Did I ever tell you about my night climbing experiences? No? Well it happened like this: whilst at school I used to sneak out each Saturday night to go partying in town with my mates. Being unable to leave my house through the front door, I instead exited through the bathroom window under the cover of darkness and came out on top of the garage adjoining our house. From there things got much easier. The risk associated with my parents discovering my antics was of much excitement to me and gave me the persona of a thrill-seeker amongst my peers. But so what if my parents were to discover what I was doing? All that would happen was that I would be reprimanded and they would be more vigilant in the future to prevent such behaviour from occurring. Now transfer the above scenario to the context of being a student at Cambridge University and the reason for exiting the building through a window was solely for the thrills of being able to party on top of the building with others without being discovered. Suddenly you have so much to lose. Your life and, of course, your place at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. As if the process of being admitted to Cambridge University isn't a roller-coaster in itself, why would someone want to become a night climber and engage in such behaviour? This is the question that was going through my mind when I decided to read this book.
Ivo Stourton in his first novel, The Night Climbers tells the story of a group of five Cambridge University students who are the ultimate pleasure seekers. In addition to being grifters and expensive party-goers, they scale the university buildings at night for pleasure.
As a group, it is their disposition for thrill-seeking that makes them bond. James is the newest member of the group having just arrived at Cambridge as a new student. His entry into the group is interesting as he purposefully doesn't seek out friends himself; instead he devises a strategy of waiting to see who comes to him. The first to bite is Michael because he requires James' help during one evening of night-climbing when he is being chased by the porters at the college.
Francis - the son of Lord Soulford a Conservative Minister and another night climber - is one of the most intriguing character in the book. Lord Soulford funds not only Francis' drug habits but also the whole group's expensive way of life.
My most damning criticism of the novel is that I didn't think that Stourton managed to hold the storyline together. To write a novel about night climbing at Cambridge University should require the activity and the reason why the students engaged in it to be at the centre of the novel. Instead, night climbing just takes up one of the twenty-one chapters in the novel. There is never any clear narrative on these issues and this is exactly what would have made the story worthwhile and not just inspiration for an episode of Hustle.
Furthermore, the characters can be just so unreasonable. There is frequent references made to their behaviour - especially Francis' - and how this could lead to them being 'sent down'. Instead of compelling reasons that would make a reader want to read on, their only incentive is to help keep Francis out of trouble so that he can continue to provide them money. An example of this is the following extract which made me laugh when I got to the end of it:
As the term progressed, the old Francis showed himself less and less, and was replaced by a man with glassy eyes and unpredictable moods. Our problems grew as even Lisa's faultless management of the Cambridge system showed the strain of
his behaviour....He was breaking windows, vomiting in courts, swearing at the porters, fucking girls in the shadows of the colonnade by the staircase. Lisa kept supplying him with essays, but he simply did not bother to hand them in, and if he went to supervisions at all he turned up drunk. He was coming close to being set down.
The ending did not get much better for me, unfortunately. It was difficult to tell whether we were still dealing with thrill-seekers or just immensely stupid students after the completion of a particular business deal by the group. All becomes clearer at the end but its not really the ending you would be looking for if you opened the book, as I did, because you were particularly keen on reading about their experiences as night climbers. The answer to the question that I posed in the opening paragraph goes unanswered and this is what I found the most displeasing.
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