Literary and sociological aspects in state-of-the-nation novels

While it is impossible to approach works of literature from the sociological point of view, there are genres that use the knowledge of society and the processes it undergoes up to a point. Sociological aspect, I think, is vital to such genres as state-of-the-nation novels, because they attempt to show how the society works in a certain country at a certain time. Besides, it does seem interesting to follow how the social and the literary sides of a book interact with each other, and how similarly or differently they are implemented in various works of the same period. This can provoke a lot of good discussion in the classroom, and I hope that this article will provide some ideas for teachers to discuss with their students

Among the books that are in the project, there are two bright state-of-the-nation novels: A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks and Capital by John Lanchester. They both show quite a similar prospect on London and the lives of its inhabitants. It seems worth comparing these two books to find out what areas of life and what topics are deemed important to the authors and the readers. The comparison can also be interesting because both books were written at about the same time and following the same events – the terrorist attacks in London Tube in 2005 and the financial crisis of 2007‒2008.

However, Faulks’s novel was first published in 2009 and Lanchester’s in 2012. Three years do not seem much of a time, but the way people see the events and the way the authors present them is different. That is what I would like to look at.

Let us enumerate the main characters, whose points of view we can see as readers. Sebastian Faulks’ stories are shown through the eyes of Gabriel Northwood, Jenny Fortune, John Veals, Finbar Veals, Ralph Tranter, Tadeusz Borowski, Hassan al-Rashid, Farooq al-Rashid, Sophie Topping, Amanda Malpasse, Vanessa Veals, Shahla Hajiani, Radley Graves, Kieran Duffy, Nasim al-Rashid, Olya, and Adam Northwood.

John Lanchester’s Capital features Petunia Howe, Roger Yount, Ahmed Kamal, Shahid Kamal, Arabella Yount, Quentina Mkfesi, Michael Lipton-Miller, Zbigniew Tomascewski, Smitty (Graham Leatherby), Freddy Kamo, Inspector Mill, Mary Leatherby, Mark, Parker French, Patrick Kamo, Matya Balatu, Usman Kamal, Daisy, Rohinka Kamal, Mrs Kamal (the senior).

I would like to start with the least literary, and the most sociological aspect, that is the characters’ ethnicity and occupation. Both books feature the following nationalities:

• •    The British (Gabriel Northwood, John Veals, Finbar Veals, Ralph Tranter, Sophie Topping, Amanda Malpasse, Vanessa Veals, Adam Northwood in A Week in December, and Petunia Howe, the Younts, Michael Lipton-Miller Smitty, Mill, Mary Leatherby, Mark, Parker French, and Daisy);

• •    Pakistanis (the Al-Rashids family in Faulks’ novel, and the Kamals in Lanchester’s);

• •    Eastern Europeans (Tadeusz Borowski, and Olya in A Week in December, and Zbigniew Tomascewski, and Matya Balatu);

• •    People of African or Caribbean origin (Jenni Fortune in the first novel, and Patrick and Freddie Kamos, and Quentina Mkfesi in the second one).

What we have unmatched is Shahla from Faulks’ book, who is Iranian, and the fact that Kieran Duffy is actually Jewish, even though he has a typically Irish name (see p. 62: ‘Despite his name, Duffy was Jewish’ [Faulks 2009: 62]). While there are no Iranians or Jewish people in Capital, it features, for instance, the Asian refugee named Cho, but she is not among the protagonists.

Overall, the fact that the authors used a rather similar set of ethnic backgrounds for their heroes shows that these are the most prominent groups of people in today’s Britain, as they seem to be deemed necessary to include in the book to create an image of the country and its citizens.

It is also quite curious to see which areas of life the writers choose to show us. If we summarize the characters’ occupations, we can see the following clusters:

• •    Finance (John Veals and Kieran Duffy, and Roger Younts and Mark);

• •    Football (Tadeusz Borowski, and Freddie Kamo);

• •    Family businesses (Knocker Al-Rashid, and Ahmed Kamal);

• •    Housewives (Nasim al-Rashid and Rohinka Kamal);

• •    Arts (Ralph Tranter and Smitty);

• •    Skilled jobs (Jenni Fortune and Zbigniew);

• •    Rich people’s wives (Vanessa Veals, Sophie Topping and Amanda Malpasse, and Arabella Yount).

