The Field of the Cloth of Gold - Book Group Discussion Thread
10 watchers
Nov 2017
8:50pm, 29 Nov 2017
4,150 posts
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Serendippily
I haven’t read any mills before but I don’t mind the spoilerising.
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Nov 2017
9:27pm, 29 Nov 2017
14,241 posts
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Columba
Looking forward to McG's review. John the Baptist? - I didn't identify him. Tell me more. |
Nov 2017
9:29pm, 29 Nov 2017
32,075 posts
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McGoohan
Hokay then. This is the third Mills I have attempted but only the second one finished. The Scheme For Full Employment was so slow and mundane it was almost going backwards so I gave up on that. This one I found more intriguing. At the start anyway. It seemed more obviously allegorical. We could be looking at the settlement of Britain by the Romans and subsequent re-invasion by everyone else. It could just as well be set now. Is it an accelerated timescale version of the colonisation and civilisation of a place? However he started with the book, as with his other stories, he seems most fascinated with the world of work, and here with the origin of work. Everyone works for themselves at the beginning. Then we have a series of intruders with different ways of dividing labour. But then this is undermined as well - the books seems just as interested in 'Britishness'. Some of the decisions the unnamed narrator takes, or others take, or more often fails to take are through embarrassment or not wanting to put anyone out. In the end, I enjoyed it to a point. He's certainly very readable, even when being mundane. I think I preferred having the story set in an obviously placeless place rather than the pseudo-London of TMoH. But, several big flaws for me. 1. He's a one-trick pony. His books focus on work. That's it. This is a one-stringed bow. This is why I think Antony Gormly sucks as an artist (don't tell Swittle!). Or the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Write a new song! Make a different sculpture! (Do a horse or summat, Gormley you git!). And Magnus Mills - write something different! 2. Tonally, he's very 1-D as well. The same mundane people - to whom events just happen, they never 'do' - populate them all. (Based on a sample of 3.) It doesn't make for very interesting characters. Maybe for one book, but the same people show up in each one. 3. The ending. I can see how it drives to that conclusion reasonably well enough, but *it's exactly the same ending as TMoH*. I don't mean it's similar. It's the exact same ending. Oh, SPOILER ALERT on that by the way. What's happened to the bus driver? Gasp, he's gone to the dark side and become an Inspector to save his own arse. What about Cloth of Gold's narrator? Well, he's selling out Yossarian* to save his own arse thus allying with the new powers that be. Write a new ending, Mills you lazy bastard. 4. If you're going to write an allegorical novel, it really ought to go somewhere. If it's purely an entertainment then be entertaining. This kind of slips between the cracks between the two. Bit difficult to score really. I sort of admire/enjoy it, but I also sort of hate it and I really CBAed to read any more of his stuff. I've gone with 6/10 but I disliked it more than that score implies in a way. * I know he's not called that, but I CBAed to look it up. |
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Nov 2017
9:33pm, 29 Nov 2017
32,077 posts
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McGoohan
Hippo presumably...
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Nov 2017
9:37pm, 29 Nov 2017
97,443 posts
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GregP
In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. And the same John had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey. |
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Nov 2017
9:40pm, 29 Nov 2017
97,444 posts
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GregP
He then turns into an Ezekiel analogue for a while, before becoming a generic corrupt cleric.
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Nov 2017
9:43pm, 29 Nov 2017
14,244 posts
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Columba
Hippo is St. Augustine. Read more of them, McG. They aren't all about work; they don't all have the same ending (for a really startling ending, read Restraint of Beasts). |
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Nov 2017
9:46pm, 29 Nov 2017
14,245 posts
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Columba
I see what you mean in your point 4, though; except that I don't see him as slipping down the crack so much as leaping lightly from side to side of it.
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Nov 2017
9:56pm, 29 Nov 2017
14,246 posts
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Columba
Only just read your posts, Greg. The reason I identified Hippo with St. Augustine was that there was (?is) a St. Augustine of Hippo. There was/is also a St. Augustine of Canterbury, and he was the one who evangelised the English in the 6th century or thereabouts, so really Hippo stands for him. Confusing the two Augustines is probably an intentional trick to add a bit more obscurity. |
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Nov 2017
9:57pm, 29 Nov 2017
32,080 posts
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McGoohan
As a sort of addendum on that point I think I have a 4.5 (rather than a complete 5th point/objection) - which is that these books are supposed to be funny or drily humorous or satirical etc. I haven't found them in the slightest amusing. The most he's got out of me is a bit of a Roger Moore-style raised eyebrow. That's probably as much from the marketing though... |
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