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Book Reviews Title Whatever
Love Means Fiction-Net
Rating Buy It
From Amazon.co.uk - BUY
NOW! Cover
Story Like most people,
Vic Mullan - once described by his best friend Joe
as ' a man whose sense of social responsibility is
exhausted by pulling over to let an ambulance by' -
can remember where he was and what he was doing on
the day of Princess Diana's death. Yes, he can
remember it particularly well: he was at home,
beginning an affair with Emma, Joe's
wife. The opening
section of David Baddiel's second novel charts the
history of an intense and passionately sexual
liaison set against the background of the most
hysterical time in recent memory. But as the months
wear on, and life and love return to normal, so
things become more complex between Vic and Emma.
And then, tragedy - a real, local, small-scale
tragedy, as opposed to a national, iconic,
mythological one - intervenes. We
Say For a book by a
comedian, Whatever Love Means is surprisingly dark
and intense. It has its funny moments too, but
these are confined to the early chapters before it
all goes horribly wrong for the characters
involved. Looking back, it
was certainly a strange thing that happened in this
country around the time of Princess Diana's death.
Most people were walking around with a sense of,
what felt like, real heartbreak and loss for weeks.
Baddiel's novel digs beneath the surface of this
reaction and uses it as a catalyst to explore the
nature of love and grief on a more genuinely
personal level. It's a big subject but Baddiel is
clearly unfazed and tackles it with conviction and
depth. There are some
strange characters in the mix and if I were to
describe them to you, they would sound
unconvincing. There's Vic, a man obsessed with the
idea that illness is glamorous, Joe, a shy
scientist and Tess, a woman with a man's way of
thinking. But Baddiel brings them to life, not
least because there are times when you love them
and times when you want to scream at them. But it's
certainly worthwhile getting to know
them. The plot will
leave you open-mouthed in amazement. There are
twists and surprises that I would defy anyone to be
able to predict. There is none of the obvious sign
posting that often occurs. Baddiel seems able to
credit his readers with the knowledge that real
life doesn't provide these convenient warnings and
that, sometimes, stories too are better without
them. Needless to say,
this is one I can seriously recommend. Review by: Rachel
Taylor |
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