If ever there was a book that ought not to work as an enjoyable novel, Our Tragic Universe pretty much fits the bill – with a loose plot about the unhappy life of central character Meg, a small-town setting on the Devon coast and some lengthy digressions in to topics as diverse as narrative theory, religion, the occult and the nature of belief, with some advanced physics and some knitting throw in for good measure, it does not sound like a recipe for success. However, as readers of Scarlett Thomas’s previous two novels will know, she wears her remarkable learning lightly and really has delivered a book that justifies publisher Canongate’s description of it as ‘a philosophical page turner’.

Meg Carpenter is a writer living in Torbay with her boyfriend and her dog. We very quickly come to realise that her boyfriend, Christopher, is a self-centred and selfish idiot, and that Meg knows this really but hasn’t come to terms with it yet. Meg writes book reviews for newspapers, as well as genre fiction for publisher Orb Books, and is constantly working on her magnum opus, her literary novel, a book whose style and storylines are subject to constant revision by their frustrated author (even the title keeps changing). The book reviewing gig leads to something which provides a framework for the novel – when she reviews an eccentric pseudo-science book containing outlandish theories about how the end of time can be avoided and the human race can live forever, Meg is commissioned to delve deeper in to the wonderful world of tarot reading, mysticism and motivational claptrap, which provides a framing device for the events that follow.

Along the way we meet Meg’s friend Libby, who is having a doomed affair, her friends Vi and Tony, with whom she shares the kind of intellectual companionship that her boyfriend can never give her, her boyfriend’s mildly autistic brother Josh, Rowan, an older man for whom Meg feels a strong attraction, and a number of other memorable characters. As she gradually makes decisions to take control of her life, Meg also takes control of her art, almost entirely scrapping the draft of her novel that has weighed her down and deciding on a new approach that she thinks will bear fruit. Structurally, there are plentiful flashbacks and digressions, especially during the first half of the book, yet what could feel aimless and indulgent never does, and there is a compelling quality to the writing and the characters that keeps the pages turning.

There is considerable intellectual depth to everything Scarlett Thomas writes – it’s stimulating and engaging in equal measure. But that should not be allowed to obscure the fact that, in Meg Carpenter, Thomas has created an intriguing and plausible narrator, whose determination to take control of her life, to gain her independence and learn to knit socks, is charming. She is the kind of character that you would actually like to meet and become friends with (and maybe read her novel when she eventually finishes it), and the end of Our Tragic Universe comes all too quickly. Simultaneously deep and readable, Our Tragic Universe comes highly recommended.

Bookmark to