The Emperor's Children

A novel by Claire Messud. The review in the Economist had piqued my interest for 2 reasons. Firstly, it was set in New York City in the months prior to and just after 9/11/2001. Secondly, one of the main characters, Julius, was gay. I know it shouldn't matter and sounds like a silly reason for wanting to read a book, but that encouraged me to hunt for it while I was in the States(having been unable to find it here in Singapore, although I did see it in Kino a couple of weeks ago). I was lucky enough to procure an autographed copy from Borders, which does add a certain intimacy even though I have never seen Ms Messud in my life and probably never will.

The Emperor's Children "is a dazzling, masterful novel about the intersections in the lives of three friends, now on the cusp of their thirties, making their way - and not - in New York City." While this does sound vaguely Sex And The City-esque - and there are mentions of sex, shopping and parties - these 431 pages explore a different Manhattan scene altogether. A scene which revovles around Murray Thwaite, celebrity intellectual, beacon of truth to the left, father of borderline socialite and aspiring author Marina.

The novel begins with Danielle Minkoff(Marina's best friend from Brown) having dinner at the home of a friend's friend in Sydney - where she is conducting research for a television series on the Aborigines that she hopes to produce - and her initial encounter with the charming Australian Ludovic Seely, an ambitious Machiavellian who intends to start a revolutionary magazine in New York later in the year. Seely has a particular obsession with exposing Murray Thwaite as a charlatan, and later uses Danielle to get to Marina.

We are then introduced to Frederick 'Bootie' Tubb, an idealistic, troubled youth who dreams of escaping the physical and mental degradation of small town New York, just as his idol(and uncle) Murray had done many years ago. Leaving his sweet but naive simpleton of a mother Judy behind, he embarks on a clandestine journey to New York City and the Thwaites.

Meanwhile, Julius meets the suave, straight-acting David while temping, and the two enter a whirlwind romance which pulls him away from Marina and Danielle, and into the world of invesment bankers who are more likely to read the financial section of the New York Times than his reviews in the Village Voice. One does wonder whether this sacrifice of friends for love is worth it, indeed whether it is even necessary. Surely love is not all-consuming to the point where it leaves no space for others? Something I've never understood.

Julius leaves his ramshackle hovel of an apartment in what I deduced to be Alphabet City and moves in with David. After a few weeks, Bootie - who has been given a job as Murray's "amanuensis" - decides that he should live on his own, so as to be truly independent and not overly impose on his hapless relatives. Thus, he sublets from Julius.

This is where the main plot begins to kick in. The reader realises that Murray is far from perfect. For all his talk of truth, he engages in deception(don't we all) whether subtle - "plagiarizing" from his previous articles when writing a new one - or rather more blatant - having an affair with Danielle. Murray, like so many other aging intellectuals(Howard Besley from On Beauty comes to mind here), seems to have an unquenchable thirst for the sensations of life, and a fear that settling down translates into atrophy. Bootie realises what his uncle is up to and this, along with several other revealations, brings the pedestal on which he had put Murray crashing down. He proceeds to concoct a less than complimentary essay on his uncle, including his views on a secret manuscript that Murray is still writing, a project Murray hopes to be his lifetime accomplishment.

With the situation heating up and September 11 fast approaching, the book does start to become more engaging. How will Murray react to Bootie's article? Will his affair with Danielle be discovered? Will Seely succeed in his attempt to turn Marina against her father, and how about the launch of his supposedly revolutionary magazine? Will Julius, unable to decide if he is really happy in a monogamous relationship - and cheating on David - be found out? All this set against the backdrop of an impending disaster. Will they, and the city, survive?

It is unfortunate that none of the characters appear very likable. I couldn't stand idealistic, selfish Bootie and his pretentious pseudo-intellectual garbage. Murray is every bit the schemer that Seely is. Danielle is bland and insecure. Marina is vain and somewhat shallow. Julius is tolerable but capricious and impulsive. Very much like real life no? Moreover, Ms Messud's style of writng, which includes the excessive use of dashes - which, as you can see, has annoyingly seeped into my own writing style - and unnecessarily grandiloquent language, is hard to follow at times.

That being said, and while it certainly isn't on the same level as Zadie Smith's On Beauty, I have no regrets reading The Emperor's Children. Bootie realises at the end of the book, when Murray once again finds himself a large audience in the post Sep 11 world, that his fallen idol has an unmistakable charisma about him. From himself to Danielle, from Marina to Seely(who claims that Murray is a quack yet continues to be preoccupied with him), almost everyone seems, in one way or another, to have an interest in Murray Thwaite. Undeniable x-factor, that certain je ne sais quoi. Doesn't that remind you of a certain American female pop icon? People claim to hate her and label her a has-been but they can't seem to stop talking about her. You go B girl!