This post contains a small amount of spoiler information.
A few weeks ago, I posed the question: Is it possible to read too many depressing British novels? Of course, the answer is “no.” However, I have definitely reached my threshold on British literary rubbish disguised as literary fiction and riveting fodder for book club groups. Chris Cleave’s Little Bee fits in the category of good intentions dressed up as literature and is just one more book that can be added to my list of “not good books” that I completed for book club despite my desire to ditch the book in favor of something more likeable and moving. (No offense, selector. You did a great job selecting a book of the perfect length with hot topics that will lead to an interesting discussion. You know I would be complaining even if we would have read Lolita like we originally planned. Blame the author not the selector.)
It should have occurred to me that there was something stinky in Nigeria when this book was being promoted with this caveat: “The publishers of Chris Cleave's new novel 'don't want to spoil' the story by revealing too much about it, and there's good reason not to tell too much about the plot's pivot point. All you should know going in to Little Bee is that what happens on the beach is brutal, and that it braids the fates of a 16-year-old Nigerian orphan (who calls herself Little Bee) and a well-off British couple--journalists trying to repair their strained marriage with a free holiday--who should have stayed behind their resort's walls…”
When the publisher does not want to give a summary that means there just isn’t much substance there to preview. Actually, there are a lot of ridiculous confrontations and melodrama that occurs throughout the novel but nothing that amounts to a logical plot. During the first three chapters, it appears that Cleave creates a thought-provoking, intriguing novel about the treatment of refugees at immigration detention holding centers. He builds up tremendous suspense about the much touted scene on the beach that brings Little Bee into the lives of Sarah and Andrew, a British couple who have a precocious four-year-old Charlie as well as a troubled marriage due to her affair with Lawrence, a weaselly government employee who is married with children.
After the beach scene (which is not as monstrous and barbaric as the publisher’s blurb intimates) occurs, the book falls apart. Yes, the violence is brutal but it seems to be too unbelievable that mercenaries would perform slow torture and sadistic bargaining opposed to just killing everyone on the beach. Furthermore, why would anyone go to Nigeria to repair their marriage? Andrew and Sarah are both journalists, so they could have been there for work. But, Cleave chooses to have the struggling couple go to a dangerous beach for a second honeymoon—just ludicrous. Since the remainder of the novel hinges on the absurdity of the beach scene, Cleave’s strong start to his novel unravels as he strings one confrontation or melodramatic moment after another to keep the book moving. Even in flashbacks that reveal Sarah and Andrew’s life together, Cleave creates histrionics that just are unbelievable. For instance, the scene where Lawrence introduces his mistress to her husband is hauntingly awkward and darkly comic, but in reality neither the wife nor the husband would have allowed Lawrence to complete his introduction.
But, their meeting is nowhere near as incongruous as the calculating and manipulative banter between Lawrence and Little Bee. Following Andrew’s suicide, Lawrence quickly usurps the dead man’s side of the bed and becomes a possessive fixture in Sarah’s life, which not only makes Little Bee uneasy but makes her equally possessive and aggressive. Little Bee’s response to Lawrence’s threats seems incompatible with her saccharine naiveté. Would a sweet sixteen-year-old Nigerian who seems so ignorant of both British and adult ways really threaten and blackmail a male government employee? Perhaps Cleave is trying to make Little Bee multidimensional, but instead of roundness he creates illogical bipolarity. She deviates from strong to weak with no shades of ordinary in between.
Although Cleave never allows Little Bee to materialize into a believable character, he succeeds in making Sarah the perfect cheating bitch and irresponsible mother who has moments of selflessness, compassion and benevolence. She is neither fully could good or fully bad and possesses a believable amount of ambivalence. Although readers may not like her, her complexity helps redeem the novel. Sadly, she would be a more interesting character if the two men she vacillated between were more distinctive. Andrew and Lawrence are pretty much same man. They both are cowards with very little self-confidence or raison d'être. With his rendering of both men, it is like Cleave looked to American sitcoms writers who only know how to write men as buffoons and subordinates to their smart wives. It is like American comedic writers have forgotten how to write strong men and this is also the case with Cleave. There is nothing manly or attractive about Lawrence and Andrew’s only redeemable quality might be the documentation about Nigeria that he compiled.
The incongruities in Little Bee’s character and the pale sketching of Lawrence and Arthur makes the characterization in this book very flawed. But at the same time, the characterization is probably the best part of this book in comparison to dialogue and plot, which are shoddily put together. The ending of the book is as ridiculous as all the other melodramatic moments in this book. It is a shame that the plot components are not more evolved because it appears that Cleave is trying extraordinarily hard to write an important book about brutality in Africa and the conditions that refugees face when entering England. His research fills his novel; his passion for the topic resonates; his dark wit shines at moments in this novel; and, his awareness of a writerly style necessary to propel a book from competent storytelling to high art is evident. Sometimes his comic moments are just too forced. For instance, the ridiculously long list of suicide methods that Little Bee would employ if the men came to get her is insanely overwrought. Cleave also overloads his book with metaphors. After I read the lovely extended use of the British pound as metaphor, he quickly follows up with nail polish and scars as metaphors – just too much in a small literary space. Metaphors need time and space. No need to show his entire literary prowess in the first 30 pages. But, I really do admire Cleave’s effort with this book. Little Bee would be really great with a different plot, fully developed characters, more realistic dialogue, less metaphors and an alternative ending.
