The Cement Garden

If I knew enough about psychoanalysis I could probably work out why I picked up The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan the other day. My subconscious self probably looked out the back window at the wilderness, realized that, before long I'll be cutting our half-acre at least once every seven days, and decided that green cement would be a much better option. At any rate, having heard of Ian McEwan from award winning books like Atonement, The Comfort of Strangers, and Black Dogs, I thought I'd give him a try. It's amazing how quickly I can get through a book in five minutes snatched here and there.
The Cement Garden is about a family of four children who live in a rambling old house in an area of half-demolished prefabs and new high-rise blocks. The story was published in 1978, and that fits with the urban renewal (so called) that was popular at the time. It's written from the perspective of a fifteen year old boy who is discovering his sexuality etc. etc. First his father dies (mixing concrete), then his mother dies and is buried in concrete in the cellar. McEwan chronicles how the children cope, in a home without adults. Basically, they don't cope. The story is pretty vile. The main character, Jack, is an ill-tempered brute. Eventually, as you can guess within a few pages, the story spirals down into incest. A younger brother experiments with transvestism. It's a thoroughly depressing story, filled with urban blight and the alienation of modern youth. Is it possible to wash your brain after reading a story? It's not just cement dust that pollutes these pages.
Now, as a study of adolescence, you might say that The Cement Garden is worthwhile. It certainly gives insight into how young males have extreme difficulty in communicating effectively. Jack manages to say and do almost the exact opposite of what he would like to do, in most situations, unnecessarily antagonising those he loves the most. Shy, riddled with acne, he lives a tormented life, trying and failing to be the man of the house. I know boys like that. If nothing else the story reminds me to be patient and to look beyond the behavior to the hurting heart. However, that's not what struck me most about the story.
Last month I read The Northern Light by A.J. Cronin, a bestseller from a previous generation. Strangely, that story could also have descended into a description of incest, but it did not. It's the story of the struggle for survival of a regional newspaper, against the inroads (and dirty tricks) of a national rag, trying to take its readership. In that story, the central character is a rather weak middle-aged man with a heart condition. As the pages progress, he becomes something of a hero, finding within himself reserves of strength he did not realize he had. Although it ends in a double suicide, it's a morally uplifting story. Curiously, the suicides are caused by the leaking of the news that the main character's daughter in law had had an illegal abortion before she married. No one would lift an eyebrow today.
I'm struck by the difference in the two stories. Both are well-written, but Cronin's work builds up the human spirit, McEwan's knocks it down. You would be right in thinking that the latter is really a re-working of themes explored elsewhere, for example in Golding's Lord of the Flies. It's a dark commentary on how quickly societal restraints and cultural mores can break down. In this respect it's Calvinist, in that it testifies to the total depravity of humanity. We are not naturally good. Without law to control our baser instincts we are all capable of the worst behavior imaginable. Of course, the difference between McEwan and Golding is that McEwan is unbearably graphic. He leaves nothing to the imagination. His book would not have been published a century ago, or if it had been, it would have been sold in brown paper covers in shady establishments. Golding's is the better book because of what it does not say. We don't need to have everything spelled out for us.
The most startling contrast between McEwan and Cronin, though, is in the society both authors describe. In the space of thirty years, society has changed almost beyond recognition. Themes like honor and thrift, which permeate Cronin's book, would be completely out of place in McEwan's. In the older work, there is room for faith, even though the relationship between the main character and the church is strained. There can be little doubt that, though he prefers a walk by the sea on a Sunday morning, he would describe himself as a Christian. At one point in the story he is saved from bancruptcy by the goodness and loyalty of ordinary people. Thirty years later, in McEwan's story, there is no room for faith. The church is totally irrelevant; it is never mentioned.
What is the third stage? If we can move from generally held public beliefs to a vague unease with incest in the space of thirty years, where do we go next? If there are no universally held standards any more, how can any behavior be regarded as illegitimate? Will my grandchildren be reading graphic novels in which the bad guys are those who impose their morality on others? Perhaps it will not take that long.
I shouldn't be surprised when the world behaves like the world, when those without any reference point in God behave like pagans, because that's exactly what they are. But I wonder whether future generations will be amazed at how blind we have been to the effects of creeping secularisation. I wonder whether they will also be appalled at how deeply the culture of despair has infiltrated the Church.