Literary Commentary: 'Midnight at the Miro'

This theoretical analysis is based on the novel extract from Midnight at the Miro, which you can access by clicking here.

“Midnight at the Miro” is a single-title, conventional romance of the suspense sub-genre. Presented in a modern, urban setting and responds to the Brit Art movement of the 1990s. The target market includes women in their twenties and thirties, who might be classified as the “Sex and the City” audience. The author uses third-person limited narration to preserve the viewpoint of the heroine, who represents an independent woman with a successful career and financial autonomy. The traditional character of the heroine is subverted by defining her as someone who directly engages with the world, not someone whose identity is defined through her relationship with others.

The author’s first hermeneutic reference draws the reader in by describing the heroine’s psychological state: “Melanie was excited and had never been happier.”. We understand by this that something has happened which will soon be revealed, and we are immediately propelled forward by the narrative. Our suspense is sated in the following paragraph, when reading about her impending exhibition. This and the cultural codes that follow “Kurt Geiger…stilettos” and “calf-skin leather briefcase”, begin to explain something about the world the heroine lives in: she has a sense of style and, possibly, money. Here the author directly connects the heroine to the novel’s intended audience.

Up until the third paragraph, where the author first describes Melanie directly, she is still only seen through cultural references or as “the agent of an action” (Barthes, 1977, p104). Our greatest sense of Melanie’s character is not only derived from these proairetic and cultural codes but also from the semic ones which, when taken in isolation can appear, to some extent, contradictory. Her “ethereal look” seems at odds with the self-assured person leaving the cab and heading purposefully up the path. If the reader senses any conflict at all this is soon allayed as the author presents the themes that form the heroine’s character by offering important semes, which occur in various forms throughout the novel.

Williams’ description of ideology as “A system of belief characteristics of a particular class or group.” (1977, cited in Fiske, 1990, p165), eloquently describes the novel’s subverted ideology in relation to the heroine’s character. As a successful female Melanie is portrayed as emotionally and financially independent yet does not represent the hard-nosed - feminist reminiscent of the 1980s - but a psychologically well-rounded ‘strong’, yet feminine, woman. Whilst the author connotatively describes her physicality as “delicate” we are aware that she is a businesswoman. This binary opposition helps us understands that despite her subtle facial features, she must contain an inner strength to be competing in a male dominated world. The tension between these opposites reinforce Melanie’s strength of character in the reader’s mind. So, too, her pinstripe suit, which shows that she is ready to willingly launch herself into the Lacanian symbolic order of male power in an attempt to be taken seriously. As McCracken states: “…the heroine of popular romance is inextricably bound up with her position as woman in the modern world.” (1998, p80).

With the contrary semic references and binary opposites used to describe the heroine, the author creates a character with a less classic, less definable, female identity. This very identity is sharply brought into focus with Melanie’s rhetorical question: “Who are you?”. The reader will not immediately recognise the significance of the remark. Nevertheless, it transpires later in the novel that Melanie finds out that her father is not dead after all and upon his reintroduction she is forced to deal with issues concerning her own identity. This intertextual accent in the novel can be compared to “Great Expectations” as, unbeknownst to her, Melanie’s father had been her benefactor. At this point in the novel we see the first glimpse of the denouement of the plot in the form of the reappearance of her father and the breakdown of her relationship with James.

Included in the exposition is the setting of the flat where Melanie lives with James, which is also described binarily and can be seen as a symbolic representation of Melanie herself; the “unpretentious” yet “refined” lounge suggests a contradiction that remains unnoticed in the reading. What the author describes is an attractive, intriguing room, enabling the reader to add her own interpretation to the details that are omitted. As Radway says: “…the reader is never forced to recognise that it is indeed she who actively supplies the significance of the words she encounters.” (1991, p197).

While the author does not challenge romantic conventions, she does challenge the stereotypes of gender roles by introducing atypical, complex characters that are hard to pin down. Well-placed narrative enigmas, provided in the form of “lexies” (Barthes, 1974), seamlessly bleed into the narrative assuring a smooth transit.  The interlacing of “voices” (ibid), and overlapping of “associative fields” (1972, Hall), enables the reader to successfully engage with the text. Additionally, the interpretative space allowed by the author offers the reader a degree of subjective control over the descriptive details. As Gennette says “…the real author of the narrative is not only [s]he who tells it, but also, and at times even more, [s]he who hears it.” (1995, p262).

Bibliography

Barthes, R (1977) “Structural Analysis of Narratives” in Image Music Text. 1^st ed. London: Fontana Press.

Barthes, R (1974) S/Z: An Essay. 1^st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Fiske, J (1990) An Introduction to Communication Studies. 2^nd ed. London: Routledge.

Genette, G (1995) Narrative Discourse. 6^th ed. New York: Cornell University Press.

