This book received a good bit of attention upon its release a few years ago, described as “Victorian noir” in the vein of Dickens and Wilkie Collins - two of my favorite 19th-century English lit authors, particularly Collins (The Woman in White is one of my favorite gothic mystery/suspense novels of all time!). I guess I can see where the critics came up with that, as the story is set in the Victorian period and told in the first person, but frankly, I say that’s where the comparison ends.
Edward Glyver, the narrator of the story, opens by confessing to a random murder he commits in “preparation” for the one he’s planning for his arch enemy, Phoebus Daunt (this is not a spoiler, as it’s right on the synopsis of the book), who has managed through circumstances and cunning to take a position in life and society that was meant for Glyver. The remainder of the 700+ pages serve to tell us how and why all this came about, and Glyver’s preoccupation with ruining Daunt.
Although I have a sincere appreciation for Cox’s obvious and exquisitely detailed knowledge of the English Victorian period – architecture, the geography and demographics of Victorian London, and the literature of the day - I did not care for Glyver’s character at all. One might assume that’s to be expected given that he openly commits a vicious murder right at the outset, but to me it seemed as if the author was trying to make Glyver a ‘hero’ nevertheless. Honestly, the murder would not necessarily have predisposed me to disliking him, believe it or not. One can commit murder and still get a little empathy from me, depending on the circumstances. I just didn’t like him, murder or not. He was a dishonest, insecure lout, professing his undying love for a woman one minute and in the next breath running off to a brothel and banging some prostitute (or two or three). He had no loyalty to anyone or anything, and although I completely understood and would have shared his obsession with taking what he felt was rightfully his and wiping out his enemy, I couldn’t get past the fact that he was a self-serving, whiny little pedant.
All I know about the author, Michael Cox, is that he also wrote a well-received biography of M.R. James, the classic horror writer. In my library I also have an anthology of Victorian ghost stories (called Twelve Victorian Ghost Stories, simply enough) that shows a Michael Cox as the editor, and I’ll be that’s him as well since the Victorian era is his niche, particularly in the supernatural vein. I think Meaning of Night is Cox’s first work of fiction, although another is coming out soon, I believe, which appears to be something of a companion novel since it takes place in and around Evenwood, the same grand English estate that features in this book.
At any rate, for a first novel it’s not bad at all and I don’t want to give that impression. In a nutshell I thought it was well-written, rich in period detail and possessing a potentially terrific plot, but I disliked the main character so much that I couldn’t fully enjoy it and was left more than a little disappointed. I at least found the ending somewhat satisfying, and maybe that was Cox’s whole point. I won’t give it away, of course.
