Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Some of Penelope Fitzgerald’s novels I do not understand at all. This is one of them. I could tell you about the characters and the setting. I could list scenes and events. But if there exists such a thing as a plot in this novel, I could not discern it.
The BBC exists. The characters work there. It’s World War II, during The Blitz. The characters are living life, recording sounds, broadcasting, taking in boarders, being dysfunctional, being brave, making ends meet, observing chaos, drinking tea and enjoying varying levels of understanding of one another’s psychological complexities and romantic entanglements.
But what is it about? Why did she write it? Who’s the protagonist? What do they want, and do they get it or not? Who or what, in the end, am I rooting for?
In Gate of Angels, she crafts a beautiful puzzle box with a single, exquisite key. When she gives you the key at last, on the final page, the whole mechanism falls into place. You see, with breathtaking clarity, what it’s been about this whole time.
Perhaps such a key exists for Human Voices. If so, I wasn’t perceptive enough to grasp it.