When we give someone else power over us, when we take power over them by loving, what a long string of obligation we begin to unwind through the maze of life.Close to Hugh is just exactly my type of book: The language is playful and artfully formed into layers of meaning that demonstrate the point of enjoying a story on the page; literature is an artform unlike any other and too few authors seem to want to use all the colours in their crayon boxes; acting like art and form are two distinct disciplines that must be tamed and balanced. But here, Marina Endicott stretches the limits of every carefully selected word, and just when it begins to seem a bit cute, she winks at the reader and shows that she was in on the joke all along. Brilliant.
I think this would make for a terrible audiobook. From the start there are puns made on the main character's name – Can I talk to Hugh? Of course you can talk to me. Not talk to “you”. Hugh. – and the puns signal that a section will be told from his point of view (featuring titles like “Hugh Can Take It” and “Hughreka”). Other characters' names are similarly complicated – when Hugh first met his foster mother and was told to call her “Aunt Ruth” he thought they were saying “Aunt Truth”, Nevaeh is “heaven” spelled backwards, Savaya was named after a coffee shop, who knows where Orion's Mom came up with his name – and when the brilliantly artistic girl next door decides to change her name from “Elle” to “L”, she complains, “You know it's L, the letter L. Not Elle. I can hear the Elle in your voice, but you can't seem to hear the L in mine.” Funny on the page, but how would that work on audio? When Hugh meets Ivy and is lovestruck, sections from her point of view start appearing with their own punny titles: “I've Been Everywhere” or “I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face”. But this Hugh and Ivy – this you and I - doesn't even scratch the surface of what Endicott has wrought.
For the plot, there's a group of old and artistic friends who, as their kids are about to leave for university, are feeling both incredibly old (and I don't really get that they all feel ancient at around 50) and incredibly free; as though entering a second adolescence. The midlife experiences of this generation are mirrored by those of the teenagers themselves: a group of highly talented artists (actors and dancers and costumers in addition to L's visual artistry) who feel like they've invented art; invented sex. And no matter that generation after generation will relive the same struggles, every single person is searching for the same thing: to be known – really known – by someone else. Ah, but everything in this book is an illusion and even misunderstandings – whether recent or forty years old – can seem real enough to cause rifts.
So much is illusory: there's a feast of trompe l'oeil foods, a meditation on Escher prints – and not just his staircases but stairs and ladders everywhere in the book – and a gender crossed Streetcar Named Desire (but does that just serve to further confuse whether Tennessee Williams was voicing himself through Stanley or Blanche?). There are sickbed delusions, and those things in front of our noses that we choose not to acknowledge, and just when a misunderstanding between friends is veering from drawing room farce to real-life calamity, a reading of The Importance of Being Earnest leads Ivy to confess that such unrelenting cleverness from Oscar Wilde grates on her. Ha!
I loved the Canadianess of Close to Hugh – what better way to describe Mimi's mid-70s fame than to casually cite her role on Mr. Dressup or her place on Pierre Trudeau's arm? – and Endicott makes Peterborough actually sound like a happening place. Characters love each other and hate each other – some are gay and some are straight, some are confused – and it's all handled with wit and sensitivity. And and and there are frequent sections from Della's point-of-view (Hugh's friend/foster sister) that read like open verse poetry, and although her experiences are not mine, I was often left gasping at the truth of these sections, and this is the overarching point that I've been trying to make through all this blah blah blahing: by using all those colours in her crayon box, Endicott was drawing from some deep well and naming those connections that we tend to forget are tying us all together. This book has truth and beauty and meaning and Endicott hid it all inside stupid puns.
What is he going to do with this cracked and useless heart? Make art?But, like all art, literature is subjective, and although Close to Hugh is exactly to my taste, that might not be universal. And to anyone who doesn't connect with this book like I have, I wish you well in your quest.
The longlist for the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize in my order of ranking is:
Anakana Schofield - Martin John
Marina Endicott - Close to Hugh
Patrick deWitt - Undermajordomo Minor
Heather O’Neill - Daydreams of Angels
Connie Gault - A Beauty
André Alexis - Fifteen Dogs
Clifford Jackman - The Winter Family
Alix Hawley - All True Not a Lie in It
Rachel Cusk - Outline
Russell Smith - Confidence
Samuel Archibald - Arvida
Michael Christie - If I Fall, If I Die
Anakana Schofield - Martin John
Marina Endicott - Close to Hugh
Patrick deWitt - Undermajordomo Minor
Heather O’Neill - Daydreams of Angels
Connie Gault - A Beauty
André Alexis - Fifteen Dogs
Clifford Jackman - The Winter Family
Alix Hawley - All True Not a Lie in It
Rachel Cusk - Outline
Russell Smith - Confidence
Samuel Archibald - Arvida
Michael Christie - If I Fall, If I Die
*Won by Fifteen Dogs; not my favourite but fine.
