The Blue Suit is a
fascinating and lucid coming of age memoir by the British novelist and
journalist Richard Rayner. The writer's tough-guy tone makes sense,
for Rayner's adopted California, his spiritual home, has been the
stomping grounds of many a hard boiled hero. Rayner here draws upon
the almost American literary tradition of the likes of Dashiel Hammett,
with a nod to the confessions of St. Augustine. The core of the story is a child's
relation to a father who is given to fantasy and grandiosity and to an
alcoholic mother. We've seen this story before in Geoffrey Wolfe's
Duke of Deception, Mary Kerr's The Liar's Club, and
Carolyn See's Dreaming. Rayner's story, however, is set in England where his memories are crowded by the overhang of so much tradition, so much architecture. California gives
him space and grit.
Like Dante, and alluding to him, Rayner begins
his story in middle age when he can no longer bear the weight of his
memories and, like Dante, he has a guide -- his girlfriend Pavhi:
"Perhaps we all have this dream, to tell everything and yet not
forfeit love -- the only sinner not to be roasted." Rayner takes us inside a chapter of his life when he was a petty thief and when his thievery started
to grow with the swell of an addiction. "You have no books," someone commented to him when he was a student at Cambridge. So he started to steal
them and moved on to forging fellow students' checks, then to robbing
houses: "You think you know who I am, I thought, but I know better -- by
day that loafer with the Cambridge degree, but come the
night...Zorro." Happily, for Rayner and his acquaintances, the compulsion one day lifted -- not to return until the memory of it was jarred when he witnessed the pilfering following an
earthquake in California.
Ironically, one of Rayner's first jobs
out of Cambridge was to research for The New Statesman the
effect of the philosophy of A.J. Ayer who in his book Language,
Truth and Logic had "proposed that there were no such properties
as 'good' and 'evil', merely 'boo' and 'hurrah'. Morality did not
exist, only changeable codes of social acceptability. Hence,
Hitler -- boo!; Gandhi -- hurrah!" The editors of the magazine felt that
this theory modeled an acceptable morality for an English gentleman -- it could range from treason to political disdain.
It did not, however, include shoplifting, forging checks or robbing your
friends. Really! (is this why the British reviewers insist this book
is a work of fiction?). For Rayner, in his blue suit with his wonderful
education and his Cambridge degree, looked the part but fell short of the mark.
The Blue Suit is written in a clear, spare style describing poetically the
psychological changes which precede his compulsion to
steal: "As soon as I had the thought I realized I had no choice. I
would rob them. I was delighted, afraid. I let go a cheer." The
reader watches him with the fascination we have while watching animals
or small children carry out a task -- there is a stillness in his action
an intensity where there is no past, no future, no consequence only the
present and only the danger. It is exciting to watch and we totally
understand the gripping pleasure of the rush and the magic of his
"nerve, that it was a shield, a force to keep others away and myself
safe."
Rayner's memoir is a compelling book to read -- the truth telling of a
compulsive liar, a thief caught in the myth of English gentry. It is sad
and hopeful and has a sweeping socio-political point:"Recently, when
Pavhi asked me who had taught me about right and
wrong, I answered Why, no one, for a moment astonished by the
question, by the idea that anyone received useful tuition of that
sort."
The Blue Suit is a
fascinating and lucid coming of age memoir by the British novelist and
journalist Richard Rayner. The writer's tough-guy tone makes sense,
for Rayner's adopted California, his spiritual home, has been the
stomping grounds of many a hard boiled hero. Rayner here draws upon
the almost American literary tradition of the likes of Dashiel Hammett,
with a nod to the confessions of St. Augustine. The core of the story is a child's
relation to a father who is given to fantasy and grandiosity and to an
alcoholic mother. We've seen this story before in Geoffrey Wolfe's
Duke of Deception, Mary Kerr's The Liar's Club, and
Carolyn See's Dreaming. Rayner's story, however, is set in England where his memories are crowded by the overhang of so much tradition, so much architecture. California gives
him space and grit.
"Perhaps we all have this dream, to tell everything and yet not
forfeit love -- the only sinner not to be roasted." Rayner takes us inside a chapter of his life when he was a petty thief and when his thievery started
to grow with the swell of an addiction. "You have no books," someone commented to him when he was a student at Cambridge. So he started to steal
them and moved on to forging fellow students' checks, then to robbing
houses: "You think you know who I am, I thought, but I know better -- by
day that loafer with the Cambridge degree, but come the
night...Zorro." Happily, for Rayner and his acquaintances, the compulsion one day lifted -- not to return until the memory of it was jarred when he witnessed the pilfering following an
earthquake in California.
The Blue Suit is written in a clear, spare style describing poetically the
psychological changes which precede his compulsion to
steal: "As soon as I had the thought I realized I had no choice. I
would rob them. I was delighted, afraid. I let go a cheer." The
reader watches him with the fascination we have while watching animals
or small children carry out a task -- there is a stillness in his action
an intensity where there is no past, no future, no consequence only the
present and only the danger. It is exciting to watch and we totally
understand the gripping pleasure of the rush and the magic of his
"nerve, that it was a shield, a force to keep others away and myself
safe."
compulsive liar, a thief caught in the myth of English gentry. It is sad
and hopeful and has a sweeping socio-political point:"Recently, when
Pavhi asked me who had taught me about right and
wrong, I answered Why, no one, for a moment astonished by the
question, by the idea that anyone received useful tuition of that
sort."
