Not Just for Christmas

I’ve always found deciding on a Christmas Book the most difficult task of my literary year. I read enthusiastically all the time, but it’s only in late November or early December that I start to get twitchy about this year’s special pick, and I always worry that I may have left the decision too late.

My Christmases are defined by two competing pressures. On the one hand, there is the bustle of conviviality, the hubbub of chat, the overlapping smells of the kitchen, meals taken at strange times, rau­cous board games and the vague sense of discombobulation on 28 December when it occurs to everyone that no one is completely sure what day it is (Thursday? Monday?). On the other is the fleeting promise of a long week spent virtually uninterrupted in an armchair in front of the fire, with a whisky and a book. Admittedly, this never actually happens for the reasons listed above, but choosing the right Christmas book helps me imagine that maybe this year I’ll be briefly forgotten about and can live out that particular fantasy. With the right book, even a snatched hour of fireside peace is worth a lot. The choice in question needs to be a satisfyingly meaty novel with a page-turning plot that is still clever enough to be absorbing. My perfect choice would be something by an author I’ve never read before but which magically turns out to be, well, perfect. And magically, that actually happened one Christmas, with a book called S., which was published in 2013. S. was apparently the brainchild of the American film-maker J. J. Abrams, who is probably best known for various Star Wars and Star Treks, but the book itself was written ‘with’ (or perhaps ‘by’) the novelist Doug Dorst. As we’ll see, this indeterminate authorship seems entirely fitting, since even describing the book itself is a bit complicated. At first glance, S. takes the form of a novel called The Ship of Theseus, supposedly written by one V. M. Straka and translated (with notes) by F. X. Caldeira. The Ship of Theseus comes in a slipcase, and its assorted spine stickers, front papers and stamps indicate that it was published in 1949 by the Winged Shoes Press and that this par­ticular copy had once been held in the library of Laguna Verde High School. The typeface and discolouration of the pages all maintain this illusion. In itself, The Ship of Theseus is an absorbing enough short novel in its own right, albeit one with some disturbing magical realist elements and a dark political undertone. But, and crucially, the book is also very heavily annotated. Each page is covered with up to a dozen short comments, written in a rainbow of different inks and in two different hands. It is in these marginalia, as well as in additional materials tucked between its pages – letters, newspaper clippings, beermats, postcards – that the novel S. exists. It immediately becomes clear that the annotations are the work of two different people. The first, Eric, is a graduate student working on V. M. Straka at Pollard State University, who writes in ordered small capitals. The second is Jen, an undergraduate library assistant whose own notes appear in a curling cursive script. Together, they provide us with dozens of snatched exchanges, as each marks up the book and leaves it for the other to find. The annotations change colour too, and this allows the reader to identify different stages in their ongoing ‘conversation’: the earliest annotations are in Eric’s faded script and are just notes about the novel itself. These are supplemented by the main dialogue between Eric and Jen, which is rendered first in blue and black, then in green and orange, and finally in red and purple (before returning to black again). None of this is ever specifically explained but simply unfolds as the reader turns the pages. Through these annotations, we trace the developing relationship between Eric and Jen and their navigation of crucial moments in their own lives, as one contemplates the prospect of graduation and the other the ruins of an academic career. More dramatically, their shared investigations of The Ship of Theseus also begin to reveal secrets about the work’s author and its translator, and the sinister conspiracy which bound them together and is beginning to ensnare Eric and Jen. It is to the enormous credit of the book’s author(s) (and especially the designers) that all of this is comparatively easy to follow. Juggling the plot of The Ship of Theseus and the unfolding story in which it sits does require concentration, but this is a novel intended to tantal-ize rather than frustrate the reader. The annotations are scattered throughout the book, and it is only the changing ink colour that allows us to establish approximately when each of the passages was written, and hence how they relate to one another. This means, of course, that the two characters’ shared experiences, from their important discoveries about Straka and Caldeira to the gradual changes in their own relationship, are revealed to the reader in a disrupted order. Some important moments of resolution appear in the very first pages, while other revelations are saved for the end, even when they occur quite early in the story. There are multiple storylines too, as Eric and Jen gradually open up to one another, but also open to scrutiny the volume they are working on. Gradually the nature of V. M. Straka is revealed and the identity of his translator uncovered, and with them the plot that will encom­pass the students themselves and throw their world into turmoil. Interpolated letters, postcards and photographs lend the whole project a tactile dimension and add enormously to the sheer fun of it. S. isn’t set at Christmas and, beyond a couple of allusions to the winter cold at Pollard State University, makes no reference to the season. But for its richness and joy, it still seems to me a quintessentially­ Christmassy book. Libraries, conspiracies, literary translation and a whiff of developing romance are all ideal ingredients for a fes­tive read, and this book offers generous portions of each. S. is a puzzle as well as a book, of course, and that also seems pretty Christmassy. The story ends well too, and the resolution is satisfying, but deeper mysteries still linger unexplored. What are the doodles that mark so many pages? Are these just a further ‘reality effect’ to reinforce the sense that we are reading a much-loved book, or are they further hints about Jen and Eric? What about the many foot­notes and passages that are left unglossed? Or the code-wheel that is thoughtfully tucked into the book but only alluded to briefly, and which we are never invited to use? Are there more codes here to be cracked? Perhaps most important, however, is that reading S. demands time and attention, and the Christmas period allows that. The Ship of Theseus is divided into ten chapters, and after some experimentation, I realized that the only way to read S. properly was to tackle one chapter at a time, and then go back to the annotations in order. I’m sure there are other ways of reading the book, but for me this was the most manageable way of keeping the multiple plots in my head and not missing anything. Reading a chapter a day more or less covered the (long) Christmas week to New Year and left me feeling refreshed. I honestly don’t think it would be possible to tackle S. as a bedtime read: this is a book to be taken in large gulps (along with small sips of whisky).

Extract from Slightly Foxed Issue 84 © Andy Merrills 2024