Review of "Middle England" by Jonathan Coe

How can a book be so well-crafted, and have such a good narrative and great characters, and yet be so un-enjoyable?  Jonathan Coe, who I generally love, has written the Great Brexit novel, covering the period before and after the referendum, from the perspective of a group of mainly middle-aged, middle-class people.  Some of them are the characters from his previous two novels, The Rotters Club and The Closed Circle, but there are some new people too.

Some of the misery comes from the bits of the novel that don't work so well - some of the "funny" bits, like Benjamin's sex scene in the wardrobe with teen crush Jennifer, are both implausible and not very funny. At other times the attempts at "balance", such as Sophie's persecution by the forces of Political Correctness, don't feel all that convincing.

But mainly it's the good parts that make it so awful to read. It's like reliving the Brexit nightmare all over again, the awful debates, the vicious effectiveness of the Leave campaign vs the hapless, rambling, arrogant and patronising Remain campaign. And yeah, a lot of Remain supporters had no idea that it was even going to be close (let alone that they were going to lose) because they lived in a bubble. And this books lets us see outside our bubble, and into the minds and values of the other side. And still, eight years on, that's not pretty.

And yes, as Coe and his characters say, Brexit really did fuck the country over, and it might not recover in my lifetime, and that's not an enjoyable thought either.