The real difficulty with the use of language in this novel comes through a lack of consistency and the overuse of certain words. When the author attempts to capture darker or more serious subject matter, the language tends to become more conventional, more regular. At these times, especially (though not exclusively) when the focus is on the older generations, the novel reads like good fiction and becomes rather engaging. Then, as if the author suddenly notices that she's slipped out of both the second language and the teen voice, one of those overused words, like "mega," appears, jolting the reader clean out of the narrative.
Denis has certainly imagined a very interesting and engaging story. At times her casual handling of really dark subject matter, like the repeated and rather routine sexual abuse of a servant girl by an aristocratic old man who fondly remembers the first time, "reaching for titties and found nothing," or the rape of the teenage girl a couple of days before her arranged marriage to a lawyer twice her age, is chillingly well executed. At other times, especially when it comes to the intermediate generation - the twenty-something men - the voice is not convincing. There seems something amiss in the characterization of that middle generation. They do not seem to have their own voice. Instead, they tend to have the same voice as the fifteen year old.
The Last Day of Paradise took some time to get into. Once into the story, because there really is some good substance between the pages, I wished the strange use of language would just disappear so that I could read without interruption. The overuse of certain words kept kicking me out of the story.
It was very difficult to place the novel as well. Is it meant to be a young adult novel with some serious content? Is it meant to be adult fiction that happens to be narrated by a teenager? Some people would probably not be comfortable with aspects of the book, particularly concerning sexuality, for young readers. Yet adults, though appreciating the multi-generational story and the serious treatment of class, arranged marriage, and sexuality, will have difficulty with the narrator's strange use of language.
Article comments