The Privileges Book

1) I believe that whatever disasters strike this small blue planet of ours, global warming, a new pandemic, whatever, the rich will not only sail though unaffected, they'll hardly notice what's killing the rest of us. They'll be somewhat put out when they have to replace their domestic staff more frequently because the staff they have keep dying from bird flu or lack of clean water or whatever. But that's all. The rich are in the process of spinning off into their own sealed world where nothing , no revolutions, no catastrophes, no diseases, can touch them anymore. They live longer than us, they're taller, they're more intelligent and obviously more beautiful. If they're not, they fix it. Everything can be fixed. They'll begin cloning themselves soon. Homo superior. We'll see it in our lifetimes. They're already cloning their pets.

2) This novel was like a whirlwind romance - I'd never heard of Jonathan Dee until a couple of weeks ago. I thought his novel was so pretty, so funny, so fascinating. I hung on its every word. By page 50 I was in love. Well, it seemed like love. I called it love. But then… well, I suppose you would just say that we got to know each other a little better. By page 200 I was avoiding its phone calls, and when we were together, I couldn't meet its eyes. When it left me suddenly on page 297, you know what? I was relieved. And it had all started so brilliantly.

3) The first chapter of this novel is absolutely wonderful. Let the record show. It describes a wedding of a golden couple. You've seen your Altman, your opening of Godfather 1, Rachel Getting Married - all great wedding scenes. This is another. Now : if the rest of the book was like that, it would be my book of the year, no question.

4) Our story is what happens to the golden couple, which is, Adam, the husband, is a financial whiz and they get gigantically rich and buy shit. And they have perfect children and the children buy shit.

5) Everything is tickety-boo. Cynthia, that's the wife, has a little wobble, you know, I'm so brilliant and I'm stuck at home in this drop dead apartment overlooking the Planet-would-I-lie-to-you-arium, and I'm all suicidal because my great potential is unfulfilled by only having a squillion bucks and only having gorgeous kids and only having a gorgeous hubby who shags me so well. Where is the Drano? I must drink a whole bottle right now. Oh, I do not know where the Drano is because I am so rich I never see cleaning products.
But she gets better so that's okay.

6) Then the kids grow up and there's a bit about the daughter April's slightly Lohanistic shenanigans, and there's a long long bit about the son Jonas's foray into the world of outsider art (you know, the art made by certifiably mad people and autists, very a la mode) and I had a problem with this section big time. Because

a) it read way way too much like a straight lift from Junebug, which is a rather lovely movie made in 2005 about a rich arty type trying to get her hands on an outsider art hillbilly crazy guy; and

b) it also read way way WAY too much like Jonathan Dee had made his own foray into the world of outsider art dealing, the academics and the gallery types, the exhibitions, the revered artists, and he'd gone to a particular outsider art show, and basically tipped what could have been an article for Penthouse or GQ lock stock and barrel into his novel, and it shows - after all this bland stuff about the richness of rich lives you suddenly get detail upon detail, insight upon insight, regarding this arcane sub-sub-sub-world - and in a novel this is like seeing the mike boom waving into the frame - you're not supposed to see it, it's all supposed to be seamless. Compared with the outsider art details, the descriptions of Adam's financial brilliance is so featureless and skirted-over that I could have written it and what I know about investment banking could be written on half a grain of rice and still have room for an outsider artist to fanatically draw a tiny street map of lower Manhattan.

7) Then there's a tiresome long section about Cynthia's estranged father dying. Suddenly she has emotions. Suddenly she has vast emotions about her father who she hasn't been in contact with for years. Maybe people are really like that.

8) So it kind of looks as though Mr Dee is working towards saying that you may be rich but you can't avoid emptiness, Lohanism, madness and death. But no - I think he's really saying that with a modicum of intelligent application sufficient wealth will enable you to avoid all of that, and more.

9) This novel coulda been a contender. It just needed a couple of sessions with a novel guidance counsellor. But it wasn't to be.