Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud
Posted on | September 10, 2009 | Comments Off
Probably better as a film
I think the hardest thing for an author to get right is striking the balance between either giving the reader too little information or issues to explore, or too much: prescribing conclusions without leaving time or room to ponder. I can’t quite work out if Hideous Kinky suffers from a dearth of thought provoking material (i.e.- it’s dull), or is actually refreshingly free.
Let’s get this out of the way- Hideous kinky has no plot to speak of. It’s essentially about a mixed up mother of two, now split from husband, trying to escape reality in Morocco. The family is dragged about for a bit on mother’s whim with some disconnected suspense-less adventures, before the fun fades when the older daughter gets toothache, and they decide to head for home. There, rather abruptly, the book ends.
A book this short needn’t have a gripping storyline to be good, though (not least when it’s autobiographical, which, apparently, it is). The Moroccan backdrop and strange characters are possibly enough to hold a book together, provided the characters are deep enough, and the imagery is vivid. So is it?
Hideous Kinky is written as a firsthand account by a 4 year old girl, and as such, its viewpoint is candid and naïve, without the clutter of adulthood or the reflection. It is self-absorbed, but not introspective. As we follow the unnamed girl through Marrakeshi markets and Moroccan hitch-hikes, everything is told straight with child-like perception; strange experiences are explained well, but not as vivdly as you might expect. Definitely apparent is that for a five year old, Moroccan mint tea is no less an oddity than English black tea (and neither takes that much explaining). Certainly her mothers’ antics- religious fervour and ambiguous relationships with a collection of male characters – aren’t covered in any more depth than her mention of her mother applying lipstick on the top floor of a bus. It can’t however be read entirely as a 4 year old’s account- some of the insight and language is too sophisticated, which looses a bit of its authenticity.
In fact, it’s the lack of detail, as much as the information which is in the book which is intriguing. But still, I can’t help asking myself; is the mother an enigma even to herself, whose confusion and inadequacy is sub-consciously absorbed and emitted by the child narrator, or is she just a 2-D character? Are the men she liaises with deliberately monochromatic as intentional caricatures, or is it just laziness?
I gather the book is in some way a genuine personal account, which accounts for a lot. Guster once wrote-“ honesty is easy, fiction is where genius lies”. And sometimes with autobiography, the effort required in a book to make it readable isn’t bothered with, because it already should be perfect- it’s true to life. Which doesn’t make for good literature.
I can see, however, how it would inspire a worthwhile film- the mannerisms and shape of the characters which are only implicit in the book can be brought to life, and made explicit in film. It’s difficult to have quite such 2-D characters as there are in the book when they’re played by 3-D actors, which is why even though I’ll only give the book 2 out of ten, I’m still going to bother watching the film.
(2/10)