There are discrepancies between the books in the jobs of main characters which are greater than in their ethnicities. “Unique” occupations in A Week in December are a lawyer (Gabriel), a model (Olya), an idler (Finn), a teacher (Radley Graves), and a madman (Adam). In Capital, there is a traffic warden (Quentina), shop assistants (Shahid and Usman), a detective inspector (Mill), an agent (Mickey), personal assistants (Mark and Parker), a pensioner (Petunia), an immigrant father who does not work (Patrick), and a nanny (Matya).

As for the unmatched jobs, it is possible to find some similarities. For example, there is a figure of Simon Wetherby in A Week in December, who is Veals’ assistant, but unlike Mark or Parker he is developed only superficially by the author. He is definitely not one of the main characters, and thus out of the scope of this article. It is interesting, though, that John Lanchester decided to take a closer look at the feelings and ambitions of this kind of small, upcoming people. Moreover, what he shows is at the same time a take-off of Mark’s career and a tragic ruining of Parker’s life, while Faulks’ Simon just helps explicate Veals’ motivations.

Finbar Veals and Patrick Kamo are similar in the way they both do nothing, but they represent completely different kinds of idlers. Finn is a teenager, who virtually cannot do anything, because he has not had any education yet. His problem is that of rich parents neglecting their children. He has anything he might want or need, so he does not really have to do anything, which leads to his selfdestructing behaviour. Patrick is different. He liked his job as a policeman, but he left it back in his country to help his son get settled in England. He is unemployed because he is put in a foreign environment where he is not allowed to work. His problem is that of a refugee, rather than of a lazybones. What Lanchester shows us is probably the other side of the migrant dream: Patrick moved to a ‘first-world’ country and his son earns so much he may have anything he wishes for without working at all, and yet he feels really depressed. This character can be paired with Quentina, who is also a refugee, but a proper one. What the author shows us is, again, the two possible ways of the development of the situation: Patrick, who has everything, but feels homesick, and Quentina, who really needs to stay, who struggles to get by and improve her conditions in the UK, and who gets a refusal to stay in the country in the end.

There are some similarities between Olya and Matya. Both girls come from the same part of the world, and they are both seen by the people in the UK as some sort of commodity, more a precious thing than a human being. Olya’s job makes it rather more obvious, because she earns money by being photographed naked. Matya is a nanny, but when we read how Roger sees her, we understand that he treats her as a toy in some sense. He takes her to a posh reception with him basically to show off. It is curious that both girls end up having relationships – and quite happy ones – with Poles, who, very probably, attract them by treating them as equals.

We could also compare Petunia Howe and Adam Northwood, because both are ill. Despite the similar situation, the characters in this case serve various purposes. Petunia’s story probably shows how ridiculous is wanting what someone else has – she has a beautiful house, but she is terminally ill. Adam’s madness in Faulks’ novel is subtly but clearly compared with the story of the Prophet – hearing voices that tell him to do something without questioning their will. Adam also shows how ridiculous it is to follow the instructions from these voices, so mocking things could also be a counterpoint, surprising as it may seem, between these two characters.

It is also curious that both authors introduce close relative characters – a daughter and a brother correspondingly – that take care of Petunia and Adam. It seems worth looking at how these situations develop in the book. Now we are moving to thinking about topics and motives rather than predominantly sociological features. The story of Mary and Petunia looks more detailed and carefully wrought than Adam and Gabriel’s. What Gabriel says to Jenni about his brother and his problem can be shortened to the fact that it just happens sometimes, and it is not as tragic and horrible as people generally think. Petunia and Mary’s story is exactly about how terrifying and depressing it is when one of your nearest and dearest is slowly passing away, while you have to go about your daily business. Both stories suggest, however, that life does not stop when something like that happens – Gabriel goes on with his life and Mary sells her mother’s house and becomes rich.

The stories of foreign footballers, Spike and Freddie are very similar, but very different at the same time. What we see is, first of all, a dream come true – some talented footballer receives an invitation to join a British football club, goes to the UK, and starts mixing with people and trying to fit in. They both earn ridiculous amounts of money and therefore their lives become quite different from what they had back home. We leave Spike Borowski at that, but Freddie Kamo’s dream goes shattered into pieces, after he gets injured during the game. Therefore, his story shows that this dream does not always last, and it can turn into a nightmare in the blink of an eye.

