“Shall we start with the crash? Seems an obvious place to start.”
So begins Tell (2024), Jonathan Buckley’s twelfth novel. In a manner redolent of any good whodunnit, we begin by piecing together a non-linear assembly of fragmented anecdotes, all told by the unnamed gardener to the Highlands estate of self-made billionaire and art collector, Curtis Doyle—who has disappeared. However, it becomes incrementally apparent that this is no police interview. Rather, what are we are holding in our hands is the transcription of five sessions of an interview with a film crew. Presumably, the gardener’s intimate insights into the thrills and spills of Curtis Doyle’s life will make for a good romp—or, as the narrator says, “Make a note of that. It could make a good scene.”
On the one hand, this is a novel about Curtis Doyle. His life is certainly cinematic enough, and undoubtedly makes for a good read. Born into poverty, raised by a foster family, Curtis soon earns big money in the fashion industry, before developing a passion for contemporary art and bespoke Finnish-designed wood cabins. But beneath the glitz, glamour, and womanising, Curtis is, at least according to our narrator, “one of good guys”: “Not spotless, but as close as you’re going to get.” Sensitive, heartbroken by the death of his first wife, suffering a traumatic car crash in Cambodia—and increasingly disassociated from the luxury in which he finds himself—Curtis is isolated. Alone. The one-timers, hangers-on, and sycophants that populate his solipsistic “planetary orbit” provide an endless constellation of entertaining episodes from a reader’s perspective, but little in the way of comfort for Curtis. It is telling that he develops a close bond with Ulla, his daughter’s ex-addict, one-time Christian convert, bohemian Berlin girlfriend; it is equally telling that he confides in the staff members of his Highlands “palace” over lavish suppers. “You hear about these bottles costing a hundred pounds of whatever, and you think: ‘How different can it be?’ Well, it really is different, I can tell you”, quips our narrator.
On the other hand, this is a novel about storytelling, about how we make stories of our own lives and the lives of others. Firstly, there is the first-person narrator, the self-proclaimed “non-stop talk machine” who mediates a story of companionable immediacy, replete with digressions, fabulations, and a quiet hilarity; then there are the filmmakers, who will manipulate this story—itself already several-persons removed from reality; then, there is Curtis’ lover, Lara, who is writing a biography about Curtis; and what of Lara’s other subject, Hilda, a belatedly successful artist and Holocaust survivor from Vienna? This is a peculiar detour, but eminently important. Hilda is not, as it turns out, Jewish. The narrator ponders why Lara should decide to make such a flippant lie: “For the reader’s sympathy, I suppose. A cheap trick, some would say. Disrespectful.”, she concludes. Undoubtedly. Holocaust fiction is a genre inextricably tied up with questions of narrative ethics, accountability, authenticity, and the means and modes of representation. Binjamin Wilkomirski’s fraudulent Holocaust memoir, Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood, is (un)exemplary in this regard. The irony of Tell, therefore, is that whilst the narrator might denigrate Lara’s tall tales, she herself is prone to conjecture. Were Lara and Asil the chauffeur sleeping together? “It’s a possibility. That would spice up the scenario a bit.”
However, that the gardener criticises Lara for making the square pegs of Curtis’ life fit the round holes of linear biography says something about Jonathan Buckley’s own philosophical refusal of totalising narrative omniscience. Just as the narrator’s frequent fabulisms reveal, we are all prone to making stories. At least Buckley’s fragmentary formatting provides ample room for the reader to have the final say. For Tell is, above all, a stark reminder of the power of storytelling. In his 1936 essay “The Storyteller”, Walter Benjamin laments the decline of traditional storytelling in favour of the novel format and the concomitant rise of information dissemination through media, which he regards as “incompatible with the spirit of storytelling”. This transition reflects a broader cultural shift from the oral and collective transmission of wisdom to the isolated and individual consumption of information—a shift that we are all too accustomed with today. Though conjectural, the gardener’s nuanced portrayal of Curtis Doyle exemplifies the communal and experiential dimension of storytelling that Benjamin acclaims; indeed, it is precisely her personal observations, witty asides, and speculatory remarks that foster such a connection between reader and narrator. Characterised by its immediate consumption and ephemerality, the rise of “information” and media erode this storytelling tradition. In that regard, the filmmakers in Tell symbolise the modern media apparatus that Benjamin bemoans, as they seek to commodify the integrity of a personal narrative and express an erroneous univocality that belies the multiplicity of the gardener’s account. The contemporary craze for biopics has certainly fallen into this trap. If, for Benjamin, storytelling has lost its "aura" as a deeply rooted human tradition to a mechanised and depersonalised age, then Buckley’s Tell provides something of a contemporary rejoinder. The art and value of a good story is clear for all to see here.
By Tom Taylor
Tell by Jonathan Buckley was published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in March 2024.
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