Something New

We feature each fortnight Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books.   

                “THE BLACK MONK” by Charlotte Grimshaw  (Penguin, $NZ38:00)

 

The Black Monk is the first novel that Charlotte Grimshaw has produced since ten years ago. A prolific novelist, she has spent those ten years considering other matters, in particular the family she came from. In 2021 she produced The Mirror Book [reviewed in this blog] - non-fiction and giving a largely negative version of her parents, C.K.[Karl] Stead and his wife Kay. When I had read the first twenty pages or so of The Black Monk, I thought I was a very clever chap because I twigged that many of the main characters were really the Steads and their friends but given fictitious names. Before I crowed, however, my weekly copy of the N.Z. Listener arrived with a good review of The Black Monk by the very capable journalist Philip Matthews, and he hit most of the points that I was going to make.

So let me give you a simple synopsis of a part of The Black Monk.

Alice Lidell writes books for children. Alice is concerned that her brother Cedric [nicknamed “Ceddy” ] is becoming a hopeless addict and alcoholic. But when she tries to tell her parents about it, and pleads that they should do something about it, they say that Alice is being too concerned or even hysterical; and Cedric is fine. They deny the truth. But Cedric is getting worse.  Alice’s mother is Rula [as in “Ruler” – a domineering person], a would-be painter. Alice’s father Thom is an M.P. and is often away in Wellington. They are, in effect, in a state of denial.

Denial in the face of the obvious is what Charlotte Grimshaw said about her parents in The Mirror Book. Her mother Kay claimed that she wasn’t in the least upset by her husband Karl’s philandering… when in fact she was often desperately upset. She wanted to present her home as peaceful as befits a much admired academic and novelist and poet.

In The Black Monk, Alice Lidell tells us that her mother Rula often belittled her; and when Alice was a teenager Rula encouraged her to be a sort of teenage “rebel”, ridiculing teachers, consorting with deadbeats and getting into trouble. And Alice witnesses her gay friend Ezra being killed by a hit-and-run car. All this is almost the same in The Mirror Book.

So I could continue pointing out other characters who are important in The Black Monk, such as the psychotherapist Dr. Botherway [a deliberately amusing name] ; the German woman Javine who may be a friend of Alice but who is severe in tone and carries the guilt of having parents who had been Nazis; the cousin of Alice who is almost the same age as Alice and who can update her on doings in her family etc. But all this is not the core of the novel.

If Alice Lidell writes books for children, Charlotte Grimshaw writes for adults and much of The Black Monk is really her examination of her own mind, her attempt to understand what or who she is. Alice decides to write a book called The Black Monk and Charlotte Grimshaw is writing a book called The Black Monk. As I see it, this is a novel about a novelist who has sometimes lost reality and then has to look back and see if she has made a mistake. Did she really remember things accurately? Do novelists think they have heard  a conversation, made use of it in a novel, and then realise that it was merely something the author had made up? Then, of course, there is the matter of “the black monk” itself. Who or what is this? As used in this novel, it is a mysterious person who sometimes meets Alice especially when she is in distress and who then is no longer seen. Is this the man sometimes called Anton? Or is it simply another fantasy of the author? Sometimes also this novel refers to Jung’s idea of  “the shadow” within us – that is, the negative side of human beings, including our capacity to hurt other people, lie etc. but which we try to suppress.

I apologise in advance to Charlotte Grimshaw for my conclusion;  but I see this novel as largely an exercise in psychotherapy, gradually healing personal wounds. “Rula” [Kay], who blighted her young life, died in 2023. Charlotte’s older brother Oliver died in 2024. I do not know anything about how or why Oliver died so I am only guessing that he was the basis for  “Cedric”. But the healing comes towards the end when “Alice’s” mother “Rula” dies and “Alice” now sees her as somebody who had gone through hard times and who had some qualities to be admired.

Footnote: This thing about The Black Monk. The blurb reminded me that Charlotte Grimshaw had written a short story some years back called The Black Monk and now her novel of the same name. Both were inspired by a novella by Chekhov. The Black Monk was published in 1893. It concerns a young man called Kourin who has delusions of greatness. He tries to shake off his delusions by going to a rural area where he can cool down. But in the twilight he meets a black monk who questions his sanity. He believes he will save mankind… … but in the end his delusions kill him. Again, it’s up to Charlotte Grimshaw to interpret what the black monk means to her. But I think in this novel it signals how authors can also have grandiose ideas and mis-interpret what they had seen, just as “Alice” does.