An Ode to Lionel Shriver via Stephen King
You don’t have to read too many books by an author - I contend just 2 - before you decide that they are The One.
The One isn’t actually one, but a handful of authors who deliver pleasant (or uncomfortable) explosions in your brain when you read them. These authors sat down, thought about the best way to write something just for you and wrote it down. Well, not really. They weren’t thinking of you at all when they wrote, but it does feel like it. Such authors elevate your personal reading from a mere passtime to one of experiencing magic. Once I’m this vested with them, I’d read anything they wrote, even if it’s just a manual for an old air conditioning unit.
Stephen King
To me, Stephen King is one of the Ones. What was the first ever book of his I read? I couldn’t even say now. I am, at this point, several dozen books deep over fifteen years. Maybe 30 books? Not really sure at this point
I still distinctly remember the rush of reading Firestarter fifteen years back. Every once in a while, the reflective spookiness of Duma Key hits me, nearly a decade hence. The many chills from The Dark Half or Pet Sematary are vivid in my head. The foreboding sense of doom from the many dozens of his books, not the least being The Shining, haunts me even when it shouldn’t. The kids from IT are humans I’ve known personally. The only multi-part fantasy series I have ever read and finished is The Dark Tower series (all seven of the most schizophrenic and crazy set of books ever written).
My favorite personal genre is science fiction which is not really known for depth of characters (there are rare exceptions). But I prefer that to elaborate literary dramas mired in the mundanity of their lives. And yet, I love Stephen King not for the chills nor the fantasy but the characters. When I read Stephen King my brain is wrecked with emotions: sympathy, fear, anger, helplessness - you name it - as I live with the complexities of the existence of his subjects.
He explores the human condition in ways no one else does, both its strength and its frailty. I learnt small town Americana (Bangor, Maine is seared in my brains) from his books, a foil for the extensive glamorization of the USA I saw elsewhere. Like a heady cocktail, he mixes up the darkness that lies in all our hearts (yes, you too) with warmth and the ability for even the weakest amongst us to put up a fight when push comes to shove. I have shed the occasional tear or have cursed out loud when reading his books. The only other time I remember doing this is with GRRM and his Game of Thrones series.
All that ramble was not just to say I like Stephen King but to admit gleefully that I may have found another one of those Ones. To be honest, it’s quite a relief that at this point I am not too jaded (I sound like a thirty nine year old) to find a new author who can excite me the way King did.
Turns out, it is Lionel Shriver.
Lionel Shriver
Now, contrary to my lack of precision with respect to the number of books of Stephen King I’ve read, I can tell you exactly how many books of Lionel Shriver I’ve read - two.
Is two books enough to place an author in my personal pedestal of The One? Turns out, it is. I am pretty certain I decided that I would be spending a lot of time with Stephen King after reading just one of his books.. In fact, you may not even need a whole book. Often, a chapter is enough to flip a switch in your brain that says ‘give me more from the hands that made these words’.
When I first read Shriver’s The Motion of the body through space, I felt like a whole new genre was unlocked. It was satirical, sure, and her lead character oozed cynicism. There is more than a trace of misanthropy in there too. But the way she weaves between cold-blooded cynicism on the fitness industry and new-age fit-bod types while showing the fragility of characters is a high wire requiring mastery.
"But you seem to imply that concentrating on going from one place to another is empty in some way. If that’s the case, then life is empty. Life comes down to nothing more than the motion of the body through space.”
I realised that I was reading another master of character creation. Unlike Stephen King though, Shriver doesn’t employ the slightest bit of fantasy. Her horrors all come from the reality of mundane life, like working out or eating or just dreading the approaching old age. Between laughing at (and with) the characters, I’d feel sorry for them. If mockery were a weapon, Shriver wields it like an elite marine.
I find it aspirational to be able to deconstruct the mundanity of our existence with such nuance.
The second book I read was Should we stay or should we go. You would think a book about a couple who love each other (in their own Lionel Shriver way) and plan to commit suicide at a fixed age when they are old, just to avoid the deterioration of life from ageing would not make for a very fun read.
