If one is prone to dreams of romance, planes provide appealing fodder for the chance meeting that might lead one's true love. A strange intimacy can develop between people while they are crammed into the confines of scratchy seats for long stretches of time. It has something to do with the altitude. And there is the added anticipation of who might sit next to you. It's a mystery and there is a short moment of suspended time when one can imagine "Maybe this time..."
Usually, it's a hairy older man, or a chatty grandma happy to talk with you for all five hours of the flight. But for Peter Russell, a fellow who is particularly prone to this line of thinking, Holly fills the seat next to his on his flight from New York to L.A., and, you guessed it, they fall madly in love. This is the premise of James Collins' novel "Beginner's Greek." The novel purports to be one both about true love and love at first sight with delicious complications.
Being something of a die-hard romantic myself, I decided to succumb to what I hoped would be the mindless but enjoyable pleasures of a modern "comedy of manners." I should have known better.
Of course, Peter and Holly don't end up together right away. They meet in the first chapter, but the slip of paper that Peter takes from Holly with her number on it "mysteriously" disappears. And from there unfolds a 400-page drama of reconnections, misunderstandings, affairs, marriages of convenience, and the everlasting hope for happily after.
The result is incredibly banal.
Collins clearly has a very good idea of what his characters look like and how they behave. Descriptions of their clothes, wealth, and lucrative occupations are quite detailed. Almost all of his characters have extended face time. Collins frequently moves from one perspective to another, thereby developing a multi-dimensioned narrative.
The characters are designed to be more complex than they first appear. The neurotic Charlotte has a daring side; the temptress who has married for money gives it all up to do the right thing. A whole entourage of well-groomed personalities with their assigned roles parade through the pages of this novel. They are vivid. Readers learn what Peter might like to eat for breakfast, or what criteria his best friend Jonathan uses to choose his shoes.
Despite the amount of detail and lucidity with which Collins examines his characters, nothing unexpected happens. All the character "twists" are not only predictable but inevitable. Everyone ends up where they were supposed to after that first scene on the plane. But Collins takes the reader on an endless detour that sheds little light on humanity or the development of any of the characters. A critique of the extreme wealth of the characters emerges, but neither the implications nor the possibility of complications is examined. On the whole, the cast seemed to be content with settling with the best offered to them. They struck me as spineless on the whole, and undeserving of the sheer bliss Collins allows them to achieve.
I love love stories, and I love New York, which is where most of this glamorous drama unfolds. But even my affection for these elements was not enough to carry me through the triviality of this tale. Fiction has come a long way since the 1800s, when comedies of manners were novel. Jane Austen handled the topic much better, and she remains far more relevant.