Dave's Book Blog: "Leonard and Hungry Paul" by Ronan Hession

Friday, 22 November 2024

"Leonard and Hungry Paul" by Ronan Hession

This advertisement for non-toxic masculinity is a gentle book, grounded in normal everyday life, which uses meticulous observation and psychological insights to discover the drama inherent in our shared human experience.

Leonard and Hungry Paul are men in their thirties, both living in their parental homes (though Leonard's mum and dad are both dead when the story begins). Neither has (or ever had?) a girlfriend. Leonard works in an office ghost-writing factual books. Hungry Paul occasionally works as a casual postman.

My first reaction, as a reader, was that these are a couple of life's losers. The book sets me up in this expectation: “Though an adult son living with his widowed mother is a situation about which society has yet to adopt a formal position, it is clearly seen in second-best terms.” (Ch 1) But by the end, I was rooting for them. They are contemplatives, like modern secular monks, and Hungry Paul clearly understands far more about the spiritual values of judo than his gi-selling sensei.

On one level, this novel is a study of non-toxic masculinity. The three major female characters are all far more proactive in life, and more sexually experienced, than the three main men. Grace, Hungry Paul's sister, has a high-powered job and a string of ex-boyfriends. Shelley, the lady Leonard hopes to make his girlfriend, has a son. Hungry Paul's mum is still in part-time work and "had a good long look at the field before picking my man" (Ch 6) while his father, who is retired and just potters around, says “I knew that if I waited, all the good-looking girls would eventually drop their standards until they reached my level.” (Ch 6) These characters are fulfilling their roles in the equal opportunities utopia of the future.

The plot involves Leonard's clumsy-through-inexperience endeavours to woo Shelley, Hungry Paul's tentative steps towards greater engagement with the world, and Grace's preparations for her marriage. The delight is that a plot so mundane can make the reader long to know what will happen next. The secret is the reader's absorption into some very real, complex and beautifully delineated characters.

And there is a lot of humour in it, mostly understated but sometimes laugh-out-loud. It comes from the author's in-depth scrutiny of modern life, such as the episode where Leonard, awaiting Shelley for a restaurant date, pops into a McDonald's and buys a Happy Meal so that he can use the toilets and is then discovered eating the burger by vegetarian Shelley. Or the mime artist at the Chamber of Commerce presentation.

Delightful, charming and funny, with an important message about what it might mean to be a man in the modern world.

Selected quotes:

“She was a keen walker and had good gallery feet, being able to wander around any reasonable exhibition in its entirety without being distracted by the gift shop honey-pot that drew in tired women half her age.” (Ch 1)
“It was as if his baldness had been caused by gravity, with the hair drawn from his scalp into his head, now tufting out of his ears, nose and eyebrows.” (Ch 2) That sounds like me.
“Beyond the age of twelve or so, men tend not to see each other's bedrooms as it can be difficult to contrive a plausible premise for asking.” (Ch 2)
“Hungary Paul then dropped to the floor and started to push up on his knuckles. There was a cracking sound, followed by some oaths, and then he started again, looking like a break dancer doing the caterpillar.” (Ch 2)
“Rather like the Green Cross Code, I like to stop, look and listen before getting involved in things. It has stood me well and kept me on peaceful terms with my fellow man. It's certainly better than trying to make my mark on the world, only to end up by defacing it.” (Ch 2) Hungry Paul’s philosophy.
“The Romans were bullies. The Romans picked on everybody for four hundred years and were only eliminated when they got outbullied themselves by the Goths and Barbarians.” (Ch 3) A description of a world containing hugely toxic masculinity.
“Not for the first time, he longed for an ‘undo’ button in his life.” (Ch 8)
“His romantic feelings were now starting to awaken, with all their crazy body chemistry. It was exhausting. It was actually physically uncomfortable: all this genetic programming kicking in at once, while his poor fragile personality got run over.” (Ch 8)
“His opinions on politics all amounted to other people pulling up their socks just like he did.” (Ch 12)
“Hungry Paul woke with the feeding of being fastened to his bed by Velcro.” (Ch 13)
“At the previous evening’s judo class ... Hungry Paul had been paired off with a man who was built like a wheelie bin ... called Lazlo ... Even when Lazlo stood still without putting up any defence, Hungry Paul could barely lift one of his legs off the mat, ending up with his arms and legs clamped around him like a randy corgi.” (Ch 13)
“To deprive life of experiences deliberately and to hide from its realities was not special. It was just another form of fear that led to a life-limiting loneliness that accumulated and accumulated and became so big that it blocked up the front door, drowned out conversations and put other people behind soundproof glass.” (Ch 14) I love the alliteration in ‘life-limiting loneliness’. And then the physical description of the psychological state: the blocked front door and the soundproof glass.
“The drama that comes with wine: the little taste to see if it's corked and then the Man-from-Del-Monte nod when it's not.” (Ch 14)
“Does any of this make any sense to you, or am I just talking fluent Prosecco at this stage?” (Ch 14)
“Nothing looks as much like old age as dead space that has been dusted and vacuumed meticulously.” (Ch 15)
“As they each suspected some frostiness in the other because of the midweek cancellation of their Monopoly game, they misread each other's mood, and in doing so doubled their helping of unhappiness.” (Ch 16)
“Grace refilled her glass and shook the end of the bottle in puzzlement, as if it had been emptied by a leak or something.” (Ch 17)
“Watch him the next time you spill something. His whole attitude is that it has already happened, and he just moves on to cleaning it up.” (Ch 20)
“Hungry Paul stared at the stippled ceiling and bathed in the quiet all around him. He tuned his ears to listen to the ever-present silence itself, rather than the bubbles of noise that floated in it. He began to appreciate its profound scale. All major spiritual and philosophical traditions throughout history had emphasised the value of silence. The universe, whether expanding or contracting, does so amidst a vast ocean of it. The big bang sprang from it and will one day return to it.” (Ch 21)
“Leonard had a look at his bookshelves for some of the paperbacks he had bought recently, which had been stacked in the horizontal unread pile ever since, vertical alignment being reserved for those he had already finished and enjoyed.” (Ch 22) I do that!
“Even when doing nothing, people do it differently.” (Ch 28)