The Spirit and the Flesh

Annie Mackie-Savage reviews a novel reminiscent of Victorian Improving Fiction

By T.J. Dias, The Spirit and the Flesh takes us on a weekend of intended debauchery to Amsterdam in the company of three university flatmates. We are introduced to Roger, the liberal agnostic, Paul, a lapsed Catholic, and Sean, a practising Catholic. Sean, who has only been asked to join them out of courtesy, being seen as a bit too pious for his own and their good, accompanies them in the hope of being able to show them the error of their ways. Within the first few pages we deduce that Roger is an anti-Christian bigot under the guise of being open-minded, Paul a religious fence sitter, and Sean the quiet good guy party pooper. We learn about Sean’s return to the faith from a longish description of his accident and the miracle enabling his reversion, but don’t have the same background for the other two, other than Roger being a ripped posh boy from London, trying to hide the posh bit. Scene set; the lads’ weekend gets underway with the knowledgeable Roger determined to show them everything the red-light district has to offer.

We are given a brief touristy overview of where they are, hot dogs and waffles are described, Sean leaving them before Roger introduces Paul to the cafes and red-light district. Over the course of the trip, they meet up and debate and discuss the world, the flesh and the devil over beer fuelled pub crawls (except Sean does not drink following the accident) and greasy Chinese. In between, Sean seeks out the Cathedral, Van Gogh, and the Anne Frank Museum, Roger with the tag along Paul, ogle women, drink, watch erotic cabaret, and smoke dope. After viewing the women in the windows of the red-light district, Roger chooses a prostitute, Paul doesn’t. Throughout the book, Paul, who doesn’t take part in the discussions particularly, but asks the occasional plot moving question, is seen to be warming to Sean’s world view in spite of the unholy encouragement from Roger and the obvious temptations around him. He reluctantly accepts a blessed holy card from Sean, and by the end of the book has decided to give Christianity a go for six months, giving his porn video money to the same busker Sean donated to at the beginning of the book. Even Roger is moderately chastened by his experiences enough to confide in Sean before their return to England.

All the topics of Catholicism are couched in blokey points of view, as you would expect, seeing as they are on a trip to the red-light district of Amsterdam and not touring the bulb fields on a cycling holiday. The objectification of women, Darwinism, the Enlightenment, the devil, free will, salvation, secularisation, capitalism, hell, communism, the porn industry, drink, drugs, contraception, abortion, sex, masturbation, and more, is pretty much all covered in some detail. Yet I feel the impact of the message of this book is actually diminished by the stand-offs between Sean and Roger, which are mini-lectures masquerading as dialogue, although peppered with ‘cynical’ asides from Roger - and would the bating Roger really use ‘codswallop’ and ‘hogwash’ in conversations? The only women portrayed in the book are bar maids or hookers, which is also rather one dimensional, in spite of Sean’s assertions that the women Roger is after are someone’s daughter or sister.

Paul begins to see the women as individuals as he wanders about on his own; for example, the middle aged woman in the window of the red light district seated on her bed he diagnoses as suffering from clinical depression (she might just have been bored, but at least he did try to empathise).

I was still left with the lasting impression that, in spite of Sean’s attempts to humanise and un-objectify women to Roger, they are left by the author as objects posing behind glass, or handing round the steins, because that’s all we see them do in the book.

It’s a real shame that everything is spelled out. It’s all tell. The characters are points of view with names rather than individuals, and it isn’t so much dialogue, as predictable responses from the opposing point of view. It all seems a bit forced and unrealistic, and somehow stodgy and old-fashioned. Sean is used as a vehicle by which to refute the utilitarian and anthropocentric world, Roger is the liberal secularist world at its worst, Paul is what’s being fought over. In this sense it is reminiscent of Victorian Improving Fiction crossed with a vague idea of Plato’s Symposium. I like the idea of juxtaposing the two radically different world views, and it being short (185 pages in 21chapters), but it’s not a read that I found particularly gripping. Who is the book for? Well, I think it might be useful to give to anyone, male or female, who wants a quick tour of the Catholic Faith in a well-known seedy context.

As for the weekend of debauchery? Predictably, Sean didn’t, Paul wouldn’t, and Roger couldn’t.