, the drunk neer-do-well with pretensions to be an artist. Its a world populated by cardboard characters who all act so totally predictably.
There are innumerable sex scenes in this book, but the sex is usually brutalising, and in typically porno style, the women apparently enjoy it – after one particularly exploitative session the man apologises to his wife and she replies, “but I like making love to you” – thanks Christos, but some of your readers didn’t exactly enjoy reading about it! On another occasion an adulterous wife invites her husband to treat her like a whore because she feels she “deserves” it. I don’t think Christos has a high view of women, and the concept of tenderness or consensuality seems alien to him (and why on earth does he have to go into the details of condoms discarded on hotel room floors or the shape of semen stains on soiled pants? – too much detail!).
Most of the writing is straightforward narrative and when he occasionally launches into descriptive passages he find something unpleasant to write about -
His liver’s fucked, Gary had warned her, but she would have known that at once. His skin was corpse-grey; raw red and purple sores marked his arms. He wheezed when he spoke and every few minutes his body would double over in racked, tortured coughing, resulting in thick, globby phlegm he would spit onto the ground or into a tissue.
Even the landscape is somewhere you’d never want to visit -
The unrelenting flat suburban grid of the northern suburbs surrounded them. The further they drove, the more Rosie thought the world around them was getting uglier, the heavy grey of the sky weighing down on the landscape, crushing down on them. The lawns and nature strips they passed were yellowing, grim, parched. The natural world seemed leached of colour. She thought it was because this world was so far from the breath of the ocean, that it was starved of air.
When he moves on to the older characters I hoped for some insight, some critique of the younger generation which seems to be bent on tearing themselves apart, but I found no respite from the unpleasantness. When 68 year old Maonlis is confronted by a daughter in law who speaks her mind, we read -
He straightened his back. He must have looked fierce because instantly she perceived her mistake and recoiled from him. He wanted to grab her hair, pull her face to the table, beat her as if she was a little girl.
I’ve written enough about The Slap. Its a nasty and unpleasant book, with no redeeming features in my view. Everyone else seems to think its wonderful – good luck to them, but for me its my “worst read so far” of 2010.
LOL Great minds think alike Tom, I thought it was a very tiresome book with some very unpleasant aspects, see http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/2009/04/17/the-slap-by-christos-tsiolkas/
It is deeply embarrassing to think of international readers believing that this is what Australians are like…
Lisa – you’ve written a fine review that goes into more detail than mine and pulls out some very original thoughts. You say “It’s not depicting any kind of Australian middle class behaviour that I recognise,” – and I think that’s one of the problems – its a world created by the author without any grounding in the real world. BTW, I know enough of Kate Grenville and Peter Carey to know that some wonderful writing comes out of Australia!
All of what you say describes the book as it is, except that I thought he did have some things to say about modern humanity – and that is what I see as a strong underlying violence in our society. I detest the way (many) people speak to and treat each other. The name calling over trivial stuff, the road rage, the bullying that goes on in all sorts of environments, to name a few examples. I thought he showed just how pervasive this is in seemingly “civilised” society. He also showed how much we fear “other”. I understand, from people who’ve met him, that Tsiolkas is a quiet, gentle man, but he does write very confronting stories. He could very well not like his characters. In other words, I wouldn’t ascribe the values in this book to him but perhaps as being the opposite of what he would like to see? I wouldn’t say it’s wonderful – and I thought a lot of the discussion about it focused way too much on the silly issue of the adult slapping the child – but I did think he had something to say.
your review runs on thee same lines as mine Tom ,I found this bloke unable to write female charcaters in any way also a little to much sex and to graphic in places ,that said its one redeming feature was some of his male narratives that where insightful at times and insightful ,feel he probably has a good book along a one narritve line ,but I did say in my review I know why it is on booker list itis a booker book like dbc piere was a few years ago ,all the best stu
Sounds precisely the sort of shockhorror cynicism that passes for ‘literary fiction’ in so many cases. Thank you, Tom. From what you say, I would agree entirely with you. There has to be some development, if not necessarily actual redemption, for a story to be satisfying. Saying human beings can be bloody awful (gosh, really?) isn’t exactly news – let alone sufficient material for the plot of a novel. Anyway, Swift said it all before (and doubtless rather better). I am delighted to have good reason to avoid this book.
Your review got me interested in a book I had no interest in reading before. And not because I disagree with you, I’m somehow interested in what it sounds like, but I’m not sure exactly why.
