Review: A Russian oligarch isn’t the only one on the make in an eerily timely new novel

A novel a couple of Russian oligarch who needs to overthrow President Putin because the latter makes claims on Ukraine reads otherwise this month than it may need as lately as January. Right here in March, the world watches as Russian troops bomb civilians in Kyiv and Kharkiv, streams of refugees rush throughout borders and Westerners speculate about dissension in Putin’s ranks.

Though Joe Mungo Reed’s second novel, “Hammer,” is ready in 2013, his e book’s Putin is identical man we all know. He was already rattling his saber at defiant Ukraine; shortly thereafter, Russia-backed chief Viktor Yanukovych would bloodbath protesters in Kyiv’s Maidan, solely to lose his grip on energy, after which Putin thrust that saber deep into Ukrainian territory and seized Crimea.

There’s no want to invest on Reed’s prescience. Russia has been attempting to manage resource-rich Ukraine ever for the reason that nation declared independence in 1991. But the writer’s play on historical past takes on an eerie forged now, particularly because the West’s sanctions are concentrating on the category on the middle of his novel.

In actual fact, most of “Hammer” is ready in London and on a handful of English nation estates. That’s the place many Russian oligarchs have sheltered their fortunes and their prep-schooled kids, and the place Reed’s oligarch has repaired together with his a lot youthful spouse and his rising household of treasured artwork.

The motion begins at a busy London public sale home the place Martin, a junior affiliate, struggles to maintain up together with his job of bidding on behalf of a “home consumer:” “One should merely increase one’s paddle and communicate clearly, and but in such simplicity lie previous anxieties: the unvoiced cries of dangerous goals, the wince of answering a roll name at a brand new college.” Martin, whose mother and father are the longest-serving tenants of a fast-deteriorating Sixties commune, rebelled in opposition to their life-style. He takes care together with his speech, garments and hair wax.

He was additionally drawn to upper-class pals at York College, particularly his present roommate James, who as soon as beloved and lived with the gorgeous and rich Russian immigrant Marina. In the course of the opening public sale of latest work, Martin spots Marina. He is aware of she’s married to “a wealthy Russian, a collector” and rapidly blurts out, “My bosses are fascinated with your husband.”

One might write “earlier than you recognize it, they’re having an affair,” however that wouldn’t be fairly correct, since there’s an public sale to conduct (“the sense projected in each potential respect of chic casualness,” Reed writes, in one in every of his subtler notes of foreshadowing). Even after Marina’s husband, Oleg, has spent 10 million kilos on Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Hannibal,” there’s a number of data and interaction to get by way of earlier than the plot properly and actually thickens.

On second thought: The knowledge is the motion — it’s the essence of Reed’s fashion in addition to his supply of rigidity. What occurs earlier than the hammer comes down, be it an auctioneer’s gavel or a tyrant’s order?

“Hammer” is a many-layered slow-burn of a novel that gained’t be to each reader’s style. Not solely does the story wend its manner down a rambling nation lane, however the street is bordered with large hedgerows. Like would-be gawkers using previous Bel-Air estates, characters and readers alike are left determined to know what unattainable riches lie past.

Everybody appears to have blinders on: Martin as he will get an increasing number of entangled with the Russians; James, who appears decided to waste his appreciable musical expertise; Marina, caught between a dead-end advertising and marketing job and a dying marriage; Oleg, scheming to run for president of Russia.

The one characters who appear surefooted are Martin’s mother and father. When their commune decides to promote the attractive property they’ve lived in so lengthy, lots of the members go for cottages and condos of their very own. Out of the blue, Martin’s mother and father are planning to dwell on the town. “’You’re there,’ says his mum, ‘and a number of my protests are in London.’” Although nonetheless defiantly an previous hippie, she has a far more healthy understanding of what cash can and might’t purchase than anybody else within the novel.

As for the remainder, they’re doomed to chase after cash not as a way towards happiness however an alternative to it. Marina considers, at one level, that cash “means the whole lot and nothing, and the important thing to having cash fortunately is to work out how you can imagine each of these items without delay.” In the meantime, Martin desperately needs to imagine the sale of Oleg’s prize portray, Ukrainian previous grasp Kazimir Malevich’s “Supremus No. 51,” will acquire him not solely monetary safety but additionally credibility, authority and the standing he thinks he needs.

Simply as Marina is musing that Oleg as soon as appeared to “have mastered the artwork of being wealthy,” we’re studying that Oleg needs one thing completely different. Marina tells Martin, talking of Oleg: “You may’t imagine so actually in your self with out being a bit petty, I believe, and not using a little ignorance of your individual foolishness. These males don’t doubt what they need. These males are relentless, so tiring finally. These males can’t let a single factor relaxation.”

“Is that so?” Martin responds, and he or she says, “Consider me.”

But Oleg adjustments. When his mom dies and he returns to his hometown for her funeral, he reconnects together with his nation and sees how poorly suited its authorities is for Twenty first-century life. Whether or not his new political ambition springs from his coronary heart or his ego virtually doesn’t matter. It acts as a catalyst towards the e book’s denouement: Careers are made, relationships damaged, the most effective and worst of instances coming to move.

“Hammer” is a tragedy of manners, ought to such a factor exist (maybe “Les Liaisons Dangereuses”). Additionally it is a well timed doc of a world by which corruption and sincerity, lofty intentions and craven pursuits, could be unimaginable even for the perpetrators to inform aside.

Patrick is a contract critic who tweets @TheBookMaven.