'Of course, it’s a very nasty book.'
Tobias Hill
Tobias Hill's third novel,The Hidden, weaves between academic Oxford and modern Sparta in a thrilling tale of violence and fear. He explores notions of extremism and the poisoning influence and corruptive power exerted by a group over an individual. Rebecca Yolland meets him.
'Margaret Atwood warned me I would slow down.'
Tobias Hill is sitting on the main steps of the British Museum looking remarkably relaxed for such cold weather. He seems unfazed by the hoards of Christmas tourists milling around and impressively focused on reading his book, which turns out to be The Watchmen (a graphic novel recently voted one of Time Magazine's best English language novels of the twentieth century). As he stands up to greet me, uncoiling long limbs, he immediately starts asking questions - have I read The Watchmen? Do I like graphic novels? How was my journey? And my Christmas? It is this combination of curiosity and enthusiasm that makes him such engaging company. With refreshing sincerity and a lack of self-conscious quips, he seems as eager to hear my ideas as he is to air his own.
It is no surprise then that his books and poems teem with diverse interests - ranging across continents and through centuries - and that his love of travel is everywhere apparent. After winning the PEN-Macmillan Prize for Fiction in 1997 (for Skin, his collection of short stories), his novels have become ever more ambitious. They abound with a rich variety of locations and an impressive display of historical research; from the Japanese mafia in Skin to 22nd century electronics quadrillionaires in The Cryptographer via Victorian jewel merchants from Iraq in The Love of Stones.
His latest novel, The Hidden, is equally ambitious. Five years in the writing, it charts the progress of Ben Mercer, a young and self-obsessed Oxford academic whose area of study is Spartan history. After divorce leaves him emotionally distraught, Ben runs away to Greece and eventually finds himself working with a group of archaeologists digging for elusive Spartan relics. The group is made up of an odd assortment of nationalities and includes the unwelcomingly presence of a fellow academic from Oxford. The beauty of the women and the mysterious behaviour of the men act as a lure to Ben but when the group seems reluctant to include him in their private world, Ben suspects a nasty lurking secret.
'I wanted to write a book about Sparta,' Hill begins, 'I've always been interested in its history'. The ancient Greek city state is indeed a uniquely foreign world; of military efficiency bred by a unique social structure, where children were underfed to encourage self-sufficiency and where the use of iron money made foreign trade almost impossible. The Spartans were an intensely private people who valued military prowess above everything and whose reputation has fascinated generations. There is barely anything of Sparta to see in the British Museum. As such, the choice of location for our meeting turns out to be a red herring and we retreat to an empty pub to order coffee. In fact very little remains anywhere in the way of Spartan artefacts. The lack of importance placed on property, the prohibition of gold and silver, and a suspicion of the written word, means that what we know of Sparta comes to us through the writings of outsiders such as Homer and Heroditus. As The Hidden claims at one point, 'Sparta is all secrets and no answers, all actions without substance.' At the heart of the novel is a secret and its contaminating influence. Sparta's is a secret and lost history and as such the perfect province for the writer, as Hill readily admits. All that remains is rumour, and myths that can forever be reworked. What is left today is predominantly sensation; of physical hardness and cold-hearted ruthlessness, of a brutality that may seem attractive in our world of ease and political self-serving.
That attraction gives a hard edge to the novel. It is a violent, ugly book, full of unlovely characters and frighteningly thick with threat. Jackals roam the land, a chicken foetus swims to the surface of an egg sauce as Ben cooks, and characters are abused in a variety of physical and emotional ways. Ben is so full of anger that he withdraws from those around him, even from his own daughter, and when things get out of hand, he chooses to run from the whole group.
'Of course' admits Hill, rubbing at his stubble, 'it's a very nasty book. Ben is a beast... a crab in the cave'.
Certainly there is much in Ben that is hard to love. He is a pathetic figure, physically the weakest of the group, permanently struggling for inclusion but always hovering on the periphery. Ben 'wants to be part of something', Hill explains, 'he needs to be loved', but the force of that need is so powerful it is frightening to people.
Ben's path is troublingly touching; the descent of a misplaced, if intellectually arrogant and self-absorbed, man looking for something reassuring to become part of. The group of archaeologists becomes a test; of whether his morals can win out against his whining and insecurities. Ben is brainwashed but remains non-political - a pawn in a group of ideologically aggressive figures - and yet, despite Ben's personal detachment, outside events nudge constantly at the story. Building work for the 2004 Athens Olympics continues around him, the Greek elections take place without Ben commenting on the result, and the War on Terror continues. Politics become all the more present for their failure to make any mark on Ben, absorbed as he is in his pursuit of love.
Indeed many key scenes in the story are excluded altogether, such as when Ben sleeps with his girlfriend for the first time. The absence of such moments can be alienating for the reader, but they also convey a strange emptiness in Ben and suggest that even such supposedly happy moments are not enough for him. Similarly, Ben's memories of his time in Oxford are selective. I ask Hill whether he was tempted to write more about Ben's academic years, seeing as they give so much insight into Ben's character. 'You can't include everything,' Hill acknowledges, 'What really matters is the middle of a book, the meat.'
