Novel Architecture
It’s easy to find a novel, film or drama where the main character is an architect. It’s one of the classic literary choices of profession that suggests something glamorous and high-flying, even though those who practise know it can be anything but. However, within those stories, whatever their form, it’s rare to find the fact that the protagonist is an architect relevant to the plot.
In The Cairo Pulse, my main character, Gabriel Meredith’s architectural thinking is central to the story on many levels. Gabriel Meredith couldn’t have been anything else.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time with architects, which gave me the confidence to feel I was writing with authenticity about them – a view shared by one of my reviewers, obviously in the profession, who said it was the most authentic account of an architect’s life they’d ever read. My husband is an architect and although he hasn’t practised for a while, the cylinders are all still firing. An architect, like anything that takes long, hard training, is something you never stop being. I’ve made many observations over time, such as the things that infuriate, which can vary from one architect to another. In my husband’s case, poor weathering on buildings never passes without comment. Buildings out of place in the landscape are likely to provoke a lengthy rant. A friend of ours, somewhat puritanical in his architectural viewpoint, seems to despise decoration altogether. Older architects mourn the loss of the drawing board and would give much for a day spent back at what to them, is almost an altar. Many younger ones often treat the current trend as another kind of religion, because when you’re young, you don’t necessarily realise that what seems like the holy grail is merely fashion. The long list of snippets I’ve collected underpin the narrative of my novel.
Architects are important, they know what they’re doing. Choose a cheaper, less skilled alternative at your peril. I’ve generally found them to be a decent bunch, if a little arrogant and unwilling to accept the realities of doing business in the modern age. But the thing is, they really care about their craft; they’re infused by it. I see my husband’s eyes as we enter a space. They dart back and forth, unconsciously taking in every measurement, angle and nuance. Renovations to our cottage involve nit-picking on a scale that other mortals would find hard to imagine. It’s hard wired. End of. Just like Gabriel Meredith, whose architectural brain is the vehicle, metaphor and ultimately, the only hope.