"All young people worry about things, it's a natural and inevitable part of growing up, and at the age of sixteen my greatest anxiety in life was that I'd never again achieve anything as good, or pure, or noble, or true, as my O-level results."
A poignant and raw look into the inner workings of the eighteen year old Brian Jackson, upon his entry into University, Starter For Ten by David Nicholls is not so much a straight forward coming of age as it is an uncovering of what University life really is about - what knowledge means, and the lessons school cannot teach you. Inherantly smart and hard working, Brian is a rather typical book-smart student lacking the comfort and ease of social structure and easy friendships. But behind the simple structure of his character is the burning desire to bring pride to his mother and deceased father, and clinging to knowledge - specifically University Challenge which he connects inadvertently to memory of his dad, and longing for love and acceptance from the University sweetheart "beautiful and knows it" Alice.
Brian has big dreams for University - and high expectations. Ever focused on school work above all else, it is his sole belief that hard work and dedication will bring him the future he desires. This humorous and ironic passage depicts not only Brian's hopes for the future, but more poignantly, his sheer lack of understanding of how the world really does work.
“I want to be able to listen to recording of piano sonatas and know who's playing. I want to go to classical concerts and know when you're meant to clap. I want to be able to 'get' modern jazz without it all sounding like this terrible mistake, and I want to know who the Velvet Underground are exactly. I want to be fully engaged in the World of Ideas, I want to understand complex economics, and what people see in Bob Dylan. I want to possess radical but humane and well-informed political ideals, and I want to hold passionate but reasoned debates round wooden kitchen tables, saying things like 'define your terms!' and 'your premise is patently specious!' and then suddenly to discover that the sun's come up and we've been talking all night. I want to use words like 'eponymous' and 'solipsistic' and 'utilitarian' with confidence. I want to learn to appreciate fine wines, and exotic liquers, and fine single malts, and learn how to drink them without turning into a complete div, and to eat strange and exotic foods, plovers' eggs and lobster thermidor, things that sound barely edible, or that I can't pronounce...Most of all I want to read books; books thick as brick, leather-bound books with incredibly thin paper and those purple ribbons to mark where you left off; cheap, dusty, second-hand books of collected verse, incredibly expensive, imported books of incomprehensible essays from foregin universities.
At some point I'd like to have an original idea...And all of these are the things that a university education's going to give me.”Set from 1985-86, the novel is a commentary on social class and societal structure, often addressing Brian's understandings of money and privilege (shown in both the character of the seemingly perfect Alice and various boarding-school types) in contrast to his own working-class single parent upbringing (his father having died when Brian was 12). No where is anti-classism more evident, though than in the brash, passionate character of Rebecca who through a chance meeting at a party becomes in an awkward, Brian way, one of Brian's closest (and indeed one of few real) friends. Relying heavily on Brian's self deprecating wit and humour, manifested primarily in his narrative (first person) voice, and Rebecca's hard edged honesty and banter, Nicholls adds a light and admittedly very funny tone to the would-be heavy novel. There is an obliviousness, and an extremely narrow sighted optimism in Brian which drives not only his actions but the manner in which he sees - and therefore narrates - the world around him.
Despite a keen interest in his studies and efforts otherwise, Brian very quickly finds himself an outsider, marking this down to class difference and upbringing more than anything else. Reflecting on his own lack of personal connections, he contrasts his way of life with that of Alice's, as she states she enjoys her independence, realizing in doing so, just how alone he has become:
"Independence is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old lonely. And make no mistake, lonely is absolutely the worst thing to be. Tell someone that you've got a drink problem, or an eating disorder, or your dad died when you were a kid even, and you can almost see their eyes light up with the sheer fascinating drama and pathos of it all, because you've got an issue, something for them to get involved in, to talk about and analyse and discuss and maybe even cure. But tell someone you’re lonely and of course they’ll seem sympathetic, but look very carefully and you'll see one hand snaking behind their back, groping for the door handle, ready to make a run for it, as if loneliness itself were contagious. Because being lonely is just so banal, so shaming, so plain and dull and ugly."
Brian has lived the majority of his life with people grasping for the door handle, but for so long has not been able to see it. As his paper-perfect University career begins to spin around him, odd friendships, failed relations, let downs and confrontations lead Brian to discover that though he might be full of knowledge worthy of quiz shows, he is, inevitably, ignorant to the world in a manner far beyond his comprehension, and, indeed, doesn't even know who he is.
“I contemplate the idea that maybe I'm an alcoholic. I get this occassionally, the need to define myself as something-or-the-other, and at various times in my life have wondered if I'm a Goth, a homosexul, a Jew, a Catholic or a manic depressive, whether I am adopted, or have a hole in my heart, or possess the ability to move objects with the power of my mind, and have always, most regretfully, come to the conclusion that I'm none of the above. The fact is I'm actually not ANYTHING.”
A realist often sarcastic and extremely humorous novel, Starter for Ten outlines not only the base lines of lasting grief and inherent loneliness, but the meanings of friendship, the awkwardness of young adult relations, and ultimately, the true value of knowledge (and whether or not knowledge is really the same thing as intelligence).
