As I was doing some preliminary reading to write this review, I was browsing the Pulitzer Prize website to read their reasoning behind Andrew Sean Greer's Less being selected as the winning work in 2018 (a surprisingly hard thing to find). Not because I'm questioning their decision - far from it - but I was curious about which aspect appealed to the judges the most. (I still don't know.) I'm pleased to say though that I wasn't surprised to read that among the three shortlisted works was also Elif Batuman's The Idiot - a work very close to my heart indeed. Just as much as Less is now.
Less could be selected for a number of things - mastery of language, satire, huggability of main character. It follows the journey of Arthur Less, just-turning-fifty, writer, very tall, very blond, wearing a very blue suit, who - to avoid coming to terms with the wedding of a recently lost boyfriend - embarks on a literary round-the-world trip. He tries a bit of everything from award ceremonies to teaching opportunities and retreats, running and pretending not to be.
What did I like about it?
I adore it when an author is able to combine a good plot with great language. Less does it all: we follow Arthur from San Francisco to Mexico, Germany, Paris, Morocco and more, until we finally arrive to Japan and back to San Francisco again. We take part in food tastings, camel rides, camping in the desert; we sleep with young, seductive German men and bond deeply with married men at wild parties in Paris; and we feel it all.
The reason we love Arthur so much is we are invited into his deepest feelings and memories, not by him, but by an all-seeing, all-feeling narrator - and we understand it, even though we might be very far from being Arthur Less.
We see how strongly love has shaped this man from a young age to his fifties. The beauty of the book is that it is satirical, funny, but deep down it is heart-wrenching and honest; it muses on what those years meant, loving and losing, the fear of loneliness, the boundaries we must or mustn't respect and growing old. Simple lines have such power here. "Please, Mr. Less." Says the bravest person I know: "I can't."
The literary wit I loved so much in The Idiot is here too: "The garden was planted four hundred years ago, when the surrounding area was poplar." ... "And now," Less says, "it's unpoplar." Some descriptions are so vivid that I want to frame them and put them on my wall.
He kisses - how do I explain it? Like someone in love. Like he has nothing to lose. Like someone who has just learned a foreign language and can use only the present tense and only the second person. Only now, only you. There are some men who have never been kissed like that. There are some men who discover, after Arthur Less, that they never will be again.
As you can see, the narrator isn't exactly impartial - and trust me, once you read this book, you'll want to get yourself a suit in Lessian blue too.
What was I not massively fond of?
I've got nothing here.
Overall...
Arthur Less is so lovable, the story so beautifully shaped, the language such a treat. His mishaps make him endearing, his feelings make us want to wrap him tight in a hug - and the ending we get is extremely cathartic and satisfying. I was sitting in a Pret with a cup of tea as I finished reading it, and I am proud to say I wept as I did.
I love Arthur Less.
10/10
