Columnist Harry Vavasour on Naoise Dolan’s new novel Exciting Times.
Image: Ruslan Bardash via Unsplash
Twenty-two years old, fresh-faced and keen to escape Ireland, Ava arrives in Hong Kong to teach English, more focused on her ticket out than her destination. Leaving a protective mother, distant father and two over-achieving brothers in Dublin, her trip to Asia offers her the opportunity of self-discovery, yet, soon her golden vision begins rusting at the edges. Trapped in an AirBnB that costs half of her wages with flatmates of frosty hostility, the island’s notorious glamour could not seem more distant.
So begins Naoise Dolan’s debut novel, Exciting Times, setting the scene before the entrance of the charming, but elusive, Julian into Ava’s life. A wealthy, money-driven investment banker - educated at Eton and Oxford - Julian fits every obnoxious male stereotype that is going. While his offer to Ava of a room in his stylish, two-bedroom flat brings hope of a hidden warmth in his emotionally devoid character, the overtly physical relationship that develops between them removes any glimmer of altruism.
What the relationship does offer is the chance for Dolan to display her penchant for narrative humour, weaving Ava’s narration with frequent snippets of acerbic wit. She carves into Julian’s friendship group of expat elites to gleefully ridicule their shallow characters. Laughing at public school camaraderie may seem old hat, but Dolan achieves a refreshing comedy through Ava’s experiences. Thirty-year-olds ask her which school she went to, before pairing her off with the solitary Irishman at the party as ‘one of his own’, her nationality is used to cast her as other. Ava remains apart, a startled observer disgusted by the opulent arrogance of their lifestyles.
Ava also carries her questioning of curious norms into her classroom of rich Chinese children. She challenges the school’s preference for ‘Standard English’ which goes against her Irish native understanding. The linguistic unpicking throws up the oddities of speech and how they have developed. Ava links history and language in an assessment of power dynamics that likens Hong Kong’s colonial past to the uneasy Anglo-Irish relations that see Britain assume the role of master of the colonised.
Yet where Ava’s constant analysis of social situations provides droll, laugh-out-loud humour, her similar dissections of her relationship with Julian are gratingly contrived. Each exchange is scrutinised with forensic detail, tracing motives, intentions and possible reactions of every comment to imperceptible and exaggerated degrees. Julian’s refusal to say he loves her is seen as game-playing which Ava must reciprocate rather than the evasion of commitment that it is.
The same is true of Ava’s second relationship, with the prim Hong Kong lawyer, Edith, which develops when Julian’s work takes him to London. Envious of Edith’s drive, style and smartness, Ava places her idol on a pedestal, obsessing about her until she is irreplaceable in her life. Ava tiptoes her way into flirtation, edging around her companion to find out if Edith’s surprising kindness is driven by attraction or just friendship.
The confirmation of their mutual affection liberates Ava. She relishes being valued by the person that she loves and recognises that her sadness in Dublin was caused by the need to hide her homosexuality.
However, Ava’s insecurity continues to plague her, threatening her happiness as she is unable to leave her toxic relationship with Julian in the past. Torn between two lovers, Ava is left the pawn of a love triangle. Disappointingly, Dolan’s plot struggles to escape the trope’s limitations. The dilemma of which relationship to choose becomes tiresome. Both options seem unsatisfactory, leaving Ava as the common denominator of each choice and her narration becomes repetitive in its pedantries.
The novel starts with the promise of an exciting new perspective but falls into conventional snags. Dolan’s stinging social critique is reduced to glancing jabs rather than landing knock out blows. Her plot is stunted and her central figures fail to charm. With an attentive eye and simple style, Dolan may go on to write great novels, but Exciting Times only flickers at those heights.