Richard Mason is, with this fifth novel, repaying the faith his publishers placed in him nearly a decade ago
Robert McCrum, in a 2002 article in this newspaper, used the vast advance paid to Richard Mason for his first two books ? The Drowning People and Us ? as a stick with which to chastise the profligate publishing industry. While The Drowning People ? written when Mason was just 18 ? has a dedicated following, subsequent novels failed to wow. His latest feels like a make-or-break moment. It was always clear that he knew how to write a beautiful sentence, but one feared that Mason's literary legacy might be defined by the numbers on his advance cheque rather than the letters on his pages.
Piet Barol, the titular pleasure seeker, is a priapic, ambitious young man come to seek his fortune in belle �poque Amsterdam. Unlike Fr�d�ric Moreau in Flaubert's L'�ducation sentimentale (to which owes no meagre debt), Piet is magnificently gifted, not only "extremely attractive to most women and to many men", but also a fine pianist, draughtsman and lover. We first meet him interviewing for the role of tutor to the son of the wealthy hotelier, Maarten Vermeulen-Sickerts. All is not well in his gilded household. Egbert, the son, is agoraphobic. The matriarch, Jacobina, hasn't been touched by her husband in almost a decade. Into this highly strung atmosphere comes Piet, charged with the task of freeing Egbert from his paralysing fear of the outside world. We soon realise, however, that Egbert isn't the only one in need of help. Piet sets about liberating the libidos of the repressed family through music ? championing bawdy Bizet over abstract Bach ? and oral sex. While the setting is Dutch, the influences are French ? think Bel-Ami, Les Liaisons dangereuses and Gide's L'immoraliste.
The Bad Sex awards are something more than just a very British chortle at willies and bums. In describing sex, authors must use language to convey experience which lies in a realm far removed from it: a test which many of the best fail. Sex is everywhere in History of a Pleasure Seeker, and it is both well described and very funny. Piet brings Jacobina to a climax that "unfurled and billowed, hurtled her into the air: only to catch her again?" Men and women alike pounce upon Piet, sending Mason towards ever wilder flourishes of extravagant prose. Piet's downfall comes in the form of a semen-stained dress, a fitting metaphor for the career of this sexy rake.
A "miniature silver model of a man on a tightrope, balancing precariously" appears repeatedly, representing both Maarten's risky business enterprises and the perils of Piet's position within the household. It's also a symbol of Mason's writing. History of a Pleasure Seeker could have been disastrous; instead it's an enthralling, perfectly paced romp new life into the picaresque genre. The story ends with Piet and his new bride in South Africa and the Great War on the horizon ? "To Be Continued?" Piet Borel, like a highly cultivated, bisexual Flashman, looks set to become the star of a whole series of books. And as for Richard Mason, we can finally stop talking about that advance cheque.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/22/history-of-a-pleasure-seeker-review
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