Skin Lane Review

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Skin Lane ReviewHaving enjoyed the author's "Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall", I read "Skin Lane" and enjoyed it as well, even though the settings and premises are very different. Neil Bartlett can bring all sorts of situations to life.
"Skin Lane"'s protagonist is Mr. Freeman, known around the shop as Mr. F., who was born around 1920, joined the M. Scheiner Ltd. fur manufacturing firm in the City of London on Skin Lane as a sweeper and rose to be the Head Cutter by 1967, the date of the events of the story. Mr. F. takes furry animal skins, chops them up to remove most traces of the individual animals and to allow others to reassemble the pieces into a fur garment that the wearer enlivens. Mr. F. lives alone in a London apartment south of the Thames.
Mr. F.'s life was like a vinyl record. There were five identical tracks for Monday through Friday, followed by two tracks for Saturday and Sunday with broken grooves allowing some slight variations. Play the record one week and then play the same record the next. He became absolutely identified with his profession, and I mean absolutely.
Mr. F. starts having a repeating dream about finding a nude youth hanging upside down, bound by his ankles, in Mr. F.'s home bathroom. In his dream, Mr. F. starts out by screaming, waking Mr. F. After months of repetition, Mr. F. brings himself to interact slightly with the body, without ever making out the body's face. In waking life, Mr. F. finds himself obsessing over the dream.
Long after the dreams start, Maurice Scheiner, the owner of the firm, announces that his sixteen-year old nephew, Ralph Scheiner, will work at the firm as a sweeper in the sewing machine area. After a brief stay there, Ralph is assigned to Mr. F. to learn about cutting the furs for later stitching. The suspicion around the shop is that Ralph will rotate around the various departments and eventually run the firm.
Even though Ralph is compliant with the procedures of the cutting department, Mr. F. regards him as a nuisance. Ralph does learn a reasonable amount and does work hard. Unlike Mr. F., Ralph has a sense of personal growth and advancement over time and a sense of the possibilities of relationships.
Then, after months of working together, Mr. F. connects a skin tone, body type, and gesture of Ralph's with the corpse of the dream. When Mr. F. shifts gears and goes out of his way to avoid Ralph, the dream relationship gets more animated, and Mr. F. starts keeping a furtive eye on Ralph from afar.
When Ralph gets into a situation that brings him closer to Mr. F., the story moves to a climax and follow-up where the extent of Mr. F.'s obsession is revealed.
The author does a fine job of bringing his characters to life. Ralph and the other workers at the furrier are quite vivid. There is a fun interlude involving the making of a fur coat for someone's mistress. Mr. F. tries not to be vivid or fun, but the author keeps Mr. F. having to react to changes of routine.
The omniscient narrator comes up with a misleading one paragraph summary of Mr. F.'s plight: "Mr. F., you see, is realizing that he has never lived in the present tense before." (Page 274 of the paperback) Mr. F. could comfortably say, "I go to work every weekday", "This is how one cuts fur", and "This is how we interact." These statements are all in the present tense. What Mr. F. has trouble saying is, "I am going to work today", "I am working on my methods", "I am feeling". Mr. F.'s vinyl record is destined never to change, grow, improve, or feel. It is always and only in the timeless present. If there is too much pressure on a record, it breaks. Then one could go out and get a new one.
Mr. F. is a sad, limited man put under pressures he can't understand. "Skin Lane" is a good book to read.Skin Lane Overview

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