453. Middle England
Rating: ☆☆☆☆1/2
Recommended by:
Author: Jonathan Coe
Genre: Fiction, Foreign
448 pages, published August 20, 2019
Reading Format: Audio Book on Overdrive
Summary
Middle England follows the lives of several interrelated Brits in the ten years leading up to Brexit: newlyweds Ian and Sophie, whose different world views may imperil their marriage; Doug, a journalist who writes about politics while parenting a radical SJW teenage daughter; Benjamin Trotter, who finds moderate career success in middle age with the publication of a book, and his father Colin, whose last wish is to vote LEAVE in the Brexit referendum.
Quotes
“Some people don’t realize that a straight ‘No’ can be the kindest answer in the world.”
“Making armaments, they were, munitions, aeroplane parts. Can you imagine! Can you imagine what it was like, hundreds of people, working together like that, for the war effort? What a spirit, eh? What a country we were back then! ‘Whatever happened to all that? It was bad enough when I was working here. Every man for himself, survival of the fittest, I’m all right, Jack. That’s what was starting to take over. But now it’s even worse, it’s just . . . fancy clothes and Prosecco bars and bloody . . . packets of salad. We’ve gone soft, that’s the problem. No wonder the rest of the world’s laughing at us.’”
“the unspeakable truth: that Sophie (and everyone like her) and Helena (and everyone like her) might be living cheek-by-jowl in the same country, but they also lived in different universes, and these universes were separated by a wall, infinitely high, impermeable, a wall built out of fear and suspicion and even – perhaps – a little bit of those most English of all qualities, shame and embarrassment. Impossible to deal with any of this. The only practical thing was to ignore it (but for how long was that practical, in fact?) and to double down, for now, on the desperate, unconsoling fiction that all of this was just a minor difference of opinion, like not quite seeing eye-to-eye over a neighbour’s choice of colour scheme or the merits of a particular TV show.”
“Benjamin had always assumed that he would grow old and die at home; that he was bound to end his life by returning to the country of his childhood. But he was starting to understand, at last, that this place had only ever existed in his imagination.”
“I like the rain before it falls. of course there is no such thing, she said. That’s why it’s my favorite. Something can still make you happy, can’t it, even if it isn’t real.”
“Yes – I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I’m sure I could repeat them perfectly.”
“We say, ‘Shall we meet for a drink?’, as though drinking were the main end of the appointment, and the matter of company only incidental, we are so shy about admitting our need for one another. We say, ‘Would you like to come for some coffee?’, as though it were less frightening to acknowledge that we are heavily dependent on mildly stimulating drinks, than to acknowledge that we are at all dependent on the companionship of other people.”
“[…] words are tricky little bastards, and very rarely say what you want them to say […]”
“Politics can make people do terrible things.”
My Take
I picked up Middle England at random from Overdrive when I needed a new audiobook to listen to and was very pleasantly surprised. Author Jonathan Coe is a gifted writer who not only paints a portrait of fascinating individuals, but also of a whole nation. Middle England gave me a great feel for the sensibilities of modern Britain.
