Two lecturers mourn the passing into history of an integrity they can only stupidly comment on. In an age of self-help, their dialogues are out of their time, offering no ‘how-to’ that fits into the culture of ‘excellence’ that has replaced integrity, nor any alternatives neither. The idea that there is only one story - overcoming the odds - seems to be on trial by its opposite - impossibility.
Yet the relentless self-flagellation amounts to more than just another double-act of irresistibly dark humour. It recalls Kafka’s assertion in his diaries about how writing about his unhappiness surpasses it. Similarly, the undynamic duo bewails an absent future, confronting us with our own unthinkable helplessness and alibis, while clinging from within this wailing to the hope that someone or something will lead the world away from disaster. Uncomfortable, very now, and getting more so by the day.
Jeff Lee, Not the Booker review