In fact, the early part of the novel could almost be excised altogether. It deals with Ben in stasis living in Metamorphosis, a suburb of Athens, recovering from his failed marriage, and it reads like a necessary but clumsy introduction to the character. Although much of the writing is beautiful it is frustrating to find more sympathetic characters introduced and then dropped. It is not until Ben reaches Sparta that the action really begins. But then, as Hill comments darkly, referring to the book's cover (which suggests the world of American mid-West crime fiction), the book is not meant as a straightforward thriller.
It is obvious that Hill harbours great affection for Ben. 'He is human' he laughs, 'he is very human; that need to be loved... And there is a kind of strength there. He loves them all, and he manages to turn his back on the group.' Hill admits his greatest struggle with the book was how to end it. 'I kept trying to find a way out for Ben' he confesses, showing sympathy for Ben's weakness. Ben's desperate need for acceptance leads him to rationalize the group's monstrous behaviour, just as he has always justified his own. Ultimately his intelligence and logic become completely twisted by his anguished inability to betray the group. This manipulation by stronger characters is central to the novel.
'I wanted to write about extremism but not Islamic extremism' Hill explains, 'Something about how characters are indoctrinated.' It is this idea that underpins the story and while Hill returns to the issue again and again in the course of our discussion, the portrayal of Ben's progress is so sensitively written it never feels like a political statement.
Hill plays with the structure of the novel with the inclusion of 'thesis' chapters. These intersperse the main narrative and detail Spartan history and ideals in the style of public lectures and Ben's academic notes. The thesis chapters are beautiful in their clarity and also show a real sensitivity in Ben's academic work. These concise, simply written sections temper the story and lend it its subtleties.
'I wanted to be sure the reader had that information' said Hill, 'and I hate long chunks of dialogue explaining'. But while notions of gods and monsters, the hard way of life, the value of subterfuge and eugenics, all add wonderfully to the novel's depth, these chapters at times feel awkward. They lend a tinge of self-consciousness to the writing, pulling us out of the story and reminding us that historians (and writers) see what they want to see; that ideas are made to fit within schemes. They also point to the artifice of writing, with bold statements such as 'the written word is unselfish'. I ask Hill about the pressures of storytelling, of being part of a literary tradition, and he smiles. 'Of course there is a writerly instinct to carve your name on things' he admits readily but, for a man who clearly thinks deeply and likes to cross-germinate ideas, he gives an excellent impression of being free from the ordinary paroxysms of self-doubt.
There is no question however that he belongs to the literary world. The Hidden is full of allusions to different genres, and to the literary canon at large. 'Disgrace was in my mind while I was writing,' he tells me and also cites The Secret History and Lord of the Flies. I mention The Magus, John Fowles' vast Greek novel with its naïve and self-obsessed hero and its Hellenic fantasy world of sirens and game playing (mispronouncing the book title I suspect and he is gentleman enough not to correct me) and he agrees that he had to try not to think of it during composition.
Though the influence of these books is clear in terms of subject matter, The Hidden, stands on its own merits in terms of language. As a poet, Hill's relish of words abounds. 'Collop', 'thrawn', 'nacreous' and 'gyre' are all slipped quietly into sentences and there is a feeling of exhilarating tussle between the poet and the clear-thinking and concise historian. Sometimes this throws up wonderful passages - Hill is at his best with short bursts of description that are both lyrical and transporting in their detail - but at times it feels a little schizophrenic. 'The novel is less of a natural form for me' Hill says, admitting his envy of Raymond Carver's choice to stick to short stories.
The challenge of the novel though proves too much of a temptation for him and he is already working on his next, based on a concept taken from a line of his poetry, of 'a city in collision'. As he begins to explain, conversation hops from Turkish customs to the exotic origins of his wife's family and I start to wonder how far the subject matter might range and just how long the novel might take him. 'Margaret Atwood warned me I would slow down,' he muses, finishing his coffee.
As we get up to leave, he pulls on the same jacket he wears in his current author's photo and, seemingly reluctant to go, heads off to the British Museum. He may be suffering a post-Christmas cold and feel as if he is slowing down but Tobias Hill has a wealth of wonderful things to say and a wonderful voice to say them with. All the early promise of Skin is very much bearing fruit and his ability to combine both simple and ornate language with a fascination for people and cultures makes him a writer whose novels are as stimulating as his company.
Tuesday, 13 January, 2009
In Interviews
- Dave Eggers
- Richard Flanagan
- John Banville
- Helen Oyeyemi
- Amit Chaudhuri
- Rana Dasgupta
- Edmund White
- Tobias Hill
- Christmas Books
- Russell Hoban
- Will Self
- Aleksandar Hemon
- Kate Summerscale
- Philip Gourevitch
- Simon Gray
- Aravind Adiga
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