Paul Darius

Ordinary thunderstorms

The novel “ordinary thunderstorms” written by William Boyd was published in Great Britain in 2009 by Bloomsbury Publishing. The book deals with the loss of personality and the life in different social classes in the 21^th century.

The story is about the middle class climatologist Adam Kindred, who moves to London to become a professor. After meeting the pharmaceutical scientist Philip Wang in a restaurant, who forgets his documents there, Adam tries to hand them back. When he arrives, he finds him murdered with a knife. In a reflex, he pulls it out and leaves his fingerprints. After that he is wrongly suspected of murdering Philip Wang.

Adam decides to not go public and try to show his innocence, but instead to hide from the police. This probably is the most important decision in his life: Nothings stays like it is, he is going to loose everything. Adam first looses all his material belongings, such as mobile phone, credit card and passport. Most importantly he looses his personality. He cannot use his name anymore…

Later in the novel, he gets to now to various people of the very low part of the society, such as the prostitute Mhouse or the drug dealer Vladimir. Adam even becomes a beggar for some time.

Eventually he gets the possibility to get a new personality. He then begins to become part of the society again.

According to an interview, the reason why William Boyd wrote the book was a newspaper article mentioning the 50-60 dead bodies found in the Thames every year. Boyd thought about Charles Dickens, whose novel starts on the river with a dead body pulled out. Why not writing a book about it?

As we can see in the beginning of the first chapter, the river is a very important part of the book. “Let us start with the river - all things begin with the river and we shall probably end there, no doubt – but let’s wait and see how we go.” The river is an indicator of the time, which does not stop. You cannot press the rewind button to reverse things that you have done in the past.

Another important aspect of the novel is the different social classes the main character moves through. At the beginning he belongs to the middle class, is well earning person with a wife. After the alleged murder on Philip Wang he looses everything and becomes a member of the lowest social class. - He is worth nothing, he does not even have an identity any more. - He then tries to figure out the situation and tries to become part of the society again. He gets the possibility of taking another’s personality. In the end of the novel, he has got a job and a passport again. He also proves his innocence. At this point he gets back to what his life was before.

William Boyd has lived in London for more than 20 years. He always liked the cultural and social diversity of the megacity with all its different layers. In “ordinary thunderstorms” he wanted to reflect this diversity of the city.

He also wanted to show how it is like to loose everything in todays time and go into the underground:  “no cheques, no bills, no references, no mobile phones, only cash – nothing. That’s how you disappear in the twenty-first century”

He wants to state, that without these objects of the 21^th century one is an nobody.

In more than five books he already mentioned this topic.

William Boyd created very interesting characters. He tried to design them as real as possible. The reader could easily feel how the different characters think and act. He made that possible, by letting each of them speak in a very specific way. The level of education and the social status was shown very good by that technique.

William Boyd wanted to create a story, which is not fixed at any specific time. It is a contemporary novel, which could even take place in 20 or 30 years time.

I think William Boyd created a book, which is suitable for a big audience. The book provides the reader with enough background knowledge to understand the book easily. Also the topic is not too specific, so that the reader gets the general issue talked about.

However there are some disadvantages according to the novel. I think the story does not quit appear too realistic. If I was wrongly suspected of having killed somebody, I would not have tried to go underground. I would rather show my innocents.

The book “ordinary thunderstorms” is very well written and quit interesting to read. Apart of some negative aspects, I would recommend it to all people who are interested in London and the life in metropolises in general. William Boyd has made up a story, which presents London in all its atmosphere and diversity. Even though it is not realistic throughout, Boyd managed to create a book, which you do not want to stop to read. Every chapter is of another persons view and brings new aspects into the story.

I personally loved the book!