‘Undermajordomo Minor’ 
by Patrick deWitt

Reviewed by Thomas Trofimuk

Okay, there is no doubt that Patrick deWitt’s Undermajordomo Minor is a lovely romp through a fictitious historical time and place. Nor is there any doubt as to the clever, unique characters that populate this novel. Also, no doubt about the dialogue, which is razor sharp, witty, funny and well, downright ‘deWitt-ian.’ Without question, this is a crafty, well-written book. Here’s the thing; about three-quarters of the way through Undermajordomo Minor, I found myself yearning for some meat. I had a craving for a steak. I understood that this was a send-up of a fairy tale but I’d had enough sweets and I wanted a bit of a meal – even the scent of a meal. The tale was so light-hearted, so whimsical, so airy, I was having a hard time finding something solid enough to care about. I was thinking – if this is the way it’s going to continue to the end, I’m not sure it’s enough. There was a voice in me demanding more. But more what?

It begins when Lucy (Lucien) Minor, a rather shallow, bitter and petty boy from the hamlet of Bury, is taken into employment at Castle Von Aux, where he works under the Major Domo. He escapes his village where he has never felt that he fit – the village breeds strong muscular men and Lucy is a weakling, both physically and morally. He is most definitely aimless.

Lucy is not a likeable character. He’s a liar, and petty, and his listlessness is grating. The journey to Castle Von Aux is in itself a challenge, as Lucy has a run-in with master thieves and is caught up in the never-ending yet utterly pointless war in which men go and fight in the hills. Upon arriving Lucy finds the castle is in shambles and he is told to lock his door by 10 pm every night, or else. Yes, something wicked lurks in the corridors at night – something dangerous. The same thieves he’d met on the train, live in the village outside the castle and then there is Klara, a simple and beguiling beauty.

One consistent and tasty treat throughout the novel is the dialogue between Lucy and his immediate employer, Mr. Olderglough. Their rapport is simultaneously formal and playful. Here, Lucy and Mr. Olderglough are discussing the manner in which the Baron sends love notes to the Baroness. Lucy is to stand on the platform and hold the letters up as the train passes and the engineer will pluck them from his hand –

Lucy nodded. “The engineer, sir. Will he have letter for me as well?”

“No, he won’t. The Baron’s is a one-sided correspondence.”

Lucy pondered the definition of the word. “I was unaware there was such a thing,” he admitted.

Mr. Olderglough’s face puckered, as one stung by a discourtesy. “Is this a comical observation?” he asked.

“It was not meant to be, sir, no.”

“I certainly hope not. Because I don’t subscribe to amusements, Lucy. Laughter is the basest sound a body can make, in my opinion. Do you often laugh, can I ask?”

“Rarely.”

“How rarely?”

“Very rarely, sir. Extremely rarely, in fact.”

Patrick deWitt continues to play with genre (see: The Sisters Brothers), to genre-shift, and this quasi-fairy tale is populated by Dukes and Duchesses, Counts and Countesses, a cast of proper thieves and malcontents, murder, madness, debauchery, and of course, there is love. The Baron is madly in love with his wife, the Baroness, who has not lived at Castle Von Aux for quite some time. And Lucy falls in love with Klara, a village girl who has the interest of an “exceptionally handsome” partisan solider named Adolphus. Lucy attends to his duties and begins to court Klara, even if he is told to stay away by the “exceptionally handsome” Adolphus, who believes he is going to marry Klara. Things at the castle get better. The Baron comes back to sanity, though just barely, and Baroness comes home. There is a dinner party, which degrades into an insalubrious, depraved orgy of food and wine and more. And then, of course, things fall apart.

Now, we stumble along as deWitt runs us through the boy finds girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl to “exceptionally handsome” partisan solider, and finally, girl loses boy – school of story-telling. It’s really not as simple as this, but readers will notice the gears churning and grinding, as we’re meant to. Readers will also notice a bit of the fairytale or mythological hero’s journey thrown in for good measure – a decent into the abyss, a symbolic death and a rebirth, as Lucy comes out of the darkness with the gift of intent and purpose – he loses his aimlessness down there.

Though deciphering a moral in this fable may be grasping at straws, there are threads of lessons, or crumbs of axioms that can be picked upon. For example, mad love seems to be a persistent theme. Perhaps the moral would be that of all the different kinds of love, mad love is the most dangerous, violence-inducing, crazy making kind of love. Mad love will always be a quagmire of chaos, a slap across the face, a decent into madness. It’s a backward fall into a large black hole. And in the end, it’s the only kind of love worth having. Another marginal moral may be that the absurdity of war seems to be a constant among humans – we fight, often without understanding what it is we’re fighting about, and we can’t seem to stop doing it.

I was surprised by the course deWitt took, and pleased. Did I get my steak by the end of the book? No, but I was intrigued, and titillated, and witnessed the birth of a new story – a quest of sorts embarked upon by a clear-eyed determined Lucy. That certainly ought to be enough, and besides, steak was never on the menu. In fact, a surreal tall tale that twists and dives and ducks for cover was the only offering. Undermajordomo Minor is an audacious fairy tale in the form of a novel. Or an outlandish novel as a fairy tale. Doesn’t matter. It’s a bold, genre-twisting narrative, worthy of a read.

Anansi | 352 pages | $32.00 | cloth | ISBN # 978-1770894143