Book Review: "Pitch Dark" by Renata Adler

I've been back to the library and it really does feel like forever since I went last time but thankfully, I've got some books I think I'm going to enjoy. One of those books was Pitch Dark by Renata Adler. I've never heard of this author, I've never heard of the book but the afterword is by Muriel Spark and so, I was sold immediately. This book is not just the story of a love affair but a story about language itself. I don't think I've read so much mundane-as-beautiful in a recent read. Although it's pretty short, it was still as hard-hitting as any book.

This is not really about the ending of an affair, rather the conscious reality of having been in an affair. Kate recalls her love affair with the married Jake which lasted for about eight years. The story is told through vignettes in which instead of the reader being given a linear narrative and in-depth look into what happened, it is more of a highlights reel of things both good and bad. This reminds me of books by Annie Ernaux where she too, details fleeting love affairs through vignettes. I quite liked the way Adler got very descriptive about her observations within them, using often mundane movements and moments as metaphors for a larger picture about the affair at that particular time. This makes what she is not saying just as important as what she is saying - and I know I write that a lot about many books but it is definitely true here.

The author never gives us a fully fleshed out background into this journalist in her middle-aged years, but Kate is a character that feels so familiar to the reader nonetheless. This is because her alienation from her own life seems so universal at that age. This is what brings me to the afterword being written by Muriel Spark. Spark's characters, like the main character of The Driver's Seat - are often alienated from their own lives and go searching for something better than what they have at that particular time. Things we learn about her past include a legal issue, an academic career and contemplations about whether she will dive into something literary or not. These are often patched together from flashbacks woven into the story - again, in vignettes.

Jake is actually barely in the story at all, almost to metaphorically represent that absence that he leaves Kate feeling. He's very much an emotionally unavailable man and, even though he is (it seems) unhappily married - he will not commit to Kate either and becomes evermore distant as the affair continues. I'm not going to lie, this played out pretty cleverly in the narrative as the main character doesn't really give us much of a side of him. Instead, he is presented quite two-dimensionally which may seem like it is a bit off, but as you read the book it makes perfect sense.

Kate eventually escapes this affair by leaving for other places, each represented through an identity which Kate is projecting herself on to. Everything is skewed, everything is strangely not as it seems and so, as we begin to unfold each place, everything starts to become more and more hostile. The uncertainty left by the lost affair has certainly left its imprint on the psyche of the main character, but then again so have all the troubles she has had in her life up until this point. The author's depiction of emotional instability is quite something. I didn't think I'd enjoy it because it is something that has been done to death in middle-aged-female-main-characters and yet, I didn't imagine something quite so subtle. It was like if you slowly tilted a picture frame and watched everything within slowly move to one side.

All in all, I thought this book was fantastic and I am quite glad it was my one random read of the week in which I read a book by an author I've never heard of. Renata Adler is definitely someone who I am going to look out for from now on and I have even heard she has more books than this one. My word of advice if you were to get this copy I have: don't skip out on the afterword.

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