What is reality? A review of Tom McCarthy’s 'Remainder' (2005)

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Tom McCarthy’s latest book Cwas tipped by some to win the Man Booker Prize this year. It failed to do sohowever, the general consensus being its experimental narrative style was astep too far. Sentences in C often spiral away uncontrollably as theauthor tries to render in poetic language the concept of 1920s technologicalcommunication. The book is not to be recommended for the everyday reader.McCarthy’s debut, Remainder (2005), on the other hand, is a differentmatter. This book is very accessible and despite the deliberately derangednarrative order, remains thoroughly enjoyable.

After waking from his coma followinghis ‘falling’ accident and receiving an out-of-court settlement of £8.5 million,Remainder’s unnamed protagonist sets out to reconstruct (‘re-enact’)scenes lodged somewhere in the depths of his memory. He buys a 7 storeybuilding and completely refits it to match distant memories he has of living insuch a place. He pays actors to inhabit it and to play their parts whenever thebuilding is switched to its ‘on’ mode. On the floors below his apartment an oldman is forever practicing his piano, an old woman cooks liver so the smellswaft upwards, while across the way black cats are forever milling about on theundulating slate rooftops. If a cat falls off the edge it is merely replaced bya new one courtesy of a paid out-of-sight helper.

One day the protagonist takes hiscar to a nearby garage to get a new tyre. A 15-year-old repairs the old one onthe spot and also fills the car’s water washer. This then explodes through thedashboard when the engine is turned on soaking the protagonist in blue liquid andleading him to decide to reconstruct the whole experience. He duly builds afull-sized replica of the garage in a hired aircraft hanger on the edge ofHeathrow Airport and has re-enactors re-enacting the scene over and over forseveral weeks.

Later on a shooting reportedly takesplace in town and the protagonist has this re-enacted on the same site getting‘Filming’ permission from the local council. Another two related shootings occurnearby and he has these re-enacted as well.

However, taking part in andwatching these different scenes isn’t enough for the protagonist because theydon’t feel real enough. And so he decides to re-enact a bank robberyusing the hanger at Heathrow to build a replica of a bank he knows in Chiswick.But the rehearsals still don’t feel real enough and he decides to switch there-enactment to the real bank. This goes wrong though as one of the actors tripswhen feeling for a kink in the carpet which exists in the warehouse but not inthe real bank. As a result another actor gets shot. The participants flee tothe airport. The protagonist and his logistics operator Naz escape on a privateplane but the Civil Aviation Authority order them to turn back. The pilot turnsthe plane but the protagonist turns them forward again. They are again orderedto turn back but the protagonist likes the feeling of the weightlessness whenthey turn and bank and so brings out his shotgun and happily tells the pilot totell them he is hijacking the plane. This inevitably leads to a ‘falling’ accidentwhich is where everything started in the first place. The question is plantedin the reader’s mind of whether the protagonist ever actually awoke from hiscoma.

By not articulating what is reallife and what is in the protagonist’s head, McCarthy is able to bring up thequestion of what actually constitutes reality. Is it in our heads or something‘out there’ that we are never able to fully comprehend?

This book is a really good read,a real page-turner, and is highly recommended for those wanting, for example,something to read on holiday. Best not to read it on the plane though.