The 27th Kingdom (1982) by Alice Thomas Ellis sounds like it might be a fantasy novel, and the curious cover to my edition makes it seem like some sort of water-based dystopia. Well, the title is just a reference to the many countries that Aunt Irene’s ancestors have lived in before they land in the 27th – Chelsea. Aunt Irene (she is always called ‘Aunt Irene’ by the narrative) lives there in 1954 with her careless nephew Kyril, a lodger they’re sick of called Mr Sirocco, some feuding occasional domestic help, and a range of eccentric neighbours who regard one another with the usual mixture of goodwill and malice.
Into this world comes Valentine, a postulant at a nunnery for whom a stay with Aunt Irene might well be considered a test. She is sent there by the Reverend Mother for as long as an apple remains ripe in her desk drawer – just one of the many unusual details that are dealt out with a matter-of-factness by Alice Thomas Ellis’s immensely enjoyable narrative.
She read her letter again, and because it made her cross she ate another piece of toast, reflecting that it was always one’s family who annoyed one most and made one fat. Simply that her sister was now called ‘Reverend Mother’ made Aunt Irene cross and inclined to put too much butter on her toast. As far as she was concerned, her sister was a naughty girl called Berthe, with dark flying hair and a dipping hem to her dress. She hadn’t agreed particularly well with that girl, but she had forgotten; and she resented her transformation into the stately virgin in the stiff robes that were so alarmingly clean. Aunt Irene herself was clean, but her clothes were soft and scented.
Aunt Irene is a glorious character in a novel of glorious characters. She is obsessed with the tax man and certain that he is stalking her, she loves eating horseflesh and has an amicable relationship with an underhand butcher, and she has the sort of idiosyncratic Christian faith that is one of many things that reminds me of Muriel Spark’s writing. She certainly believes in God and angels, but largely because she can’t imagine anybody inventing the meringue without supernatural intervention. ‘To Aunt Irene the Ten Commandments seemed almost insignificant compared with the astonishing miracle of what you could do with an egg.’
Valentine is very different from the environment she finds herself in – mixed-race, from an unspecified distant island, and certainly less worldly than the other inhabitants of this unsalubrious part of Chelsea (for such things there were in 1954). I found that I understood her less than the other characters, and she seems more of a catalyst than a character to get to know deeply. But her reverence and good nature do not stop her being blunt and ironic. Alice Thomas Ellis’s dialogue is, again, very Sparkian – people saying exactly what they mean, often at cross-purposes, but with a directness that mean even the strangest conversations do seem to be communicative.
And the narrative is my chief joy in The 27th Kingdom. The most unusual things are written with total matter-of-factness – and elegant, even profound, things are delivered pat alongside the everyday. Here are a couple of examples I enjoyed:
On the way home they passed the Bunch of Grapes, Major Mason visible through the open door of the public bar. Aunt Irene pointed him out to Valentine as one of the sights of the district.
Valentine said nothing, but Aunt Irene was suddenly visited by a sensation of the sea, very deep and green and cold, and shivered with the surprise she always felt when reminded that she truly possessed a psychic gift and was not a liar.
and
“It’s time something happened,” said Aunt Irene the next morning. “Something pleasant. Nothing’s happened in ages.”
Valentine was surprised to hear this. It seemed to her that things here happened every moment and she missed the convent where time was afforded the respect befitting one of God’s more subtle creations.
Some of the novellas I’ve read this month have been all about atmosphere over plot. Well, The 27th Kingdom – despite Aunt Irene’s protests – is rammed with plot. It’s equally rammed with characters, any one of whom could have helmed their own novel. We race through, enjoying the brio, and she maintains the same breakneck, bizarre, very funny tone throughout.
I didn’t particularly love the first one or two Alice Thomas Ellis books I read, but I’m so glad I persevered. The most recent two I’ve read – The Inn at the Edge of the World and The 27th Kingdom – have been absolute successes for me. Any favourites among her oeuvre for any Alice Thomas Ellis fans out there?