Bethanne Patrick

Recommended Reading: 'The Night Climbers'
September 18, 2007

As our PW review noted, tales of "collegiate hedonism" can often be predictable; the review also mentioned that there will be inevitable comparison's to Donna Tartt's The Secret History. In spite of these flaws, I want to point you towards Ivo Stourton's debut novel The Night Climbers for a couple of reasons. 

First, the conceit on which it's based: night-climbing the spires, crenellations, and turrets of Cambridge University. Even the most devoted Anglophiles may not have known anything about this eccentric but somehow still predictable Cantabrigian activity, which was documented in a 1953 volume called The Night Climbers of Cambridge that has been saved to the Web for some odd reason. The photos of woolen-clad undergraduates negotiating drainpipes and walls reminds me of earnest gym-bound climbing-wall devotees today (The toff-y prose, at once earnest and arch, is funny, too: "A few enthusiasts swarm up every pipe they see, for its own sake, but they are not necessarily good climbers. They are gymnasts.")

Stourton's story is set in 1990s Cambridge, but when much-lower-class James is introduced to the Tudor Night Climbers and becomes embroiled in their (yes) hedonistic and secretive world, the setting might as well be the 1850s, since tales of misunderstood outsiders and louche titled heirs are a dime a dozen. The early chapters that delicately build an otherworldly picture of golden lads and girls turn to dust when the author tries to build intrigue.

Ivo Stourton does not succeed stunningly out of the gate; his reach exceeds his grasp. But that's what heaven's for, as well as second books. The Night Climbers is not a terrific novel, but parts of it are terrific reads -- and Stourton is definitely an author to watch.

                                                            

Posted by Bethanne Patrick on September 18, 2007 | Comments (2)