(http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_133/meetthemelrosesst.html)
Edward St. Aubyn follows up his successful trilogy
ÒSome HopeÓ with a continuation of the Melrose family saga.
Meet the Melroses: St. AubynÕs fictional,
dysfunctional family
By Aileen Torres
The nuclear family figures prominently in
the English author Edward St. AubynÕs latest novel, ÒMotherÕs Milk,Ó but donÕt
expect this book to be another humdrum literary take on the seamy underbelly of
suburbia.
Instead of the familiar dark ruminations
on the tensions behind creating and maintaining a facade of familial
perfection, St. AubynÕs follow-up to his third novel, ÒSome Hope,Ó is about a
man going through a mid-life crisis—not because he has a perfect job,
perfect wife, perfect kids and perfect house—but because he doesnÕt have
an acceptable anything in his life.
Patrick Melrose is an extremely unhappy
man. He whines and complains a lot, and despite the fact that the novel is set
in three parts, comprising the perspective of Robert, PatrickÕs first-born son;
Patrick himself; and Mary, his wife, the man-child in the middle undeniably
stands out as the central character with the dominant point of view.
And why is Patrick so bitter? Well, for
starters, his father molested him when he was child (a bit of information
thatÕs only revealed in ÒSome HopeÓ). Then his mother Eleanor disinherits him
from her will, which leaves him without the posh niceties of her luxurious
house in the French countryside. Unfortunately for Patrick, his mother, who was
never really much of a mother in the first place—where else would this
manÕs bitterness come from?—decides on her deathbed to give this prized
possession to Seamus, a former nursing-home worker who has reached
enlightenment by tuning into his inner shaman. This charlatan guru somehow
convinces Eleanor to part with her earthly possessions in the most ÒhumaneÓ way
possible.
And so it comes to be that Eleanor, who
has a martyr complex, replete with the insatiable desire to give and give in
order to save humanity, slaps her son—upon whom she has always lacked the
capacity to bestow unconditional love and attention—with the ultimate
insult by signing away possession of the Melrose country home to the New Age
foundation run by Seamus, who has no shame in exploiting ElanorÕs blind
generosity.
Emotionally spurned by his mother, Patrick
gets a double whammy from his wife, who focuses all of her efforts on raising
her two sons with as much care and nurturing as possible. But of course, her
fundamental selflessness (her name is Mary) is not without a price, one that
eats into their relationship, which has grown cold and Òbureaucratic,Ó
according to Patrick. His simple and immediate solution to his marital problems
is to seek erotic intimacy with another woman, but even that doesnÕt satisfy
his deep-seated, basic yearning for love and respect from the two women who are
supposed to matter most in his life.
All of the above leaves Patrick feeling
jealous of his sons, particularly of his youngest toddler Thomas, who is
coddled as Patrick has never been in his entire life.
The conflicting emotion runs counter to
his desire to spare his children the emotional and psychological scars his
parents inflicted upon him. (Good luck). Patrick, who thinks of his mother as a
woman who Òhad pushed on to the next generation the parts of her experience she
wanted to get rid of: divorce, betrayal, mother-hatred, disinheritance,Ó
examines his own relationship with his children and comes to the conclusion
that no matter how he treats them, his efforts will all be doomed: ÒEven if he
was an affectionate father, even if he wasnÕt making the gross mistakes his
parents had made, the vigilance he invested in the task created another level
of tension, a tension which Robert had picked up. With Thomas he would be
different—freer, easier, if one could be free and easy while feeling
unfree and uneasy. It was all so hopeless.Ó
In ÒMotherÕs Milk,Ó St. Aubyn offers a sharp and
critical take on love, In the end, despite all of PatrickÕs vitriolic comments
and musings, he is a character with whom one can sympathize, precisely because
of his contradictions, complaints, and his refusal to keep quiet about his
gut-wrenching longing for this most basic human need