Wasted
Mark Winkler
Kwela
ISBN: 9780795706998
Wasted is the narrative of Nathan Lucius, who in the opening pages is revealed to us as an apparently superficial, deeply flawed and complex character. But when you have finished reading the novel you will be astonished, as I was, by the revelation of the crises, the twists and turns of the story that take you totally by surprise, until you remember how the set-up in the opening pages always pointed in a direction that you should have anticipated. And therein lies the success of this masterful depiction of the central character, Nathan Lucius. (There will be no spoilers in this review – I will examine the set-up for the first 33 pages, and then trust that you are sufficiently drawn in to want to complete the mystery.)
Nathan Lucius introduces himself on the first page of the novel in a disjointed series of mostly simple sentences which seem to have little bearing on one another. Nathan, as the first person narrator, then launches his story in media res. His character is then presented by the author through a number of characterising devices: the situations he is placed in, and his reactions while they are happening; the tightly controlled short sentences he uses; and the places he inhabits – all of which convey to the reader the sense of who he is. It is soon clear that Nathan is a flawed and damaged individual, but we do not know enough to form a clear sense of his character. The short sentences also allow for a fast reading pace, which pulls you right into the world he inhabits – the Cape Town of Kloof Street, Kloof Neck Road, St George’s Mall. As he narrates his story, we become aware of a number of implicit character traits – a submerged impulse to violence, a strong sexual drive, and a selfish self-centredness.
We are made to see that he is not emotionally in touch with himself. When his boss, Sonia, berates him for his lack of personal hygiene, he does not respond defensively, or emotionally. He simply decides what sort of face he should be displaying. “I have a laughing face that I put on when everyone is laughing. I have a serious face for meetings and things. I have a library of other faces that I put on at appropriate moments” (11).
He also seems to have very selective memory – or else his consumption of alcohol renders him so drunk as to be unaware of what he did both while he was drunk and when he wasn’t.
He buys a photograph album from his antique dealer friend, Madge, and when he gets to his flat, he takes down the pictures that were on the wall in the form of a family tree, and carefully arranges the new photographs to create a new family tree for himself. Which causes one to pause and wonder what had become of his real family. Why does he have to create another story for himself? Sonia reveals that she knows he has no family. How much else does she know which is not revealed to us at the start?
Some details of his past do emerge. He knows quite a lot about architecture and artistic artefacts of the various art movements – he easily identifies Bauhaus, art deco, even being aware of the difference between a Biedermeier chair and one by La Corbusier.
Why does he sleep with the light on? What is it about the darkness that he is trying to avoid? What is it about the smell of pine needles?
And then his friend Madge, the antique dealer who has terminal cancer, asks him to kill her so that she doesn’t have to go on suffering. The rest of the story unfolds from this point.
So, yes, we are not surprised to realise that Nathan has a background of mental health issues, and the unexpected twists and turns of the plot and the narrative keep us increasingly drawn towards the looming crisis as the effects of his illness are brilliantly played out in a series of increasingly disturbing developments.
Mark Winkler’s command of the warp and weft of his plot, his depiction of place, and his powerful and clear delineations of character, both Nathan’s and the surrounding characters – all make for a strong read. His tight sentence structures and his control over the short sentences are thematically intense because we read the sentences at pace, and that means we do not pause to consider too deeply what we are being presented with. Yet once the crisis has passed and the denouement settles down the strands of the story, we know that we were given pointers and yet we missed them.