Mr Cadmus
by Peter Ackroyd
A review
Peter Ackroyd’s literary career has been long and prolific. He started out as a poet and
literary critic but is now better known for the three chief interests which
characterize his broad output – fiction, biography and history. Often, these areas feed into each other,
especially where London is concerned. Indeed,
he deserves to be considered a chronicler of the city – it is the subject of
his magnum opus London – The Biography and its sequels or spin-offs (London
Under, Thames: Sacred River and, more recently, Queer City);
it serves as the backdrop to his novels (most memorably, the esoterica-tinged
Hawksmoor); it is the city where many of his biographical subjects worked
and/or resided (Thomas More, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins).
In this strange, little novel Ackroyd, “leaves the City for the country” to use his own phrase. What is more atypical about Ackroyd’s latest
work, however, is that it is a comic novel.
Its humour is, admittedly, wickedly dark, but for the most part, Mr
Cadmus steers away from the elements of mysticism and psychogeography which
haunt many of Ackroyd’s earlier novels.
Indeed, it could be read as a parody of that brand of “cozy mysteries” which
tend to be set in quaint and sleepy English villages.
Miss Finch and Miss Swallow, two cousins now in
their fifties, have settled down in Little Camborne. A vacant cottage stands between their
respective residences. When Theodore Cadmus, a foreigner from the obscure
Mediterranean island of Caldera moves in, he brings a touch of exoticism to the
spinsters’ lives. This is, after all, 1981, when immigrants still carry with
them an aura of otherness and danger (plus ça change...) The eponymous Mr
Cadmus, however, is respectful and chivalric towards the ladies and soon settles
into the routine of Little Camborne, village fetes and all. But, perhaps, this
Calderan gentleman is not all he seems to be. Indeed, his arrival brings a wave
of miraculous events and suspicious deaths.
For three-quarters of the book, I thoroughly enjoyed
Mr Cadmus. A satirical black
comedy with laugh-out-loud moments is not what I expected from Ackroyd, but he manages
to deliver a dark divertissement full of sparkling dialogue - a mash-up
of early Waugh, The Count of Monte Cristo (mentioned at one stage by
Miss Swallow) and a wacky episode of Midsomer Murders. In the final chapters of the novel, however, the
setting moves from Little Camborne to the fictional Caldera and the plot goes
completely bonkers, incorporating fantastical, dream-like scenes which seem
quite at odds with what came before.
This is not the first time that the ending of an
Ackroyd novel leaves me flummoxed. In this
case, I’m still trying to get my head around what I’ve just read, and this has dampened
my enthusiasm for an otherwise enjoyable book.
Hardcover, UK edition, 192 pages
Expected publication: October 1st 2020 by Canongate Books Ltd.
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