Out of the Mouths of Babes by Dennis Hamley - reviewed by John A. A. Logan

The lives of this novel’s three protagonists, Gary, Julian, and Grizelda, are interwoven beautifully from the outset, with the shifts from one character’s life and world to the next creating a sense of great momentum in the narrative.

I would characterise the voice of this book as one of warm, and sometimes grave,  sensitivity, which suits the psychological depths the story must plumb, particularly in the cases of Gary and Julian. One skill which the author brings to the storytelling here is an almost unique, it seems to me, ability to shift backwards and forwards through time, but without ever losing or confusing the reader. This makes for an endlessly interesting, kaleidoscopic helter-skelter ride through the inner sanctums of the characters’ subconscious impulses, setbacks, growth, development – and finally sets the scene for a penetrative meditation on the theme of guilt itself. How responsible is an individual for the lives and deaths of those they come in contact with? Where is the “line” which defines the beginning and end of such fine levels of responsibility?

This is also the story of the working class/underclass, versus the middle/upper middle class, versus the upper/ruling class of the sort of class-ridden British society which, of course, once moved George Bernard Shaw to comment: “It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.”

In Hamley’s novel, though, it is the souls of these Englishmen, and an Englishwoman, which are opened before us, bared to us and also to each other. Though perhaps Grizelda’s soul is not quite so laid bare: rather she is the witness and commentator, even the mediator, attempting to bring justice, perhaps healing, to her lover and to her lover’s childhood victim, Gary.

Gary has been through the fires and the furnace, much of him that would have flourished in more providential soil has been seared and singed away by brutal experience, and injustice. He has emerged on the other side, though, reforged himself into a new form, and it is the destiny of this new form, or new self, that this novel will gradually unfold.

Julian, on the other hand, has been brought up and trained since birth to rule “this sceptered isle”, it is assumed to be his right, his destiny. If the talents of another, or the fruits of those talents, must be appropriated through deceit in order for Julian’s path to be better cleared towards greatness, then that is work worth doing (and Julian will find willing accomplices in that work). And, of course, the results of all that work cannot be “wrong”, they must instead be viewed as expedient method, for the furthering of that Great Destiny which Providence surely must have intended always. Though, if Julian himself is only a child, brainwashed and trained, when the deceits begin, how deep does his personal responsibility really lie? And there begins Mr Hamley’s meditation and penetration on those deep themes of true responsibility and guilt.

Grizelda’s own experience allows her to straddle both worlds, Gary’s and Julian’s, and see the potential in both men, though she is perhaps not conscious yet that her own brilliance has also been co-opted and assimilated into the fulfilment of that destiny for Julian, which Gary’s early incandescence was also absorbed into, as though by the greediest and hungriest of Black Holes.

The supernova potential of this world’s Garys and Grizeldas, only to be thwarted then, devoured, leaving nothing but stellar clue remnants in the black corners of space? Or can such tragedy sometimes result in even stranger fruit?

Julian Claverhouse has his cosmic destiny after all, by right of birth and upbringing, to rule the land - no Oik from a Council estate is he – but equally, when so much of the material absorbed into a Black Hole has come from the best, blazing potential of others, how much of that Black Hole can still be said to consist of the “right Claverhouse stuff” by Journey’s End? Perhaps even one toenail-clipping of Oik in the powerful final mixture could be enough to spoil the alchemy, or perhaps otherwise, enough to save and justify its existence at all?

Julian Claverhouse may very well end up in the exact spot everyone has always been aiming at for him, but by the time he gets there will he still really be Julian Claverhouse? Or, like Cronenbergian fly DNA in his soul, will he carry little pieces of Gary and Grizelda with him always, wherever he may go?

Perhaps Hamley’s message is that all those pulsing stars up there, visible  in the black sky, are really the result of the crashing together of countless disparate fragments, the mangling together of many destinies, to make that strange cosmic fruit cocktail which often may be more the consequence of accident and dream, than breeding.

