The Slap

I want to write about The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. There has been a lot of controversy about this book which was longlisted for the Man Booker this year. I was drawn to this novel because of the discussion it triggered on BBC’s Review Show which I both enjoy and dislike in almost equal measures depending on who is making up the panel that week. Anyway, as I remember, everyone moaned about The Slap. They didn’t like the swearing, they didn’t like the characters, there were too many characters, it was too crudely written, blah blah blah. Tsiolkas is Australian, and what really irritates me is that this novel has been both praised and criticised for its representation and portrayal of contemporary Australia. Who says? I really hate the notion that any given novel has to be seen to be making an important social statement, or acting as a fictional documentation of what is actually going on. Why can’t a novel just be a product of the imagination of its author? Anyway, I think there’s a problem with how people have approached the book. I think it’s brilliantly written because it includes the actions by its characters that other writers would undoubtedly omit.

The novel’s chapters focus primarily on one character at a time, but their lives bleed into one another, as does the impact of the one episode which ricochets through the entire novel- when one character slaps a three year old child at a barbecue. ‘The boy is not his son’. Anyway, I think the novel is brave in its style as it reflects real people and real thought, which is hard for some people, notably the book’s critics, to admit. Human beings aren’t nice. Human beings don’t think nice or pure or politically correct or positive thoughts all the time, and this, for me, is exactly what this book is about. Halfway down the first page reads ‘[Hector] himself would have no problem falling asleep in a girl’s locker room surrounded by the moist, heady fragrance of sweet young cunt’, and is probably where the critics and prudes decided they were NOT going to enjoy this novel. And actually, when I was reading this myself I smiled and imaged the scrunched up faces of the people who still think that cunt is a dirty and negative word.