Anyway, something I wrote about the writing on someone else’s blog: http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/he-let-out-a-victorious-fart-booker-longlist/
(Same guy I linked to in your Lydia Davis post.)
Tom: The Slap has been longlisted for the Booker, not shortlisted (that is not out until Sept. 7), so there may yet be vindication for your point of view.
While I didn’t find the book brilliant, I certainly found more to it than you did. Where I thought Tsiolkas succeeded was in conveying the atmosphere of what it is like to be part of a rapidly expanding community (be you an immigrant or born there) where a lot of things are happening at once. That combination of frustrated ambition, sudden success, dead ends and often the emptiness of social relations around it was well done. Certainly there were far less successful parts, although I didn’t find his characters nearly as universally dislikable as some readers did. I can’t help but wonder if that is because I too live in a rapidly-expanding urban community (Calgary) and perhaps the get-rich opportunities that are here attract those types.
I think I agree with you about the fact that many characters felt stereotypical and the amount of violence was shocking, but I did think the subjects and ideas Tsiolkas touch on in the book are interesting and provocative ones. I think the issues of the appropriate way to discipline children as well as immigrant culture were really interesting, and while I realize this probably doesn’t paint a universal picture of Australia, it was an interesting glimpse into an aspect of it that I’d never read about before (particularly the couple who were parents to the slapped child). I’m not sorry I read this one, but then again, I always have a higher tolerance for unlikeable characters in fiction than most others!
Your review confirms my view to wait for the mass market paperback and to decide then about whether to read or not!
Thank for the insightful rant. I’m listening to you and Stu and will pass on this one. Too many good books to read
@Tom, re: not recognizing the australian middle class. I know an Australian teacher who recommended the book despite the low quality of its writing because he felt it perfectly depicted the suburbs where he lives. This is the reason why I am forcing myself through its awful pages.
Sue – thanks for your comment which I found very interesting. Possibly Tsiolkas is making some sort of comment on the style of the largely ex-pat Greek community in which most of the action takes place. But I couldn’t detect anything other than a rather badly written narrative which gave me no clues that something was going on other than a salacious tale about a group of rather unpleasant people.
Writers like Philip Roth for example would tell the same sort of story, but with Roth you detect a kind of meta-story going on which makes a subtle commentary on what he calls the “human stain”. There needs to be more refinement going on in Tsiolkas’s writing because at the moment it just comes across as crude – shock/horror for its own sake rather than drawing out some sort of message. For me his writing is deeply nihilistic and misogynistic. I have to wonder whether his gay orientation has let him down in his characterisation of women which seems to me to be deeply deficient.
I have to say, I don’t detect “strong underlying violence” going on in the my life or the lives of my children who live in cities. There is a tendency towards that perhaps, but nothing like as much as Tsiolkas suggests where such behaviour has become the norm.
Shigekuni – thanks for visiting. I may be naive then – I didn’t know that the Australian suburbs were as bad as that! Certainly my relatives in Perth would be surprised I think. I have now moved on to another book with a huge sigh of relief.
Respected British critic India Knight wrote “It’s also unbelievably misogynistic, and I say that as someone who loves Flashman and Philip Roth … There is no joy, no love, no hope, no beauty, just these hideous people beating each other up, either physically or emotionally.”
Kinna – thanks for visiting. I am sure you will find plenty of other books to read!
Annabel. Well, if you want a dose of shock horror then it might be worth a visit – but I think Martina Cole does it much better – and without the pretensions. (seriously!). Thanks for visiting.
Steph – yes, I agree with your point about the immigrant culture – especially how longlasting it can be, passing down from one generation to another. I’m glad you were able to draw something useful from it. I personally think Tsiolkas has a lot of fun with his readers – he draws no lessons for us on child discipline – it can be read either way as far as I can tell
Kevin – thanks for your comments. I hear what you say about the commentary on a rapidly expanding community. I think my main objection is that in my view its just so badly written – the chapter on Aisha for example where she thinks about her previous lovers could have been culled from a girly magazine. I just didn’t think he was a very skilful writer. However, I am pleased to hear thatyou got something from it – as with all books, you get a different view from every reader which is part of the pleasure of discussing books
Thanks Ronak – I think its worth a look – and once you start it you won’t be able to put it down. Its what I call a “watching a car-crash book” – horrible but fascinating.
Hi Stu – I think the DBC Pierre book was really good! We shall have to wait and see whether it makes it to the short list.
