50 Book Challenge: Book 42
The Antipope – Robert Rankin
If I asked you to tell me what book this quote was from, I bet you’d get it wrong:
“Enough!” The red-eyed man pushed back his chair and drew himself to his full height, his eyes blazing and his shoulders spreading to draw out his massive chest. His hands formed two enormous fists which he brought down onto the table with titanic force, scattering the food and shuddering the candelabra. “Crowley,” he roared, his voice issuing from his mouth as a gale force of icy wind, “Crowley, you would know who I am. I am the man to whom fate has led you. From your very birth it was ordained that our paths would finally cross, all things are pre-ordained, no man can excape his fate. You would know who I am? Crowley, I’m your nemesis!”
No, this isn’t our old friend Anthony J, though I’m absolutely sure the choice of surname was arrived at by exactly the same means. It is, in fact, a low-grade villain in a velvet suit by the name of Brian. But you’d have to be in the know to realise you weren’t witnessing his comeuppance when the Legions of Hell finally got their claws on him following the Incident in Lower Tadfield. Or maybe I’ve just read too many of this sort of book in rather close proximity.
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This is, in fact, Robert Rankin’s The Antipope, the first in the famed Brentford Trilogy and the second work of his that I have read. It is remarkable for its ability to weave all kinds of terrible apocalyptic damnations into a story which is, essentially, about a lot of unemployed layabouts drinking together in the local pub. And the pub is naturally situated in Brentford:
From Neville’s eyrie high in the upper eaves of the Swan he was afforded an excellent view of the surrounding district. With the aid of his spyglass he could see out between the flatblocks as far as the roundabout and the river. He could make out the gasometer and the piano museum and on further into the early haze where the cars were already moving dreamily across the flyover.
Thing is, several of these landmarks have been known to me since early childhood. I have relatives who, to this day, live in the flatblocks (or, at least, some that are adjacent). The piano museum – originally, I believe, an organ museum in a redundant church close to Kew Bridge but that’s a hard joke to put across in passing – and the gasometer were features of every visit to my grandmother’s. The flyover is, of course, how the M4 enters London. It’s an odd thing seeing part of your longstanding mental map of the world turn up in a book like this – especially one not written by you. The wiper factory mentioned in earlier chapters was real; it was called Tryco I believe, and used to be at Gillette Corner. It had a thrilling sign with an operative wiper on it which, as a child, I used to loudly anticipate seeing all the way down the Great West Road. Great disappointment would ensue if it was turned off. I think my father actually used to work at this factory in his youth. Earlier we tried to compile a list of Brentford pubs we have patronised (almost always on the very odd occasion with older male family members) – we came up with the Brewery Tap (off London Road, very much a river pub), the Princess Royal (near the football ground) the Pottery Arms (right in the middle of an estate and my relatives’ local) and the Penny Flyer (on Ealing Road, now apparently ‘gentrified’ into the Ealing Park Tavern – my dear, dead uncle who was a regular there must be turning in his grave). I once narrowly failed to meet a greatly-liked cousin-once-removed of mine (a nephew of said dear departed uncle) in The Beehive and I was quite a regular drinker in that former Irish pub close to Kew Bridge and the Steam Museum – I used to work nearby. Now I think it might even be a restaurant and not a pub at all. The Bricklayers has been a refuge for generations of my family but I do not recall having been in. A shame, because this is the one that is actually supposed to be the original for Rankin’s ‘Flying Swan’.
Anyway, enough of these tedious personal reminiscences. I enjoyed this more than The Greatest Show Off Earth because I found the plot more engaging and credible and I liked all the local colour. I will be reading on, although I still find his portrayal of women thoroughly objectionable, because the combination of my manor and my preoccupations has me hooked (this time we have a villainous homosexual just to frighten the horses a little bit more). However is possible that one day he’ll go that little bit too far and make me fling the book over my shoulder in disgust, never to resume.
Enough of this. Dibdin up next. And with that, on to the next book. Don’t you realise we’re nearly at the end?