Entitlement

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    [subject] => Entitlement by Jonathan
    [comment] => 
Entitlement by Jonathan Bennett
Jonathan Bennett's second novel, Entitlement,  is a story about the wealthy Aspinall family, as privileged as they are complex and refreshingly Canadian.  There are non-fiction biographies about the Canadian elite, but nothing gets at the truth like fiction.   Bennett's story gives the Canadian reader what they have always wanted, but were too polite to ask; permission to look in the closets and under the rugs.  We are invited in by the two main characters, both foreign to the social stratosphere where the Aspinalls live and play. Trudy Clarke is a writer, doing research for her book on the family and Andy Kronk is a promising teenage hockey player who is unofficially adopted by the Aspinalls.   
It's a relief to see dysfunction playing out in the upper echelon of society.  We can identify with the theme of struggle for power in the family and even the working class characters in the book have a sense of entitlement; a way to even the score.  Bennett's story dismantles the myth that the wealthy are immune to problems, or at the very least, that they have unlimited resources to resolve them. 
In fact, The Aspinalls suffer in ways that cannot be undone.  Bennett begins to poke holes in the assumptions and allusions that wealth brings early on in the story.  He builds tension this way and then holds us there while Trudy interviews Andy; a clever method to reveal back story.  While it's both interesting and relevant, it goes on for a large section of the middle of the book.  When the main story picks up, the pace does too and it's over a bit too quickly.
In addition to plot, the familiar Canadian references make us feel at home, particularly if you've ever driven through Toronto or spent time in Ontario's cottage country.  There are loon calls, canoes, Muskoka chairs, hockey and Tim Horton's coffee.  In the few situations where Bennett takes creative licence the familiarity seems unduly shrouded.  For example, the Aspinall children and Andy Kronk attend the fictional Lord Seaton College.  I resisted the urge to picture the iconic Upper Canada College campus for the first part of the book, but then settled in to call it UCC so I could get on with the story.
The other distraction was the choice to print the text without quotation marks.  It makes for a clean looking page but there are times when it's difficult to make a distinction between dialogue and a new paragraph of narration.  To go back and forth without the signal of quotation marks gives the reader the same queasy effect of a hand held camera.  We know what's going on but the edges are blurred. This was particularly evident in the middle section of the book when Trudy is interviewing Andy.  We are in Andy's head and we hear Andy's voice when he responds in first person to Trudy's question, but then the omniscient narrator pipes in with description, pulling us out to the third person and away from a very likeable character whose voice we want to hear.
Entitlement succeeds in telling the sad history of the Aspinall family and revealing the miserable consequences of a family power struggle.  Bennett builds tension and intrigue in both the reflection of the past and build up toward the surprising conclusion.

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    [name] => Tamara
    [mail] => tamara.woolman@sympatico.ca
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