It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days. An expedition, I should say, which I will undertake alone, in the comfort of Mr Farraday’s Ford; an expedition which, as I foresee it, will take me through much of the finest countryside of England to the West Country, and may keep me away from Darlington Hall for as much as five or six days. The idea of such a journey came about, I should point out, from a most kind suggestion put to me by Mr Farraday himself one afternoon almost a fortnight ago, when I had been dusting the portraits in the library.

Before We Begin

Cold Reading – pretending I’m reading the book for the first time – has added an extra dimension to this project already. 

Sometimes the books are so familiar I could give a reasonable version of the first 100 words without looking. This week’s issue presents a completely different challenge – because the first time I read it, I cried at the end. So I think I’m going to have to work hard to set that aside! Let’s get on.

Sometimes the more people speak, the less they actually say. What aren’t we being told here, and why not?

Close Reading

Last week, the thing that first struck me was the intelligence, education, and control of Angela Carter‘s narrator. And this week, whilst the sentences are a little shorter, I’m still seeing signifiers in the vocabulary – ‘preoccupying’, ‘undertake’, ‘foresee’, and so on – and the careful, quite formal parsing of all this information. There’s a kind of languorous pace to the writing which echoes the anticipated length of his road trip.

The next thing to call attention to itself is the way the our narrator almost seems hyper-aware of the act of telling the story. He’s constantly watching, editing, self-correcting. It almost feels like there are two narrators – look at those incidental phrases, like ‘I should say’, and ‘I should point out’. Or the compulsion to tell us that the car belongs to someone else, and is a ‘Ford’. The narrative is meticulous. Or, perhaps, worried? Who is this being written for, anyway?

Which brings me to Mr Farraday. He gets two mentions, but what is the relationship between him and the narrator? Close enough to borrow a car from, but not close enough to be on first name terms with. And he is ‘most kind’. Farraday won’t be reading this, will he? Somehow judging our narrator on style and accuracy, examiner style? Finally what’s with the double ‘r’ in the surname? It’s unconventional and annoying the hell out of my spell-checker, too. 

But of course most of this feels peripheral to the thing the narrator does want to tell us about: his ‘road trip’. I’m using that term flippantly, imagining that if the narrator read it, it would irritate him!

After all, this is an ‘expedition’. Writers rarely repeat themselves in error, so when I see that grandiose word three times in the first 40 words, I know that the narrator is insisting on calling it that. It sounds, well, heroic – something of the kind of language Walton was using to describe his endeavour at the beginning of Frankenstein. It’s evocative of a quest, to achieve some great feat, or conquer something. And he’s going to ‘undertake’ it. Sounds arduous. So it feels a little deflating to learn that it’s a mundane-sounding car journey from one part of England to another. 

Amongst all this detail and ‘should say’, what we’re not being told is why he’s going. What makes the trip an expedition in his eyes? The closest I can get to this at this stage is the statement that he will be travelling alone. Perhaps that is significant to him.

And, how does he feel about it?

I’m getting a strong sense of the British ‘stiff upper lip’ here. We’re in England here, the land of ‘Darlington Hall’, ‘fine countryside’, and ‘The West Country’. The countryside is fine, the car is comfortable and its donor most kind, but all we learn is that the prospect of the road trip has been ‘preoccupying’ his mind. I interpret that as worry, personally, but the mildest flavour of it. There’s neither enthusiasm nor dread.

Again, I have to stretch for it, so far I might not bounce back into shape, but I’m a little intrigued by that ‘really’, in the first line. It suggests that for some time the trip has been nothing more than an idea, an aspiration, and – because I’m looking hard for excitement or positivity – a wish. Really, though, if this were an exam answer, I’d probably scratch that out as implausible.

To return then, to my gut reaction. We’ve learned quite a lot in 100 words. But not enough to connect with the narrator, or indeed get worked up in any way about the journey. I’ve noted that we’re looking towards the journey, not reflecting on it. I hope our man will be a little more forthcoming than talking about the weather, reporting miles per gallon, and listing the villages and towns he motors through.

Things to look out for as you read on.

Journey or destination? Which is the most significant?

What’s Mr Farraday to him or he to Mr Farraday, as Hamlet would have asked?

Precision about the insignificant vs opacity about feelings is this deliberate, or just a character quirk?

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