Matt Thorne applauds a novelist who's not selling out to the global cult of mediocrity

Matt Thorne
Sunday 7th July 2002
Independent on Sunday

The literature that marked the end of the twentieth century was much less radical than that which emerged during the end of the nineteenth. Decadence had become so fashionable in fiction during the 1980s that by the end of the century attempting to recapture fin de siecle attitudes was a mainstream pose. Rather than seek innovation in form, most talented writers instead concentrated on stretching the possibility of content. Years of minimalism was replaced by a desperate desire to write the last great big book of the century, as writers packed their books full of new stuff. One of the most extreme, and brilliant, examples of this approach was James Flint's first novel, Habitus. As Alain de Botton, who was one of the judges on the panel that awarded Flint an Amazon writer's bursary while he was working on this follow-up, 52 Ways to Magic America, commented, "James Flint's novels are marked by a radical vision of what the novel could be, quite at odds with the humanist, 19th-century tradition. Flint is a glorious modernist, excited by the possibilities of form, constructing bold novels of ideas."

Habitus was a novel powered by science, as interested in the activity of atoms as human beings. 52 Ways to Magic America is concerned instead with magic, as Flint moves away from the secrets of existence to the possibility of deception. It is a beautiful book, quite unlike anything else I have ever read. The reason why I rate Flint, and this novel, so highly is that he is prepared to take enormous risks. As many of his peers, having got a sense of the possible global audience for mediocrity, attempt to make their books increasingly commercial, Flint seems to be drifting out into an unexplored wilderness, with only J. G Ballard for company. While other writers aim for a transatlantic audience, Flint truly captures how it feels to love England even when all your dreams are of America. This is an American-style big novel that deals with huge themes, and yet takes in such prosaic locations as Blackpool and Brighton, Worthing and Eastbourne. It has a main character, Marty Quick, who dreams of winning Young Magician of the Year at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. It is about the ineffable sadness of childhood imagination, when your vision is limited to the terrible programmes you've watched on Sunday evening BBCTV.

It is also, in many ways, two books in one. Midway through the novel, there is a radical shift in tone and content. While the first half is probably more successful, the second half is more interesting. Both halves complement the other perfectly. The first half follows Mary as he is introduced to magic by a step-uncle, studies hard, and eventually wins Young Magician of the Year. At the contest, he manages to steal an assistant, Terri Liddell, from one of the other competitors. Terri looks identical to Princess Diana. This eventually leads Marty to create one of his greatest tricks, and most involved relationships when he discovers a second woman who also looks exactly like Princess Di. The interplay between the three characters is brilliantly observed, and while some scenes are undeniably kinky and perverse, Flint has an unusual understanding of human nature that stops them seeming exploitative. Particularly amusing is just how hard Marty finds it when the women start ganging up on him, and here Flint explores the more familiar modern theme of how reality never matches fantasy.

The second half of the book moves away from magic, as Marty becomes involved in a dot-com enterprise. There are several metaphors at work here, but the most arresting is the most obvious, as Flint compares the 'now-you-see-it-now-you-don't' nature of internet paper fortunes to the illusions Marty constructed in the first half of the novel. That this half is less successful is because the world has changed while Flint has been writing, and dot-coms have gone from hot topic to historical interest. Nevertheless, there is a real energy in the second half, as Flint engages directly with events from the last few years (including, of course, Diana's death.) The slightly more ragged quality of this section shows a writer attempting to show the reader a reflection of modern life in all its glory, and to capture the sense of optimism we so recently lost. And while many novels have been rendered irrelevant by recent global events, here is one that has only gained in mystery and meaning.