Hall, S (1972) Working Papers in Cultural Studies. 1^st ed. London: Taylor and Francis.

McCracken, S. (1998) “Popular Romance” in Pulp: Reading Popular Fiction. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Radway, J.A. (1991) Reading the Romance – Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature. 2^nd ed. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press.

Novel Extract: Midnight at the Miro

Chapter 1

She adored London - well, she certainly adored London today, anyway. London was where things happened. Melanie stared pensively out of the side window of the black cab as it wound its way round the one-way system and past the Victorian clock tower at the end of her road. She decided that she was definitely going to open that Chateauneuf-du-Pape and take a proper look at the proof of the brochure she’d just picked up from the printers. Melanie was excited and had never been happier.

Her first proper exhibition was only six weeks away and was being held at the prestigious Victoria Miro gallery in Islington. Victoria was the gallery owner to have a contract with and her endorsement insured your official introduction to the world of contemporary art. Victoria was known for her exceptional launch parties and you could practically guarantee guests like Saatchi and Emin. Climbing out of the cab she generously tipped the cabbie, gave him one of her cheeriest smiles and headed up the black and red terracotta path, her Kurt Geiger black stilettos making a satisfyingly resonant click as she went.

Melanie was a rare beauty. She had an exquisite face with delicate features and a rather ethereal look. Her hazel eyes and honey blonde hair were stunning, and her superb cheekbones gave her a somewhat regal quality. Her friends described her as having a unique look that set her apart from others. Whilst not vain, Melanie was aware of her attractiveness. Nevertheless it didn’t seem that important to her. She simply saw it as the outside surface of who she was and often found it actually got in the way. And, in fact, one of the things that had attracted her to James was that he barely made reference to her good looks.

She swung the front door of her North London flat open and, accidentally treading on the newly arrived mail, dumped her bag of Selfridges shopping and her fuchsia pink calf-skin leather briefcase on the chair next to the hall table. The answerphone signalled ‘0’ messages. She picked up the post and walked down the newly carpeted hall, turning the lights on as she went, and entered the lounge. This was her favourite room - she had chosen the colours with James. They had picked warm colours: peach and cream, cosy rather than minimalist.

James and her had only been in the flat for eight months and had almost finished decorating it. Now that he was working away progress had slowed down, but they still managed to spend the occasional weekend on it. The lounge was welcoming, comfortable and unpretentious, but still had a refined air about it. It was one of those rooms that looked like it had all come together just by chance, but really had been exceptionally well-designed and thought out.

A large soft cream leather sofa was the focus of the room and faced the onyx fireplace. Scattered on the sofa were a number of cushions made of corduroy in various colours from plum to salmon pink. In front of the fireplace was a Peruvian rug in burgundy, orange and cream. The larger pieces of furniture in the room had come from various parts of the world – Singapore, Cambodia, Russia - and strangely all seemed to come together in this one room and managed not to look out of place at all. This was the gift Melanie had for putting things together with panache.

She dropped the post on the sofa, took off her black and silver-threaded pin-stripe jacket and went over to the fireplace to light the hibiscus-and-lychee scented candle. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror she moved closer to her reflection. She peered at herself quizzically. It was one of those moments when you see yourself more objectively than you usually do. “Who are you?” she said under her breath. The moment passed as she caught sight of the light covering of London grime on her face. She removed the pins and ruffled her well-groomed hair to release the pressures of the day.

The kitchen and the red wine beckoned. She had been intentionally delaying the excitement of reading her brochure, but the anticipation was finally getting to her. While she de-corked and poured the wine she wondered why James hadn’t called, but just at that moment Penguin came in through the cat flap, demanding her attention and distracting her from her thoughts. The dainty black and white cat had been living with them for a year now, after being adopted. Melanie guessed that she was probably a teenager, and she was certainly behaving like one: out all hours of the night and even, on occasions, bringing her boyfriends back to the flat without permission. Melanie fed Penguin, asking her “What have you been up to today, my lovely?”. Receiving barely a miaow in reply she placed the plate of cat food on the kitchen floor, briefly stroked the black and white furry head, and returned to the lounge with her red wine.

Throwing herself into the sofa she kicked off her stilettos, settled into the generous padding of the upholstery and flicked through the post: phone bill, home contents renewal notice, something from Mother (probably a mail order brochure selling bras, she thought, or maybe an article on something that might impact her life in some arbitrary way: for example, “Rape in North London increases by 10% since 1990”). She carried on looking through the remainder of the mail, placing it into two piles: one to keep and one to bin.  Now for the brochure:

Universal Abstractions 

Abstract Interpretations from the Micro/Macro Worlds 

Introducing work by Melanie Peterson The series of paintings on display are inspired by the natural world. It is about the world of unity and the merging of boundaries…