Something Old

 Not everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique classic to a good book first published four or more years ago.  

“GOLDEN HILL” by Francis Spufford (first published by Faber and Faber, 2016)

Dear reader, I know I can be devious. As you can see from the standard heading to this part of my blog, I declare that for me “Something Old” is to be defined as something first published more than four years ago. Originally, when this blog was first set up, the definition said more than  five years ago, but I found that too restrictive because I wanted to be able to dissect books of more recent date. This week, however, I’m really pushing it. My selection was first publshed only three years ago, but I think it passed with little notice in this country, so here I am reviving its memory.

Golden Hill is a lively tongue-in-cheek historical romp, its author’s debut novel and the winner of a number of literary prizes. In the blurb of the paperback reprint in which I read the novel, one reviewer is quoted describing it as “the best 18^th century novel since the 18^th century” and the novel’s epigraph is a quotation from Tobias Smollett’s Roderick Random, which should warn us that we are in for an episodic picaro tale.

In 1746, the mysterious young Englishman Richard Smith comes to the small British colonial town of New York, which used to be the small Dutch colonial town of New Amsterdam. He has a money order for over 1,000 pounds – a huge fortune in 1746. But is he a fraud or a conman? The Lovell family – bankers – will not honour his money order until they get confirmation of its authenticity from London, a process that will take some time. So Richard Smith is at large in little old New York, spied on by the curious and having many adventures. Is he a French spy? Is he a Papist? Could he be one of those Jacobites (whose most recent rebellion happened just the previous year)? Or is he a complete innocent? In his Acknowledements, Francis Spufford admits his debt to the novels David Simple, written by Sarah Fielding, and Joseph Andrews, written by Sarah’s more famous brother Henry Fielding. Both concern a naïve, innocent young man, so perhaps this is what Richard Smith is.

Golden Hill soon reveals itself to be genuinely picaresque, bombarding us with one set-piece of action after another – a chase after a pickpocket; a drunken and violent anti-Papist celebration on Guy Fawkes day; a daring escape from thugs across rooftops; a long prison scene; the staging of a production of Addison’s tragedy Cato, which turns out to have local political resonance; a duel; a courtroom scene.

I will not bother telling you how any of this is related to the mysterious protagonist’s suave acquaintance Oakeshotte and his slave Achilles. Nor will I expand upon the protagonist’s on-again, off-again relationship with the haughty Tabitha. When Richard Smith and Tabitha converse, it is pert intellectual banter – appopriately, Beatrice and Benedick are referenced a number of times – but it develops into a complex relationship before the novel is done.

What I will say is that as he dashes from episode to episode, the author delights in detailed physical descriptions which at times seem the main motive for his writing – the specific evocation of a past time and place. Thus we have the difference between the raucous, bumptious English mob and the more reserved and seemly Dutch who still live in the town. The mild Dutch family celebration of Sintaklaas contrasts with the drunken mob in the English Guy Fawkes night, which eventually turns homicidal. The production of Addison’s play is given to us in meticulous detail. So is the filthy creature with whom the protagonist shares a prison cell. And there are always reminders of how freezing cold the town is in winter. Given that the novel is written in the third-person, the author also occasionally nudges us into seeing how artificial such descriptions of past ages are, and how they are dependent on research which the author has undertaken.

I do not believe that such detailed – and closely-researched – descriptions would have appeared in a genuine 18^th century novel. Nor would the two detailed sex scenes, though I give Francis Spufford credit for his sense of humour. The longer of the two sex-scenes is so gloriously over-the-top in its detailed anatomical detail that it would qualify for the Literary Review’s “Bad Sex Award” were it not so clear that the author was pulling our leg.

One major point – the main motive moving the story along and making us want to turn pages is our desire to know who exactly Richard Smith is and where (if it is real) his money comes from. This is satisafactorily explained – indeed brilliantly explained – in the novel’s last 20 pages. In the process, our view of all the events we have experienced is dramatically altered. In fact our view of what sort of novel this has been is dramatically altered. But only an absolute cad would give away such an ending.

And, I regret to say, Wikipedia is such an absolute cad. Do not read its entry on Golden Hill if you wish to read the novel. Wikipedia gives away the novel’s denouement and thus deprives potential readers of the pleasure of discovering it for themselves.