middle england (jonathan coe)

Coe’s novel unashamedly addresses the issue of Brexit. A married couple split up over the vote; the central character falls out with his father; families are divided. The toxic racist element that felt liberated by the vote is also represented, as a Lithuanian family feel forced to leave the country. The narrative is multi-character: at the centre is Benjamin, a listless part-time novelist whose initial attitude is strictly apolitical, but finds himself summoning up a toast of “Fuck Brexit” by the end. Around him are spun the stories of his family and his old school friends, one of whom is a political journalist with an inside take on the Cameron government. The sharpest conflict comes in the story of Sophie, Benjamin’s niece, whose marriage to Ian falters on the rocks of the referendum vote. All of this is told in an eminently readable, breezy prose. The fact that the novel is situated so adroitly within the context of recent British history makes it addictive. Do we even remember the Clegg-Cameron coalition anymore? It feels like it belongs to another century, although it’s less than a decade ago. The novel is peppered with references to the stuff of yesterday’s papers, from the Olympics opening ceremony to the murder of Jo Cox. For a British reader it’s like re-living history all over again. 

However, whilst the novel is addictive, one can’t help wondering if this is a useful lens through which to look at the issue which has rent the country in two. There’s something relentlessly convivial about Coe’s prose, one could even call it smug. As the novel flowed forwards towards a feel good finale, it made me question whether the words I was reading weren’t part of the problem the novel appears to be trying to identify and address. At the end of the book, the reader is off the hook. If he or she had ever questioned what was going on in the country over the past decade, those questions could be conveniently shelved by the most anodyne of endings, where Benjamin gets to wallow in the middle class bliss of opening a B&B in an ancient French farmhouse, which he can afford because he’s cashed in on the London property market boom. There’s not a hint of self-awareness on the part of the writer about the irony of his protagonist being able to drift through life and emerge in some kind of liberal Eden merely as a result of the historical accident of his birthplace and his willingness to play a system that has rewarded shrewd property investors. Even the warring party, Sophie and Ian, are offered an upbeat conclusion. There’s no price paid by any of the characters for the chaos which has been unleashed on the country. This is no Swiftian assault; it’s more like the Archers does Brexit. Entertaining in its way, but never as thought-provoking as it sets out to be.