Minnie – well in my view you won’t have missed much. There are plenty of better writers who write about the human condition and in a much more insightful way. My problem with Tsiolkas is that he seems to hate-filled. Philip Roth does the same sort of thing but so much better. Thanks for visiting.
Tom/Shigekuni: re ‘Australian suburbs as bad as that’ – they’re not. In fact when the Miles Franklin judges included it in the 09 shortlist, they commented that it depicted ‘extreme behaviour’. There would be subcultures like this in our bigger cities as there would be anywhere else, but it’s not mainstream behaviour or attitude. (Thank goodness, I’d be emigrating if it were LOL!)
I have just downloaded this book on my e-reader but have since read a number of reviews that don’t rate it highly… you amongst them. In fact, I even noticed that the author, Tsiolkas, wrote a kind of defense somewhere to the effect that his book was NOT misogynistic. Well, that does not bode a lot of good. It’s on my tbr list, but may just go down the queue a bit further
It’s only on the Booker Prize long list though and judging by the various reviews, I cannot imagine it being shortlisted?
Lisa – I know enough about Australia to know that the behaviours depicted in The Slap are not typical – emigration not required yet!
Seachanges – I think you should try The Slap – once you start you won’t be able to give up on it as its pretty compelling stuff. It might not make you feel good though!
A few critics have now come out and said it isnt that good but either way it seems to get some extreme reactions. Ill only be reading it if it makes the shortlist, I did read a couple of the sex bits on another blog and it just sounded crude.
Well, I’m completely at odds with everyone about this book, by the looks of it. I thought it was brilliant. Yes it’s crude and in-your-face but when I lived in Melbourne I worked with people like this, mainly of Greek, Turkish and Middle-Eastern extraction. It felt very real to me. And Tsiolkas is of “my generation” and I thought it was very much a 40-something centric view of the world that rang true.
[...] Review: The Slap – Christos Tsiolkas « A Common Reader [...]
Kim – thanks for the response – well, we each have a right to our tastes. So you think its a generation thing? I don’t really think I’d have enjoyed this at any stage of my life, but who knows. My point really is that its just badly written (in my view!). I respect your views however and am sure we can agree to differ.
Jessica – thanks for visiting. Yes, its certainly crude. However as you see from Kim above, some committed readers enjoyed it
Yes, definitely a book of my generation (which is Gen X), as this quote from a recent article states:
‘He said that his novel was about the hypocrisy and selfishness of his own generation (he is 44): those who have enjoyed unprecedented prosperity and have spent their new-found wealth on “plasma TVs and crap”.’
The rest of the article is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/15/christos-tsiolkas-slap-author
Thanks Kim – we read the same papers!
What a fabulous review, Tom. I had great fun watching you vent your spleen
I actually have this book at home waiting to read but don’t seem to be in any hurry to pick it up at the moment. And now you’ve likended it to Martiina Cole – bleeugh!
bexxb – Martina Cole makes for a wonderful gore-fest – we all need some light relief from time to time! Re “venting spleen” – what’s the point of being a reviewer if you can’t let rip occasionally?
I completely agree with you. I read and reviewed this recently. I was expecting so much more being a parent myself and with the premise being so relevant. I was so glad it finally ended.
Mrs B – thanks for visiting. Yes, it was a bit of a painful read – my main thought about it was the poor quality of the writing
Well, I’ve just finished it and hated it every bit as much as you did….. I also felt I needed to get to the end, and did so with much skipping I’m afraid. I got too bored with the detail. There were too many ofputting and crude sex scenes, there is too much relish in ugly and offputting relationships, etc. etc. I liked the approach – the different chapters eliciting the continuation of the story through the perspective of one of the (too many?) characters, but this was not worked through well because there was little real character development. Too much description. Do I need to go on? No, you’ve said it all!
[...] I don’t really want to spend too much time reviewing The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. A Common Reader has really said it all. I hated reading it, felt angry, disappointed, wondered how someone [...]
Seachanges – I’ve replied on your excellent review. Glad to know I’m not alone!
Tom, I am with Kimbofo – I’m a 4th generation Aussie who is growing increasingly ashamed of much of the behaviour I see in some of our suburbs, which I think this book depicts perfectly. So many people have commented to me that they are pleased to see someone finally writing about it so that a dialogue can be started. And when I heard Tsiolkas speak about The Slap at last year’s Melbourne Writers Festival he didn’t deny that it was misogynistic so I think he has been misreported. And someone asked him if he exaggerated what was in the male mind, and his reply was that it was all this and more.
