I didn’t like Hugo in Black Swan Green, but I also didn’t quite see him as the type who would grow up to join a league of super-villains who achieve immortality through drinking children’s blood. Something characteristic of David Mitchell’s works is that they take place in a single literary universe; characters introduced or featured one novel often turn up in others, but always in a way that is consistent with, or at least doesn’t contradict, previous descriptions of them. This is the case with Hugo, who in addition to appearing in Black Swan Green is one of the main characters in The Bone Clocks. I did not make this connection until Mr. Mitchell (the teacher, not the author) mentioned it in class today, but now thinking back on when I read The Bone Clocks about a year ago, Hugo’s childhood sheds a significant amount of light on why he eventually decides to join the evil Anchorites when offered the opportunity as a young adult.
The Hugo in The Bone Clocks is almost exactly how one would imagine a college-aged Hugo to be. He goes to Cambridge, and has the same elitist, amoral personality, and ability to use language as a tool and a weapon that he did in Black Swan Green. Hugo’s greatest fear as a teenager is that he’s going to end up being like his father. He tells Jason:
“I was you myself, Jace, once. Just the same. Always afraid. But there’s another reason why you must smoke this cigarette… If you don’t kill ‘Not Today’”--Hugo did a horror-movie-trailer voice-- “One day you’ll wake up, look in the mirror, and see Uncle Brian and Uncle Michael!” (65)
Most of what Hugo does seems to be in an attempt to differentiate himself from his father. He develops his own sense of style and what is cool, steals (“liberates”) when he feels like it, and takes up smoking. However, despite all of this, Jason still remarks that Hugo reminds him of Uncle Brian (61).
A similar dynamic exists in The Bone Clocks, although it is not explicitly mentioned. Hugo had maintained his amorality and various infuriating mannerisms, but much as Jason observed in Black Swan Green, it still seems like Uncle Brian has significant power over him. Hugo attends Cambridge, one of the schools Uncle Brian had pushed Julia to consider in Black Swan Green, and Hugo’s pretensions and elitism could also have increased in part due to his father’s influence. It is possible that when Hugo is offered immortality and a chance to join the Anchorites, he accepts it not because he is evil, but because he sees it as his one chance to finally eliminate the possibility of being like his father, and do something completely beyond the realm of what he can control, or even comprehend.
I'm pretty sure nobody cared for Hugo that much in Black Swan Green and his development and hatred in The Bone Clocks seem par for the course. I can't say a whole lot on the older Hugo (I haven't read The Bone Clocks), but from what you say he ends up being relatively similar to his father in more than one way. It would make some sense that Hugo chose to become immortal because he would further distance himself from his father, but possibly it could just be Hugo being himself. Again, hard to make too many conclusions without reading the book. Interesting observation though.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fascinating "sympathy for the devil" kind of argument: in _BSG_, one of the only aspects of Hugo that does seem genuine is his insistence that he and Jason not become Michael and Brian. Brian is a jerk, and Hugo is a jerk, and at the end of "Relatives" Jason is starting to see shades of Brian in Hugo's casual misogyny and elitism. But it's true that they are different *kinds* of jerk, and Hugo can resemble his father in all kinds of ways and still deeply desire to be, superficially, nothing like him. We can certainly read his soul-selling to the Anchorites as a form of youthful rebellion, an embrace of a new and different (and more evil?) patriarchal structure as a rejection of his father.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting idea. I am writing my semester project on Hugo, and I wonder if I need to change how I portray him because he turns out this way. I was planning to have him lean good, but instead I may have to show a darker side of him because we know some of his future.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting idea. I am writing my semester project on Hugo, and I wonder if I need to change how I portray him because he turns out this way. I was planning to have him lean good, but instead I may have to show a darker side of him because we know some of his future.
ReplyDeleteSophia, thanks for shining a light on the context of the two novels. Yea I agree with you, I definitely don't imagine Hugo Lamb to turn out to be the super villain that he apparently becomes in _The Bone Clocks_. Though from what I've heard, the rest of David Mitchell's repertoire is very different from _Black Swan Green_. I think I go through life with the philosophy that everyone is a genuinely good person on the inside, it's just that everyone takes a different path to realize themselves. I guess the mentality of believing everyone is "coming-of-age" in some way helps me to not hold grudges. Although that might just be the naive and idealistic part of me.
ReplyDeleteLike Anna, I never thought Hugo would turn out to be some sort of super villain. Yeah, he was pretty awful, but I thought he'd just turn out to be that sort of awful person that sneers and looks down at everyone while thinking they're so cool, while never quite achieving the respect (awe?) and reputation they so desperately want. And yet, after reading your post, I think it does make sense, seeing how much Hugo wants to be different and distinguish himself.
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