ŷ������

I went on a journey with this book. I read some very positive comments about it, so I decided to leave it until the end of my Man Booker long list reading (with the exception of Sally Rooney’s book which is not published for a few weeks yet): I wanted to finish on a high. Then, when I started it, I felt disappointed. I didn’t like the way the book was written, I struggled to engage with the story. At one point, I thought it was going to be my one and only DNF of the long list.

Then, at about one-third in, something clicked. I think almost audibly. Suddenly, the language made sense, the story became both funny and tragic, I felt completely engaged. I could not tell you what caused that change, but I am very glad it happened.

A predominant theme in the Booker long list this year has been tribalism/nativism/isolationism - call it what you will, maybe depending on context. There has been a lot of writing about borders and boundaries. There has been a lot of writing about people, communities and even nations that reject outsiders, close their borders. The jury said they had picked books to reflect the state of our world, and I think, in what is a very scary set of books, they have done just that (with the exception of one book that just doesn’t fit on the list by subject matter or by quality).

In some ways, Milkman is the least subtle of these books. It is set in the time of “The Troubles�� in Northern Ireland. This is very obviously an environment where borders are marked and where crossing them has severe consequences.

As regards this psycho-political atmosphere, with its rules of allegiance, of tribal identification, of what was allowed and not allowed, matters didn’t stop at ‘their names�� and at ‘our names��, at ‘us�� and ‘them��, at ‘our community�� and ‘their community��, at ‘over the road��, ‘over the water�� and ‘over the border��. Other issues had similar directives attaching as well. There were neutral television programmes which could hail from ‘over the water�� or from ‘over the border�� yet be watched by everyone ‘this side of the road�� as well as ‘that side of the road�� without causing disloyalty in either community. Then there were programmes that could be watched without treason by one side whilst hated and detested ‘across the road�� on the other side. There were television licence inspectors, census collectors, civilians working in non-civilian environments and public servants, all tolerated in one community whilst shot to death if putting a toe into the other community. There was food and drink. The right butter. The wrong butter. The tea of allegiance. The tea of betrayal. There were ‘our shops�� and ‘their shops’…there was the fact that you created a political statement everywhere you went and with everything you did��

I grew up ‘over the water��, an observer via the evening news of the suffering and distress endured by thousands of people on both sides. It left a permanent mark on me, so goodness knows what it did to those who were there.

Our narrator is one of the many people trying to navigate a way through this maze. In our narrator’s case, she almost literally buries her head in the sand to escape her environment. What she actually does is read while walking (something I could never do as I am far too interested in my surroundings when I walk somewhere). Not only that, but she reads books from a previous century because she doesn’t like the one she lives in. But this has the unintended side-effect of marking her out as different, as ‘beyond-the-pale��. When she then attracts the attention of a local paramilitary figure (and an important one at that) known as the milkman, her troubles increase: she ”did not like the milkman and had been frightened and confused by his pursuing and attempting an affair with me.��, but this matters little to a community that runs on rumour and paranoia. How do you defend yourself when unfounded rumour is believed in preference to statements of fact?

This book is set at a time of great violence, but its focus is not so much that violence but more the tribalism, the paranoia, the communal fear the envelops the community and has everyone permanently worrying about how their actions will be interpreted and who is watching. Our narrator habitually checks the telephone for bugs before making a call even though she doesn’t know what a telephone bug looks like.

The writing is colloquial. It reads like someone telling you a story. It is told in flashback and non-linear form and it includes many jokes and comedic situations. You find yourself laughing both at the ridiculous situations and at the use of language. But at the same time you know a serious point is being made.

I think this book sits well with the other Man Booker long list nominees (with the exception of the one already hinted at). The whole list (bar one) gives the reader cause to stop and consider what is happening in our world. In many cases, the books tell us that this is nothing new: it has happened before and will happen again. But the books also ask us to reflect on how we became what we are and on how our version of the situation might be different, perhaps scarier, than previous versions. I think the person who reads the whole long list will come away wondering what they can do. I don’t know the answer to that!