But then, it’s Lionel Shriver.
Not only is it fun but also deeply thought provoking, funny af and filled with commentary that sounds like a libertarian versus socialist podcast. Besides, it’s a thought experiment with so many different forks of life for the couple.This makes it sound a little obnoxious but ignore my commentary and just read the damn book.
“Please tell me you’re not listening to that Shriver woman. She’s a hysteric. And so annoyingly smug, as if she wants civilization to collapse, just so she can be proved right. I can’t bear the sound of her voice.”
Meta reference to boot (the narcissism!). You can ignore the character despite the truth in it and read her books even if you choose not to listen.
Now I am more than half way into the third one - Big Brother. I knew it was a book about obesity from the blurb and I braced myself. Knowing Shriver, it can get quite brutally honest and dark humoured. Even just 10 pages in, reading her take on food and our relationship to it, I was feeling the same explosions of happiness I get when I read her books - the clarity of deconstruction of human social veneer. Yet, this feels like the most human of her books.
That Shriver woman
I may have found overlaps with how I think about the world in Lionel Shriver’s books and that’s often not a pleasant feeling. I do not think of the world in terms as acerbic as she does although I like the authenticity of such feelings. I am not as deep a cynic as she is, although my cynicism towards humanity does rear its head often. And more importantly, I am not as deeply contrarian as she is.
And yet, I find myself nodding when I read her books. In hardcore agreement.
Here’s the strange thing. As I learn more about Lionel Shriver, the person in the real world, with contrarian opinions that I often do not agree with, I am amazed at how much it could have negatively coloured my view of her books had I known about them before I read the two books. However, having been hooked by how good those books were, I am now content with one of the Ones in my list having views that I may not associate with much in life.
In this sense, Shriver is different from how I feel about Stephen King. I respect the hell out of King the person. On Writing, his book about writing (surprise!), has been one of the handful of books that I’ve placed in every Saraswathi Poojai set for the last thirteen years or so. Unlike other books on writing, it isn’t filled page to page with rules and tips. Instead, Stephen King, for the most part, just tells the story about his own writing journey. Occasionally he throws in some hate speech on adverbs. I admire his no nonsense work ethic and seek inspiration from his troubles with pain, addiction and commitment to writing.
On the other hand, Shriver identifies herself a Libertarian, is politically conservative and has opinions that have me placing her with many other white libertarians in a shelf with many dubious characters. In this tenuous company, in real life, she is one of those Others to me. Her views on gender identity is one of dismissal (not as zealous as that Hogwarts auntie though). When she says stuff like #metoo has gone too far or questions too much political correctness (‘wokeness’), it bears eerie resemblance to some of Peter Thiel’s ball-fondling buddies. Here’s a more detailed list of ‘transgressions’ that may make you think twice about reading here.
I do seek some comfort in the fact that she is also socially progressive (within limits), is pro-choice, endorses same-sex marriages and a feminist. I feel like I needed to say that last sentence just because of how uncomfortable the previous paragraph made me. But it shouldn’t matter. I respect the hell out of Shriver the writer, irrespective of who she is as a person.
I didn’t really feel like her books were pushing an agenda. Sure, it’s highly opinionated but so is every other damn book. Read reviews for Should we stay or should we go and all the negative reviews are typically about the political view rather than the book itself. In fact, when I read the book I felt that many of the socio-political arguments were well balanced (with the husband and wife leaning on opposite sides of the spectrum).
Also, any author who is not opinionated is a boring one.
But I am glad I knew so little about Lionel Shriver before I started reading because it surely would have coloured my view of the books themselves. I wouldn’t have found another author as the One. When I read her books, something in it speaks to me truly. I hear myself chuckling out loud or shaking my head in fake-shock or just pause because a paragraph I read has outlined a vague notion I held better than anything my mind could come up with.
She is a genius writer, imo.
Keep reading,
Tyag