How Like a God

When you enter midlife, you must watch out that you do not get lost in the past. Past glories that may have been, lovers that were or could have been. There is a reason that some people drift into a crisis, seeing the grass could have been greener had they picked a different path. When you are going through this time of self-reflection, it may not be the best time to narrate your life story. How Like a God by Rex Stout is the story of a man going through a mid-life crisis, telling his own story, and carrying a gun up the stairs. 

Life did not work out as William Sydney wished, but then he always drifted through it. He finds himself trapped in a loveless marriage, in a job that he does not merit having, and with a lover who he cannot stand. We follow Bill as he slowly climbs up a set of stairs with a gun in his pocket. He reflects on his life, how he got to where he is and building up the courage to finally take control of his own destiny. 

Noir is a challenging genre in many ways and God lays them all out. The genre is often morally ambiguous and makes the central character antiheroes. The best noir novels make you love and hate the protagonist in equal measure, in the case of Bill, he is hard to love. This has been his issue throughout his life, and he tells you all about it. He comes across as a bit of a sad sack and not easy to sympathies with. This may be because I have a personal bugbear with people who let the distant past ruin their present. Bill spends too much time naval gazing and not fixing things. 

This is not the fault of the character; it is how Stout wrote him. Bill is meant to be someone who on the surface is blank, the people around him take advantage of his passive nature. However, as the book is narrated from Bills perspective, we see that he has had adventure in this life. 

Here lies another heavy noir moment. Bill has had affairs; one a near miss with a child, another a loveless and odd courting. This is strange as sandwiched between them is an affair with a Sunday school teacher. It is hard to understand what Bill is – gadabout or gormless? He is seemingly nothing and will be whatever the person around him wants.  

Classic noir is a product of its time in terms of content and style, and God proves tricky here as well. The relationship that Bill has with a child is unpleasant. It informs the story, but the initial lack of moral comeuppance feels wrong to a modern reader, however, this is Bill’s story, told by Bill. Here lies another struggle, Bill’s style. Stout has written Bill in second person; Bill is a failed author with ideas, the book was written in the late 1920s. You are now reading a second person novel, using florid language, with views that are abhorrent to a modern audience. 

List all the complexities in reading God and it will prove too much for many modern readers, especially if they are not noir fans. However, there is still a book to enjoy. After 50 pages the style began to click. It is a different type of book than most people will read, the old-fashioned attitudes and language play into this feel. It has a noir Gatsby, Catcher, feel to it. You are not meant to like Bill, or even judge him. He is just a flawed man, going through his flawed life, carrying a gun up the stairs. Read the book as a character study and let Bill’s soul sort itself out.