Gary’s social background, after all – Assessment Centre, Special School, homelessness – is not often the stuff of literature (which, unfortunately, goes a long way to prove Hamley’s point here), but the Gary of this novel is destined to be, at least, the thorn in the British Lion’s paw; and what may come of that is the engine for this story, fuelling its journey into the unknown and unknowable, as, by Black Starlight flooding through the portal window on our right, we make the next mind-bending turn, before shooting onwards, towards areas of social, spiritual and psychological Deep Space we cannot yet see perhaps, but we sense are out there nonetheless.

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Out of the Mouths of Babes by Dennis Hamley

The British class system is a curious thing. It is, on the surface at least, less rigid than in the past, and yet it continues to influence British society and affect the lives of British people. The days of forelock-tugging subservience may be largely over, but those at the top end of the spectrum nevertheless enjoy consistently better opportunities than those who are lower down. This is often accepted with a shrug, as a slight quirk in the social structure; Dennis Hamley’s Out of the Mouths of Babes forces you to see it in starkly human terms.

The structure of Out of the Mouths of Babes has echoes of a Greek tragedy: from the opening act there are presentiments of an oncoming catastrophe. Three children are all born on the same day, but into completely different circumstances. Their lives will come together in several unexpected ways, and – as in a Greek tragedy – there seems nothing that any of them can do to alter their fate.

Julian, born into wealth and privilege, stands at one end of the social spectrum. Even the name of his family home, Mockbeggar House, gives an indication as to the kind of people who reside within: people of wealth and power who seem unable to question their own privilege, or to extend a great deal of sympathy to those who, through no fault of their own, are less privileged. From the moment of his birth, much of Julian’s life seems to be preordained: “Prep school, public school and Oxford must follow in due course as they always had for male Claverhouses.” Along with money and status, Julian also inherits many of his parents’ attitudes: complacency, an unquestioning conservatism, and contempt for those who are beneath him in the pecking order. Needless to say, he’s an unsympathetic character – until Hamley takes us further into his mind, and demonstrates that he is, in his own way, as much a victim of circumstances as anyone.

At the other end of the social scale is Gary, a naturally gifted child whose narrow and impoverished circumstances mean that he will never achieve his full potential. He belongs to that class of people who, in Julian’s words and eyes, “mean nothing, make nothing ... are nothing.” Nothing could be further from Julian’s comfortable upbringing, yet by the time they become adults their lives are already inextricably linked. Gary grows into an embittered man, his taciturn manner concealing a world of rage.

Binding the two men still more tightly is Grizelda, the adored child of middle-class hippies made good. “Just be yourself and be beautiful,” is all that her parents ever expected her to do. Grizelda is, aptly, “in the middle”: committed to Julian but able to see Gary’s untapped potential; able to dislike Julian’s attitudes without hating the man himself. It is Grizelda’s chance meeting with Gary that sets off a chain of events that soon gain shocking momentum.

At this point the novel sprung a surprise on me, and in a good way. I was expecting a straightforward romance to develop between Gary and Grizelda. In fact, there’s nothing straightforward about any of the characters’ interactions, which are as complex and troubled as their social circumstances and inner lives. Needless to say, I didn’t get my romance; what I got instead was a much deeper and more profound story about how a person’s entire life can be shaped by their childhood circumstances. “Give me the child, and I will give you the man,” ran the Jesuit slogan, and the stories of Julian, Gary, and Grizelda demonstrate the truth of the maxim.

Hamley effortlessly guides the story to its shocking conclusion, moving in and out of the three characters’ lives, and enabling us to follow both their increasingly troubled inner lives and the series of events that overtake them. I don’t think it’s too great a spoiler to say that the final outcome of those events can hardly be a happy one. But it’s also true to say that whatever your political convictions or social background, Out of the Mouths of Babes will keep you reading right up to the last page. At heart – and in another echo of a Greek tragedy – this is an all-too-human drama that transcends the time and society in which it is set.

Out of the Mouths of Babes is available at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.