Starter for Ten

"I'm aware that the transition into adulthood is a difficult and sometimes painful one. I'm familiar with the conventions of the rites of passage, I know what the literary term bildungsroman means, I realise that it's inevitable that I'll look back at things that happened in my youth and give a wry, knowing smile. But surely there's no reason why I should be embarrassed and ashamed about things that happened thirty seconds ago? No reason why life should just be this endless rolling panorama of bodged friendships, fumbled opportunities, fatuous conversations, wasted days, idiotic remarks and ill-judged unfunny jokes that just lie on the floor in front of me, flipping about like dying fish?"

Starter For Ten is the first novel by British author, David Nicholls. Almost-nineteen-year-old Brian Jackson is starting University. He sees "reading English" as the opportunity to become independent of his widowed mother, meet girls, make new friends, and, who knows, maybe appear on University Challenge (something his Dad would have been thrilled about). He hopes his recently-purchased clothing, his professed hobbies and his conversation will make him seem cool, but knows he is at a disadvantage: "It's not that I'm anti-fashion, it's just that all of the major youth movements I've lived through so far, none have really fitted. At the end of the day, the harsh reality is that if you're a fan of Kate Bush, Charles Dickens, Scrabble, David Attenborough and University "Challenge, then there's not much out there for you in terms of a youth movement." and "When I say I'm interested in badminton what I really mean is that if someone held a gun to my head and forced me, on pain of death, to play one sport, and they were refusing to accept Scrabble as a sport, then that sport would be badminton."

His room in his share house will be familiar to many who experienced University during this era: "The room has the appeal and ambience of a murder scene; a single mattress on a metal frame, a matching plywood wardrobe and desk, and two small wood-effect Formica shelves. The carpets are mud-brown and seem to have been woven from compacted pubic hair. A dirty window above the desk looks out onto the dustbins below, whilst a framed sign warns that using Blu-Tack on the walls is punishable by death".

Soon after he meets the beautiful Alice Harbinson, also trying out for the University Challenge team, everything he says and does is designed to impress her. He eventually manages to ask her out on a date: "...I check my wallet for the condom that I always carry with me in case of a miracle. This particular condom ....has been in my wallet for so long now that it's stuck to the lining, and the foil wrapper has started to tarnish round the outline of the condom., like some grotesque brass rubbing. Still, I like to carry it with me, in the same way some people carry a St Christopher's medal, despite the fact that I have about as much chance of using the thing tonight as I have of carrying the infant Jesus across a river"

Even in his first novel, Nicholls demonstrates his expertise in capturing the era (fashion, popular music, TV programs, ) and in portraying the awkward, hopeful but hopelessly inept protagonist. Readers will wince at Brian's faux pas, cringe at his attempts to impress the girl and laugh out loud at his misfortunes and his self-deprecation, all the while nodding in agreement with his (perhaps naive) reasoning or groaning at his less intelligent decisions. Each chapter is prefaced with a University Challenge question that is loosely related to that chapter.

Nicholls evokes the mood with skill: "The four days in between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve are surely the longest and nastiest in the year- a sort of bloated, bastard Sunday. August Bank Holiday's the worst, though. I fully expect to die at about two-thirty in the afternoon on an August Bank Holiday. Terminal ennui". His descriptive prose is wonderfully original: Giggling, she prods me in the chest with the whisky bottle, and I realise she's very drunk; not gloomy drunk or surly drunk, but frisky drunk, playful drunk, which is a good sign, I suppose, but still a little strange and unsettling, like seeing Stalin on a skateboard". He can be succinct and wise: "'Independence' is the luxury of all those people who are too confident, and busy, and popular, and attractive to be just plain old 'lonely'". Laugh-out-loud funny, this entertaining novel is a brilliant debut.