The Slap

 

Image credit: Better Reading

There are some books that really reveal how you are as a reader. It’s confronting, oftentimes uncomfortable, but true. This happened to me this week, as I continued on with my venture to read more Australian literature and met with the loathsome and absolutely terrible people in Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap. 

Reading this book, I have discovered that not only am I a stubborn reader who’s addicted to the dopamine that comes from finishing a book, but also a vindictive reader and a bit of a bitch, as in reading The Slap I absolutely hated every character and was compelled to keep reading in the hope that something horrific and crippling would happen to them so that I could laugh and get some emotional payoff. 

The book begins with a suburban barbeque where an unruly toddler is slapped by an adult. The child isn’t his. This act sends shockwaves throughout the entire party, particularly those who witness it, and through the succeeding series of events, relationships are transformed, friendships are ruined, and some harsh truths about the country’s cultural identity are brought to light. 

This is an incredible book, and I’m mad about that. Tsiolkas expertly manipulates readers, stretching their emotions in all directions with each character chapter they read. Told from the point of view of eight witnesses to the event, The Slap is an incredible experiment in character-driven narrative, as well as a really brutal and shattering examination of the modern cultural identity of Australia. Reflecting the author’s background of being 2nd generation Greek-Australian, many of the central characters in The Slap are from immigrated families, and Tsiolkas does an absolutely incredible job of bringing to light the underlying racism that colours Australia. In The Slap the characters that you hate the most (at least I did) are the ‘true blue’ Aussies, and while all other characters are still bad people, there is this disturbing racism and hostility on the home-front between all Australian citizens: Mediterrean-Australian, Asian-Australian, Indigenous Australian and British-colonial Australian. The book really brings to light the intolerance that humans, not just Aussies, but humans in general have for one another and why multicultural societies suffer from a higher level of racism and at-home hostilities, caused by stagnant cultural and generational attitudes, values, and clashes. It’s a very easy book to read, but it deals with a whole lot of complexities about modern Australian society and that what makes it so incredible.

I mentioned before that I was mad about this book. Part of that stems from the fact that it’s a really manipulative book: you’re deliberately driven to hate certain characters and, as I mentioned, the only reason I read on was to see how they would get their comeuppance. I can appreciate the mastery of this creative talent. Tsiolkas has created characters that are absolutely real enough for readers to identify with, but still bad people that I would love to see them burn. The central message of the book is that the world is now a really scary, dangerous, and fucked-up place with no simple binaries of good and evil and it’s this delve into the exploration of that fact that makes this book so compelling. 

Image credit: Greece & Co.

While no one likes the idea of having their individual experiences shaped by an omniscient narrator a la Stranger Than Fiction, if you’re interested in Australian literature, cultural studies, and really clever and provocative reads, then I would absolutely recommend The Slap. I hate that I loved it, but loved it I did!

Author: Christos Tsiolkas, 2008

Published: First published in 2008, this version published by Allen & Unwin, 2011.

Longevity: The Slap has been adapted into two miniseries in both Australia and the U.S. Winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, 2009. Winner of the ALS Gold Medal, 2008. Winner of the Neilsen Bookdata Booksellers’ Choice Award, 2009. Winner of the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, 2009.