Way way back in the heady days of September 2014 (where have the past fifty days gone?), when I went onto Netgalley for the first time in three-or-so years, the one book that I was most excited to request was Expo 58 by Jonathan Coe; readers with a good memory will recall how effusive I am regarding The Rotters’ Club. I love The Rotters’ Club and I recommend it to people and no one I know has the same love as I do for this book, but still, it is one of my all-time favourite books ever. I could live in The Rotters’ Club if I had to.
Can the same be said for Expo 58? Would I live inside Expo 58 if I could?
Likely no.
There is nothing really wrong with Expo 58. I can’t pull out, like in some of my other netgalley-acquired reviews over-written or over-wrought quotations to back up my point. I could say that the dénouement was a little too pat for my tastes, but, by the end of this quick book (my copy had under three hundred pages), I didn’t mind having the final pages wrapped up like a parcel being sent in the mail. I liked Thomas, around whom the story radiates, as a low-level British bureaucrat thrust into international intrigue upon being seconded to Expo 58 in Brussels. I liked Thomas’ international compatriots, although I kept picturing Andrey as an older, middle-aged man than a young, possible Lothario. Even with the clues scattered throughout the text, I didn’t figure out the whodunit, which was a pleasant surprise as I just finished a mystery novel (The Son by Jo Nesbø) where I sussed out the mystery fairly early on. It seems to me that Expo 58 is the sort of novel that would have the words Rollicking good time and Jolly well brilliant emblazoned across the front as blurbs from other big-name authors. I can imagine that if I were British and male and had lived through the 1950s in Britain, when men were men, women were hostesses, and being British meant Something with a capital S, this book would be like cuddling up under a warm blanket with a hot water bottle under ones toes. Even me being none of those things (British, male, lived through the 1950s), I still fancied this book a fair amount. It made me think British-y with British vocabulary and that internal voice inside my head which narrates my life took on an educated, but not too much so, British accent.
But, all that seems to me lukewarm praise. There was nothing wrong with Expo 58, but was it as ascendant as The Rotters’ Club? Of course not. And I can’t get past that. I liked Expo 58, but it wasn’t The Rotters’ Club so I can’t love it. The praise I gave it in the previous paragraph seems forced, like I’m trying to convince myself to like it more. It’s like the nice guy of books, constantly needling me with Why don’t you like me more Meghan? Aren’t I a nice guy? You go off ranking a bunch of YA novels as five stars? Don’t you know they’ll never please you the way I can?
So I’m sorry Expo 58. You are a good book. You are amusing. You are a great diversion. But I don’t love you and I never will. I’m just being honest.
Expo 58 by by Jonathan Coe went on sale September 2nd, 2014.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.