Meltdown

As the economy slowly begins to crawl its way out of the financial depression that we have all been surrounded with for the past year or so, it was inevitable that novels would begin to appear that are centred on the crash-and-burn era of credit crunch Britain. While it is unusual for a novel to appear in such a contemporary environment (most books are published well after the immediate events they are concerned with) Elton once again attempts to slip in his views before the dust has had a chance to settle. Ben Elton has previously presented us with witty and humorous contemporary stories which cover the idiocy of Big Brother to X-Factor, and now he has chosen to tackle the financial downturn that – let’s be honest – aren’t we all damn sick of already?

{{ quote As a result of the self-indulgent and arrogant range of characters it becomes achingly difficult to understand who exactly to connect to }}

Meltdown, the latest in Elton’s series of contemporary novels, is focused on the lives of four infuriating characters who charmingly refer to themselves as ‘The Radish Club’ – they are a bunch of pompous characters who should be referred to as ‘the nebbish club’ instead. The stock characters are drawn from the same people who have plagued the media since Northern Rock took a nose dive. We have the cocky and self-proclaimed ‘lucky sod’, central character Jimmy, who has far more money than sense and earns his millions doing……well even he doesn’t know exactly what. Next comes the Labour MP Henry, who has (of course) leapt on the band wagon of the expenses scandal as he claims for his ‘second’ Berkshire home, whilst complaining non-stop about how unappreciated and underpaid he is. We have Rupert the ever popular corrupt banker who leads his bank into the ground but retires with a large pension and lordship, (hmmm where have we seen that before) and finally, in case we hadn’t had enough of these self-important men who seem to think that money can buy them a valid opinion, we have David – an acclaimed architect whose latest pitch about a rainbow shaped building that spans country borders has (shockingly) failed.

Elton graciously presents a female counterpart to the men in the form of Lizzie, a woman who has made millions in producing ‘pretty’ lifestyle goods, from cakes and cookies to boxes and decorations. As a result of the self-indulgent and arrogant range of characters it becomes achingly difficult to understand who exactly we’re supposed to connect with. I can’t help but wish all of them failure; not only failure, but such a spectacular failure that will teach all of them a lesson in how to stop being so pretentiously idiotic. When things do begin to go downhill at an alarmingly fast rate, one can’t help but feel slightly guilty at the immense pleasure received in observing their distress as the characters all begin to flounder in the light of continuous problems both inane and substantial, ranging from how to get their pampered children to private school now that they can’t afford a nanny, to the sorrow of death and the fear of redundancy.

While the novel is infuriating in parts, and the strongest feeling I had for any of the characters – despite the hardships they finally had to endure – was rage at their haughty attitudes, frivolous opinions and petty problems, the book is still entertaining. Elton’s offering displays the same famed wit evident in his comedic writing of Black Adder and his stand-up material.

Meltdown is engaging at times with funny lines and cleverly written scenes where the characters, while not intending to be funny, are so ridiculous that you can’t help but laugh. But however readable and mildly amusing the book may be I still find it generally disappointin. By choosing a topic with such a spectrum of comedic material, Elton does little with it – the jokes are cheap and too often lack the sardonic tone of his other writings. The humour (however lacklustre) is the only redeeming factor of the novel, as the plot drags its heels and cliché characters, as mere reminders of the annoyances we have all expereinced, lend nothing to the entertaining elements of the book. Many of us have probably experienced the true distress of the economic crisis and have had the mental faculties to deal with it with far more decorum and class than any of the characters described in this book. As a result Meltdown is possibly one of Elton’s less successful contemporary novels, and I would urge readers to turn to his far wittier and intelligent Popcorn.

While I’m sure there will be many more novels to come on the subject of the recent financial world-state let’s hope that writers take more time to create novels, whose appeal is not based on a mere sadistic pleasure through the emotional deterioration of infuriating and conceited stock characters.