SPL Reads!

The Avid Readers book club convened on a very warm and windy Thursday evening to discuss Michael Cox’s debut novel The Meaning of Night.  The novel is complex and lengthy, mixing mystery, suspense, and historical fiction into a potent literary cocktail.  The book is subtitled A Confession and is a work of meta-fiction purporting to be the edited and footnoted compilation of a papers recently discovered in a university library.  These papers are the first-person account of Edward Glyver, who reveals through twists and turns his meticulously plotted revenge against the one person he blames for his downfall: the rakish literary figure Phoebus Daunt.

The Meaning of Night is set in Victorian-era England, and Cox presents the reader with a thoroughly realized setting.  Often the reader is shown the contradictory extremes of life in this era: the grand country estates with lavish sitting rooms, and the filthy gaslight-illuminated streets where thieves and prostitutes populate the night.  Glyver is a man of both worlds.  He is both highly intelligent and ruthless.  He is capable of acts of charity, as well as acts of cruelty and violence.  He has the ability to move inconspicuously in high society circles, but he also is a frequent visitor to opium dens and brothels.  Ultimately, he is a man driven by a singular purpose: revenge.  This complexity makes Glyver a three-dimensional character as well as a fascinating, though unreliable, narrator.  Glyver spares the reader none of the sordid details, welcoming us to his narrative by casually describing his murder of random person before gorging himself on an oyster supper.  Literally, this takes place in the opening sentences of Glyver’s confession, signalling to the reader that the road ahead will travel through some dark places.

Michael Cox populates his novel with a rich supporting cast of characters.  There’s Le Grice, the taciturn soldier and athlete who is Glyver’s friend in London.  There’s Glyver’s employer and benefactor, Mr. Tredgold, a lawyer whose firm provides the best defense money can buy, legal or otherwise.  There’s Bella, the prostitute who harbors great affection for Glyver.  And of course, there’s Phoebus Daunt, the criminal poet, who is the focus of Glyver’s hatred and the target of his vengeance.

The Meaning of Night is a historical fiction that not only captures the feel of the time in its setting, but also adheres to many of the forms and traditions of Victorian fiction.  The plot structure and dialogue often echoes Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins.  Indeed, these authors even figure into some of Glyver’s literary digressions.  And the novel is full of digressions.  Those who like a streamlined narrative that hurtles towards a quick resolution would do well to keep this novel at arm’s length.  Glyver is a man of letters, a confirmed bibliophile with a love of obscure texts.  Many of these literary allusions are illuminated by the footnotes included by the “editor.”

To say much more of the plot would be to spoil a great mystery.  And The Meaning of Night is just that: a mystery.  In much the same way that our earlier reading of The Stolen Child revealed other facets of the fantasy genre, our reading of The Meaning of Night showed us another side to the mystery genre.  The Meaning of Night is a mystery hammered into the framework of historical literature.  It is comparable in many ways to Iain Pears’ An Instance of the Fingerpost and Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, two other great historical mysteries.

The Avid Readers will meet again on July 3 at 6:30 to discuss E. L. Doctorow’s The March, another work of historical fiction, set this time in the American Civil War.  As always, newcomers are welcome.  Copies of The March  are available for extended checkout at the Information desk in the library.  Drop in and pick up a copy, and we’ll see you at the next discussion.