Sally – thanks for that. An interesting perspective! Re “And someone asked him if he exaggerated what was in the male mind, and his reply was that it was all this and more” – I think he spoke for himself there – this male mind found the whole thing quite an alien way of thinking
[...] that, on the ‘hate it’ side of things I can’t help but think that A Common Reader is too harsh: “I found The Slap to be banal (in the sense of being commonplace and predictable) and crude, [...]
Tom: am SO glad I read your review and the comments! I managed to get to page 130 before giving up, and skimming through the rest of the book (mainly to see how it ended rather than anything else … which must mean that curiously, I was intrigued by the IDEA of the book). I did not like this book at all, and, like you, was furious with myself for picking just because it had been long-listed. I thought that the sex scenes were gratuitous and added nothing to the novel and, in fact, it annoyed me because it was creepy, misogynistic (if there is such a word!) sex. The characters were unbelievable because there wasn’t a single redeemable or even likeable person in the entire novel – the author clearly hated all his characters. This cannot possibly be an accurate depiction of middle-class Australia! I take the point that there are definitely some believable characters e.g., Harry. But the novel became unbelievable when every single character turned out to be similarly unlikeable. I do think it is hard to write an entire novel around such an incident, and perhaps it would have been better as a short story. In this regard, I found the scene among the three best friends (the one where Anouk is honest with Rosie about disciplining her crazy monster of a child!) to be the best-written scene in the novel, and thought that a short story centered around that would have been well worth reading. Of course, that would be to re-write the novel. Actually, now that I say that, perhaps a good editor would have been able to turn this into a better book … because it did have some redeeming features (evidenced by the fact that I did feel the compulsion to skim-read the novel to the end …!!).
Hi Yeages – it looks like you’re a pretty good reviewer yourself. Thanks for your comments which I am sure will be useful to anyone who’s googling this title. “perhaps it would have been better as a short story” – you could well be right there.
I also agree with you that “the scene among the three best friends (the one where Anouk is honest with Rosie about disciplining her crazy monster of a child!) to be the best-written scene in the novel”.
Thanks for visiting.
I am only part of the way through this novel, but already I find myself agreeing with this frank and honest review. The standard of the writing is terrible and jarring and, having just ploughed through the first sex scene, I am reliably informed that they increase in number and unappealing-ness. Great review
Eddie – thanks for visiting. Its nice to read that some of the things I write ring true for other people
Funny thing is I just started reading this, this morning. Got to the part where the slap incident happened. I was already annoyed with Gary, Rosie and that breast-fed thing and I’ll say I relished it, I wanted that monstrous behaviour checked. I can’t be alone in that. But after that I found myself skipping through it, and went straight to the end and started reading from where Richie and whats his name go to the pool, or find themselves at the pool at the same time. And Richie, ice cream, monster spawn spits at old man, Richie responds angrily at defiant unapologetic bad behaviour… more Rosie supporting monster spawn… and then put the book down. Too annoyed to finish it. I’ll return it to my sister. The only part I want to read is the part where someone talks to Rosie about disciplining the kid. I can imagine how that went. Stupid Rosie creating a sociopathic narcissist.
Linda – thanks for visiting. You are obviously getting involved with the book then! Great to see someone really engaging with what they’re reading
What a tiresome read. I gave up at approx 350 pages thinking why did I waste so much of my time.
Is the writer gay? He seems obsessed with the penis. Are Aussie Greeks really that venal?
How this Harold Robbins/Jackie Collins style attempt to picture the Melbourne midddle class won any literary awards beats me. It’s so cliche and the stereotypical characters failed to engage. This is the epitome of pulp fiction. Don’t bother.
Greetings! I am a South African of Greek-Cypriot parentage and I was given ‘The Slap’ by the leader of the Writing Circle to which I belong. I wanted to share with you that what Tsiolkas has managed to capture exceltionally well – based on my own experienes of ‘Diasporan angst’ – is the spirit of the Greek; the kindness, compassion and philanthropy on the one hand and the complex, complexed psyche of xenophobia and xenomisos coupled with the a nouveau-riche curse on the other hand. Perhaps seeing his characters and situations as representative metaphors is the key to appreciating his writing. Whatever the case, how exciting and healthy all this debate and sharing is! Yippiieee!
Irineos – thank you greatly for your comments on my review. The information you provide is very interesting – the kindness, compassion and philanthropy on the one hand and the more negative traits on the other- yes, perhaps they are metaphors for something more interesting than what the characters seem to represent at face value.