The depiction of art life in the novels is quite curious because of how different it is. One novel features a literary critic and a writer, and the other features a performance and installation artist. The similar thing between these two people is how bitter they can be: RT despises just about everyone he knows, especially his rival, Alexander Sedley. His story is at the same a moralistic one in a way that first Tranter denounces Sedley’s work, and then it turns out that the appraisal of his own work depends strongly on Sedley. However, this story is rather optimistic, because RT gets a chance to do what he knows well and enjoys a lot. Smitty, on the other hand, mostly puts down his assistant, Parker French. His story shows mostly the routines of a contemporary artist, and how serious his occupation actually is, while in case of Tranter we mostly see a man unsatisfied with his life and going through a lack-of-inspiration phase. Thus, the stories’ ideas are different. Tranter’s shows that while it is hard to fit in the literary world, if you do something very well, you can live off it. Smitty’s story is about the essence of contemporary art, of how it is made and what inspires its adepts.

The last two topics I would like to talk about are family and love. It is curious that close-knit families in both novels are represented by Pakistani businessmen. Moreover, the heads of these families take very strong and negative position about religious fanaticism and terrorism, which inevitably leads to some conflicts within the families. The mothers of the families at the same time represent the love parents have to their children, accepting them irrespective of what they do.

It is worth noticing that both families come into very close contact with the government: the al-Rashids receive the OBE from the Prince, and the Kamals are arrested because of their supposed connection with terrorists. Sebastian Faulks, I think, ridicules the recognition given to people by the government – Knocker spends quite a lot of time and effort on preparing for the ceremony, which turns out to be quite useless. John Lanchester’s story is more serious. It is about a family working together to help one of them, it is about how important the family bonds are when you are in trouble.

If we talk about love in the novel, the most notable character lines are Gabriel-Catalina-Jenni and Zbigniew-Davina-Matya. What is similar between the novels here is that a character has to go through an unhappy relationship to find the true love, which comes rather unexpectedly. The difference is that Gabriel and Catalina relationship was not bad per se, but it was dead on arrival – she was married, and was not going to leave her husband. Gabriel felt depressed when she moved and they could not see each other anymore. With Zbigniew and Davina, the relationship itself was horrible in Zbigniew’s view, because he did not love Davina, but was just attracted to her physically, and, worst of all, he could not break up with her. I think, Lanchester’s achievement here is that he was able to show how horrible it could be when you do not take a relationship seriously, and it puts your partner on the brink of suicide.

The salvation comes unexpectedly with Jenni and Matya. It is unexpected, because Gabriel and Jenni have very different intellectual background, so it is hard to understand why they find each other attractive in the end. With Zbigniew and Matya it is easier, because they have something in common – they both are immigrants. However, we also see that it was hard for Zbigniew to conquer Matya’s heart – he is a simple manual worker, while she looks too good for him and she actually dreams of a rather posh life. Roger could provide her with that, but Matya chooses Zbigniew, and it seems a more natural thing for her to do. It is an interesting fact that they decide to stay and live in London, rather than go to their home countries, as Zbigniew used to plan. What both stories tell us is that love is unexpected and a) you should be able to let your past go, and b) you should be careful with other people’s feeling, and c) love can make you change all your plans on life.

All in all, the two novels under analysis show a great degree of similarity of their sociology (characters’ ethnic and professional backgrounds) and they feature a quite a number of common topics implemented through similar character types. However, the implementation of the topics itself varies in the novels. Generally speaking, Faulks’ book is rather more optimistic, because all the main storylines end well (for the corresponding characters at least, because Veals’ success is a horrible loss to many other people). Lanchester’s novel is more balanced, because some stories end well (Zbigniew and Matya, Mark, Smitty, the Kamals, Patrick Kamo) and some end badly (Parker French, Roger Yount, Petunia Howe). Faulks pays more attention to international terrorism and the reasons of the global economic recession, probably because his book was written nearer the events in question. Lanchester’s focus is more on the problems of migrants in the UK and the changes of life situations (going richer or poorer). Faulks’ book, in my opinion, is also more humorous. Lanchester, on the other hand, investigates some of the common topics deeper than Faulks. Notwithstanding the above said, both books are very enjoyable.