Mountain Devil

Recommend: No

Every year we see Cameron James perform the art of stand up comedy at the sacred arts precinct that is the Entertainment Quarter Moore Park. Every year he tells the same joke that threads the tragedy 9/11 around an experience he once had of mild whiplash. The first time we saw the joke, the man was a comedy legend. The second time, we felt ripped off. Hadn’t we already paid to see this before? The third time, pity: ah, it’s Cam James’ 9/11 gag, poor guy hasn’t come up with anything better.

Comedians are artists but it’s an art form I don’t believe benefits from a close inspection. What feels sparkling and vibrant and funny on the night can look crass and cheap under a closer eye. A favourite song can be played forever on repeat. A treasured painting can be looked at from every angle and its mystery still not untangled. But a good comedic set-up is better left alone.

The Material by Camille Bordas tries to hold up comedy under a microscope, hoping to find… What? It was never clear.

The book is set at a university that offers standup comedy as a degree. A difficult pill for me to swallow. It’s still stuck in my throat. I don’t think such a degree exists, so Bordas is asking us to suspend reality. Though it’s such a mundane ask of the reader, to believe in a made-up university degree. That’s some low stakes imagination.

Bordas’ characters – the students and teachers – have extremely detailed inner thoughts about comedy. There’s no escape. When these thoughts are not being laid out in interminable inner monologues for the reader, they are weighing down painfully explicit reams of dialogue between the characters.

There is no main character in The Material. Bordas didn’t care enough about any one of her ensemble cast to choose them as her focus. Instead, it’s the premise of comedy that is the star of the story, despite its lackluster shine. This was a real disappointment after Bordas won me over with her charming characters in her debut, How To Behave In A Crowd. 

There is a structural issue with The Material. It’s a book about comedy that is not funny.

What’s left then is essentially a book about story telling. Nominally it’s about the construction of a story that is funny but given there are no laughs to be had in the 340 pages, it’s really just left trying to isolate what makes a story compelling. An elaborate ruse. What we’ve bought into is not really that much more elevated in premise than the most despised cliche: writers writing about writers.

Still, I didn’t dislike The Material. Bordas does have a keen eye for middle class society. Every pop culture reference was fantastic. One of the comedy students asks a junior what his favourite portrayal of law is in the media, and he answers The Good Wife. There’s also some well placed photos, enlivening character’s thoughts.

And Bordas has such a nice way with a sentence. She’s French. So she writes well.

My issue with The Material was not the writing but, well, literally the material. It’s a bad premise. Doomed. Who could care for students studying comedy at uni? They are spending their time and money on an experience they could get for free at an open mic. After they graduate I presume they end up at the open mic anyway. Could there be a less necessary degree? All the while we’re forced to listen to each side character opine on the nuances of their ‘work’. A not very relatable character going into not very interesting discourse about a not very funny joke means that you end up with a not very worthwhile book. And that’s even before touching a whole subplot about the famous guest lecturer who is fending off the lamest sexual assault case ever.

I am committed to Bordas as an author, though when she looked at the notes on her phone labelled ‘Material’ she should have turned the device off and had another glass of wine.