Fifteen in Fifteen: Scarlett Thomas

4. Scarlett Thomas, or The Importance of Stories

I’m not expecting anyone to have heard of Scarlett Thomas. If you’re reading this and you have, it’s most likely because I’ve enthused about her novels to you already. I have probably spent more time over the past six months recommending Thomas’s books to my friends than I have for any other author on my list – the only other book I’ve spent an equivalent amount of time talking about recently is Sarah Waters’ “The Little Stranger” (which I would recommend only on the understanding that you will get the life scared out of you). I would advise everyone to give Scarlett Thomas a go, not least because it’s terribly difficult to do her work justice in the space of one short blog post. She’s something like an English Jostein Gaarder, but perhaps slightly less pretentious – an author who isn’t afraid of writing challenging philosophical ideas into a well-woven plot. It’s not every novel which draws inspiration from Heidegger, Chekov and Aristotle, and not every novelist who can make the result readable.

There are two books by Scarlett Thomas of which I am familiar. The first, “The End of Mr Y”, can almost be described as a thought experiment about thought experiments – an adventure involving academics, parallel dimensions made of thoughts, and a lot of philosophy. (Don’t let that put you off- it’s a very enjoyable read). The second is called “Our Tragic Universe”, and it might just be the most important book I’ve read all year. It contains even more of the meta than “The End of Mr Y” – a novel about a novelist, a storyless story about storyless stories, or stories which defy the conventional narrative arc. (Incidentally, if anyone in Sussex is looking for this, I’m terribly sorry and I will give it back to the library eventually). It’s a classic example of a book where nothing happens – for other, more unintended, examples, try the fourth book of Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea saga, or even the final book of the Twilight quartet. The protagonist comes into money and splits up with her boyfriend, but doesn’t end up with the guy she probably loves. It starts with an argument and ends with a reconciliation, although both are downplayed. There are hints of otherworldly happenings, prophecy, miraculous healing, magic, but nothing is ever certain and nothing is resolved beyond the doubts of the protagonist. Hollywood would hate it. It’s complicated and messy and uncertain – just like real life. And that’s the point.

More than anything, Scarlett Thomas is an author who understands the power of the stories we tell to shape our perception of the universe. Our Tragic Universe is a profound critique of genre fiction, both in style and in content. Thomas and the characters she uses to tell the story point out that there are standard formulas behind the stories we tell in the West – rags-to-riches, the underdog triumphing, hero kills dragon – and that these stories are told over and over again in everything we do. Personal makeover shows are set to a rags-to-riches formula, a Cinderella narrative. Self-help books are just another example of hero kills dragon. Genre fiction inculcates and naturalises modern Western values – as Vi accuses Meg, “You tell them what a happy ending consists of, which is always individual success… You tell them conflict exists only to be neatly resolved, and that everyone who is poor wants to be rich, and everyone who is ill wants to get better, and everyone who gets involved with crime comes to a bad end, and that love should be pure… that despite all this they are special, and the world revolves around them…” It’s a terrifying thought, but it’s the stories we read which make into us who we are. “When you publish fiction,” Meg comments later in the book, “everyone tries to see the truth in it.” Our Tragic Universe is an important reminder that not all stories around the world need tell us the same narratives, the same truths.

And this is why the government’s funding cuts for arts subjects frighten me. Subjects like philosophy, English literature, anthropology, history, even archaeology, all enable us to step beyond the stories of Western Europe today and to realise that there are different stories to tell. Doctor Who, Harry Potter, The Metro, Strictly Come Dancing and Ten Things I Hate About You have more influence on how we value life, understand achievement and ambition and perceive romantic love than we usually care to recognise. Susan Boyle’s success on X Factor – triumph of the underdog. The toppling of Saddam Hussein – hero kills dragon. Where is there room in this for the story of the non-hero, the hermit who dispenses remedies to both hero and dragon, and then goes to bed with a book? It is in the arts subjects that we discuss the stories we tell ourselves and learn that they are not absolute, but are culturally relative and as open to critique as any government policy. We cannot all be heroes, Cinderellas, Frodos or Harry Potters. Learning to get along with a dragon may have more value than sticking a sword through its heart. Our Tragic Universe is at heart a lesson in why we value what we value, and a reminder that this is not the only way we can choose to make sense of our lives. For those who like their narrative structures conventional and their heroes heroic, this might be a little disconcerting. But in a culture where the happy ending is always material wealth and individual success, and where the academic routes to other understandings are increasingly denigrated as navel-gazing, useless to modern society and an easy way out, maybe a little disconcerting is exactly what we need.