Away with the fairies
Teresa Waugh
FAIRY TALE by Alice Thomas Ellis Viking, .f16, pp. 212
With a fine use of tautology, Viking's press release for Alice Thomas Ellis's new novel, Fairy Tale, claims the book to be, among other things, 'deeply profound'.
There is nothing more upsetting than reading a book which intelligent people have declared profound whilst feeling your- self quite unable to plumb the depths. Are you not so bright as you thought? Are you really stupid? Do you lack imagination ... sensitivity? The sands are shifting under your feet.
In the case of Fairy Tale the trouble may quite simply be that there are those of us who don't like fairies. Can't stick the wretched things. Such a prejudice as this, then, is bound to come between the reader and a proper appreciation of Thomas Ellis's latest novel. Even those of us who have greatly admired her earlier work may have considerable difficulty with green- eyed winking babies who, in the name of the supernatural, reach for the vodka bottle, and ethereal wild horses galloping through the night, not to mention groups 'You're right, Wayne, it's absolutely breathtaking.' of men looking like estate agents who threaten evil but are ultimately of no sub- stance.
The novel is set in Wales where Eloise has chosen to lead the simple life with her sensible boyfriend, Simon. Eloise at the best of times would be an infuriating girl, whose mentor back in London is some sort of soppy date called Moonbird around whom admiring groups of fey women are wont to gather wherever she goes. With money given her by her father, Eloise has bought the haunted red house in the wilds and has persuaded Simon to abandon a career in advertising to become instead a carpenter and odd job man, whilst she, alone in the house all day, sews Victorian nightdresses and cooks vegetarian, herbal, quasi-fairy food for Simon's return in the evenings.
Eloise starts to talk of wanting a baby, and Simon, beginning to grow anxious, contacts Eloise's mother, Clare, in London. Clare sends her close friend, Miriam, to see what is going on in Wales before following shortly afterwards.
Clare and Miriam are a magnificent pair of women — vintage Thomas Ellis — the kind of creations we grew to love her for. Clare particularly is a triumph: self-pitying, lazy, egotistical and unrepentant. Miriam iS the bossy, practical one; they have known each other all their lives and communicate in exactly the kind of batty shorthand which is so often used by those who know each other well. Their tolerance of each other is stretched at times to near breaking point, yet theirs is a friendship of habit which has apparently developed into a necessity for both of them.
Down in Wales things begin to go badly awry when Eloise turns up with a baby which she claims to be hers and begins at the same time to give up her vegetarian ways and to cry out for bloody stealcs. Menacing ghosts/fairies gather on every side to the bewilderment of the mortals who without ever querying the super- natural, vaguely sense that something is wrong. They merely complain with a touch of xenophobia that all the immortals — shepherds, doctors, gamekeepers — talk with a hint of a foreign accent. To add to the complications there is known to be a Category A sex-offender 013 the run in the neighbourhood, but he is not allowed to bother us for long, as the fairies, who particularly hate men, see to it that he dies in a ditch and then turns into a dead and rotting sheep before disappearing alto- gether. The cldnouement may well leave the reader puzzled, wondering what on earth it was all about, but perhaps we should turn to the practical Miriam for an attempt. at clarification. 'The problem of objective reality,' she says, is one that has troubled the greatest philosophical minds through- out the ages.' She has already tuned into the idea that 'humanity cannot bear too much reality'. So be it.
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