Kate Atkinson’s “Emotionally Weird” (Amazon link link, Powells link) is another bookclub selection, and is perhaps not the easiest book to write about. As befits the title, the entire book is weird both in plot and in construction, and at times feels a little over-clever, as if parts were introduced as some sort of game the author plays with the readers. To me the book was worth reading, but if you look at the reviews on Amazon, you’ll see a lot of people disagree (everything from 1 to 5 stars).
Effie, the central character (I’m not sure whether she really fulfills the requirements of the word “heroine”, since she mostly is catapulted into situations rather than taking charge of anything) is a student at the University of Dundee in the early 1970s. Effie’s family circumstances are mysterious, she has no idea who her father is, she and her mother Nora spent her childhood moving from small town to small town, and she finds the solution to the mystery once she and her mother spend some time together on a remote Scottish island.
The book is constructed as interleaved passages of talks between Effie and Nora, and the narration of Effie’s life at the university. The plethora of characters is distracting; it’s hard to tell who will be important to the plot, and who is simply functioning as the classical mystery red herring (the yellow dog mentioned on the dustjacket being one good example). Nora sums it up when she says there are too many minor characters and also complains about the lack of plot (Effie: “not necessary in this post-modern day and age”). But of course there is a plot, a plot about who Effie’s mother is (opening line: “My mother is a virgin.” and later on “my mother is not my mother”), who her father is, how all these threads may or may not interconnect.
The descriptions of university life and students in the 1970s, when it was much easier to get into university and many people felt no obligation to actually do any work once there, are biting and have the ring of truth. The pomposity and self-righteousness that seems to inhabit many universities, the tendency of ivory towers to find things important that make no sense to outsiders, are described and lampooned. The conversational style also helps with this as it allows lots of room for “exaggeration for effect”. In fact much of the time I found myself wondering how much was truth, how much exaggeration for effect, and how much outright lies in Effie’s narrative. Most of the apparent contradictions were resolved by the end of the book, the others were not of major importance to the plot. As an example, I never did quite figure out the plotline with the yellow dogs, but that was probably because I didn’t put much effort into it.
The bookclub members enjoyed the book, not great literature, but a fun read with some satisfyingly weird twists and turns. One of our better picks, I think.