I was keen to introduce my book group to Magnus Mills, and also to choose one of his books that I hadn’t read yet – so earlier this year I got them reading The Scheme for Full Employment (2003). Read on for why I regretted that decision…
The Scheme for Full Employment was Mills’ fourth novel, following on from my favourite of his, Three To See The King. It is narrated by a man on The Scheme, specifically a delivery driver who drives UniVans between depots. It is one of the routine tasks introduced to make sure that everyone in the country is employed. Vans go between depots on specific routes, sometimes empty, because following the schedule is more important than being purposeful.
Now I have to say I could see Len’s point. The success of The Scheme depended above all else on appearances. It was popular because people could see it in operation on a daily basis. When a UniVan passed by, it reminded onlookers that all across the country men and women were occupied in gainful employment. Eight hours’ work for eight hours’ pay: that was the deal, and everyone agreed it was fair. What worried Len was the number of early finishes that were being dished out by lenient superintendents. He saw this as a threat to The Scheme’s public support, and he obviously thought I agreed with him. Well, of course I did in principle, but to tell the truth, I quite liked the occasional early swerve, as we called it. It was a nice treat to go home at four o’clock on the odd day if things were quiet. Or half past three even. Certainly, it wasn’t a perk I took for granted, but neither did I wish to give it up entirely.
The work is tedious and rote, but the narrator – and everyone else – seems to take this for granted. While people grumble about officious supervisers or dull companions, there is no real serious consternation with the principle of The Scheme itself. When someone does raise the issue of not having enough to do, the narrator replies:
“The point is,” I said, “there’s a difference between full employment and being fully employed. True, there is a lot of spare capacity in The Scheme, but it’s better for people to be paid to do very little than have no job at all, isn’t it?”
For a large section of the book, the narrator just describes his shifts. We learn a little about the people he is working alongside, though they are largely interchangeable. It is, frankly, pretty boring. I think it’s meant to echo how boring the job is, and it does lull you into a sort of rhythm that has its own merits as a reading experience – but I’m not sure this is a very successful novel.
What makes Mills so brilliant, in my eyes, is the way that he somehow lends matter-of-fact stories an underlying feeling of dread. And, at the same time, humour. His novels often fill me with misgivings at the same time as making me laugh. And… I didn’t really get that with The Scheme for Full Employment. The banal surface was there, but I missed the clever undercurrents. There was only one really funny line in the book, and that was spoiled in the blurb. Having said that, I did also get some less laugh-out-loud humour from the concept of UniVan-spotters, who are experts in the very mundane vans, in the way of trainspotters.
Things do get more interesting when the issue of early knock-offs becomes central – the swervers and the flat-dayers take up arms against each other, and protest and enmity take over. It is the nearest I got to understanding the book being labelled a satire. Because, for the most part, I couldn’t work out what was meant to be satirical about it.
Look, it’s Mills, and he has a certain magic that will keep me reading even his least successful work. But I regretted that I introduced my book group to him with this novel, rather than Three To See The King or The Restraint of Beasts or All Quiet on the Orient Express. I guess his sort of unusual approach to a book is a gamble – it’ll either pay off brilliantly, or leave you with something a bit humdrum.