Reviewed by David Burgess McGregor
For anyone that has ever stepped timidly into the offices of a university newspaper or radio station, Michael Hingston’s debut novel will doubtless revive the impressions (and smells) of those dimly lit partisan spaces. The Dilettantes follows several staff members from Simon Fraser University’s student run newspaper ‘The Peak’ as they attempt to maintain their fledgling publication in the shadow of the newly arrived and all-powerful ‘Metro.’ The novel follows ‘Peak’ editors Alex and Tracy through a series of largely unsuccessful social and professional situations as they contemplate their impending graduation.
Hingston implores the reader to embrace the quirky charm of the characters and their world. Like the real-life feeling of exclusivity that is so often the hallmark of a university paper, interest in these characters (Alex in particular) hinges on getting on board with their very particular perspectives. Thankfully the writing is funny enough and smart enough for this jump to feel like an easy one to make. A tasteful amount of self-deprecating humour mixed with a sharp eye for detail ensure that the inevitably neurotic nature of ‘The Peak’ writing staff never becomes too much to bear.
An important part of what makes The Dilettantes work is the way that it highlights the dilution of meaning in both academia and pop culture. Time and again communication with anything genuine happens at a distance and by degrees. Alex is enrolled in a course called “Secondhand Shakespeare” where no Shakespeare is read, as well as a film course devoted to films and television shows shot at SFU in order to better understand the physical space of the campus. There is also a reference to The Last Waltz being a guide for guys of Alex’s generation who are all “repressed lumberjacks.” As examples like these build on each other, the character’s task of finding direction is sidelined by the amount of energy that it takes to try to navigate the layered meanings at play in nearly every situation and symbol that they encounter. This commentary could easily overshadow the comedy, but like a good Tati film (and they are all good) Hingston’s satire never overlooks the comedic potential of the confounding actions of society.
Central to making this approach work is a scene where Tracy relates the story of how her and her ex-boyfriend latched onto a Michel Baudrillard essay called “simulacra and simulation.” She expounds:
We started talking about how university itself is a perfect example of a simulacrum: how everyone grows up seeing people on TV playing characters in university, and how that completely shapes the way they think you’re supposed to act once you get there.
Hingston’s inclusion of pop-culture references is risky because it could easily feel like name-dropping to gain credibility. But because this novel is expressly about media it is not unreasonable to say that it is also about the way that media pressurizes and saturates our sense of meaning and reality, overrunning our means of communication. Consequently, the characters real task is to try to find the question before they can locate the answers.
In the first half of The Dilettantes it appears that Hingston manages to present a combined and complimentary rendering of both Alex and Tracy. As a result, it feels like the novel is refreshingly well balanced in its presentation of male and female characters. This even-handedness matters because it promises to set the narrative apart from the many woefully sexist films and television shows that might be thought of as being generically similar. However as the novel unfolds there is less and less time spent with Tracy as the subject of focus. Hingston brings her to life in the early section of the book, and though she is still involved in second half, Tracy’s thoughts are gradually and disappointingly excluded. By the end of the novel she is only present through the perspective of Alex.
The title implies plurality and suggests that the characters might share something nearer to equal narrative footing. Though this impression is not entirely misplaced it eventually becomes clear that the novel is chiefly interested in Alex’s world and the final resolutions all belong to him. Characters fade from the story before sporadically re-appearing later on as though they were belatedly remembered and offered sympathetic consideration.
Though the balance of character presentation does detract some of the joy from the later stages of the novel, Hingston’s debut should still be given credit for being genuinely funny and clever. There is a range of both dry and outlandish humour that maintains positive momentum while still leaving room for real ideas. The author’s journalistic background and personal experience in the university newspaper world offers detail that does not feel researched so much as lived, and consistently rings true.
Freehand | 272 pages | $21.95 | paper | ISBN #978-1554811823
‘The Dilettantes’ by Michael Hingston
Book Reviews
For anyone that has ever stepped timidly into the offices of a university newspaper or radio station, Michael Hingston’s debut novel will doubtless revive the impressions (and smells) of those dimly lit partisan spaces. The Dilettantes follows several staff members from Simon Fraser University’s student run newspaper ‘The Peak’ as they attempt to maintain their fledgling publication in the shadow of the newly arrived and all-powerful ‘Metro.’ The novel follows ‘Peak’ editors Alex and Tracy through a series of largely unsuccessful social and professional situations as they contemplate their impending graduation.
Hingston implores the reader to embrace the quirky charm of the characters and their world. Like the real-life feeling of exclusivity that is so often the hallmark of a university paper, interest in these characters (Alex in particular) hinges on getting on board with their very particular perspectives. Thankfully the writing is funny enough and smart enough for this jump to feel like an easy one to make. A tasteful amount of self-deprecating humour mixed with a sharp eye for detail ensure that the inevitably neurotic nature of ‘The Peak’ writing staff never becomes too much to bear.
An important part of what makes The Dilettantes work is the way that it highlights the dilution of meaning in both academia and pop culture. Time and again communication with anything genuine happens at a distance and by degrees. Alex is enrolled in a course called “Secondhand Shakespeare” where no Shakespeare is read, as well as a film course devoted to films and television shows shot at SFU in order to better understand the physical space of the campus. There is also a reference to The Last Waltz being a guide for guys of Alex’s generation who are all “repressed lumberjacks.” As examples like these build on each other, the character’s task of finding direction is sidelined by the amount of energy that it takes to try to navigate the layered meanings at play in nearly every situation and symbol that they encounter. This commentary could easily overshadow the comedy, but like a good Tati film (and they are all good) Hingston’s satire never overlooks the comedic potential of the confounding actions of society.
Central to making this approach work is a scene where Tracy relates the story of how her and her ex-boyfriend latched onto a Michel Baudrillard essay called “simulacra and simulation.” She expounds:
We started talking about how university itself is a perfect example of a simulacrum: how everyone grows up seeing people on TV playing characters in university, and how that completely shapes the way they think you’re supposed to act once you get there.
Hingston’s inclusion of pop-culture references is risky because it could easily feel like name-dropping to gain credibility. But because this novel is expressly about media it is not unreasonable to say that it is also about the way that media pressurizes and saturates our sense of meaning and reality, overrunning our means of communication. Consequently, the characters real task is to try to find the question before they can locate the answers.
In the first half of The Dilettantes it appears that Hingston manages to present a combined and complimentary rendering of both Alex and Tracy. As a result, it feels like the novel is refreshingly well balanced in its presentation of male and female characters. This even-handedness matters because it promises to set the narrative apart from the many woefully sexist films and television shows that might be thought of as being generically similar. However as the novel unfolds there is less and less time spent with Tracy as the subject of focus. Hingston brings her to life in the early section of the book, and though she is still involved in second half, Tracy’s thoughts are gradually and disappointingly excluded. By the end of the novel she is only present through the perspective of Alex.
The title implies plurality and suggests that the characters might share something nearer to equal narrative footing. Though this impression is not entirely misplaced it eventually becomes clear that the novel is chiefly interested in Alex’s world and the final resolutions all belong to him. Characters fade from the story before sporadically re-appearing later on as though they were belatedly remembered and offered sympathetic consideration.
Though the balance of character presentation does detract some of the joy from the later stages of the novel, Hingston’s debut should still be given credit for being genuinely funny and clever. There is a range of both dry and outlandish humour that maintains positive momentum while still leaving room for real ideas. The author’s journalistic background and personal experience in the university newspaper world offers detail that does not feel researched so much as lived, and consistently rings true.
Freehand | 272 pages | $21.95 | paper | ISBN #978-1554811823