The Restraint of Beasts
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| Author | Magnus Mills |
|---|---|
| Publisher | |
| Released | 1998 |
The Restraint of Beasts is a tragi-comic novel written by Magnus Mills in which an anonymous narrator 'the foreman' works for a Scottish fencing company, run by Donald who is consumed by work and the desire for 'efficiency'. The narrator is promoted to foreman and put in charge of Tam and Richie who prefer a 'Laissez-Faire' approach to work and so are at odds with both their management and their new foreman.
Mill's uses a deadpan narrative voice that is at selective times either revealing or naive and indeed both these interpretations of the narrator can be supported throughout the whole text- it is up to the reader to decide whether the narrator is being ironic or feels genuine emotion for something.
[edit] Plot introduction
The novel starts off with a phone call "Mr McCrindle's fence has gone slack" and sees the three main character's duly dispatched to the scene of Tam and Richie's previous job which they have left in a hurry and the ensuing Kafkaesque incidents set the tone for the rest of the novel where Tam, Richie and the narrator find themselves 'sent off' to England in work related 'exile'.
[edit] Major themes
The Restraint of Beasts represents many issues and themes, the most pressing of which is that of work. Donald's drive for 'efficiency' can be seen as thinly veiled fascism whilst the 'instability of three' deals with the balance of power between the narrator, Tam and Richie. Since the narrator is a newly-appointed 'foreman' and cannot impose his will on either Tam or Richie he tries to reason with them: 'We'd better have a go at getting this lot sorted out then'. This results in a management style that conflicts with Donald, as obeying Donald implicitly is impractical: 'it was clear that I would have to ignore unilaterally Donald's driving ban if we were going to get anything done at all'. The theme of work as a domineering force in the lives of workers is prevalent throughout the novel, and is seen when the characters go back to Scotland from Mr Perkins’s farm in England - Richie is confronted by the realisation that his boss Donald has implied to his mother that Richie was 'not coming back' and so the electric guitar Richie had his parents paying instalments on while he was away has been repossessed.
[edit] Awards and nominations
The Restraint of Beasts won the McKitterick Prize for 1998. It was nominated for the Booker prize and the Whitbread first novel award for 1999, and was also praised by the (usually reclusive) author Thomas Pynchon as 'A demented, deadpan comic wonder'.
