One Hand Clapping is a novel by Anthony Burgess on the estrangement in the couple. It narrates how a social and intellectual outlier—Howard—yet an affectionate and committed husband, by focusing too much on providing for his wife an achieving a certain standard of success, ends up alienating her in finding solace and happiness in an extra-marital relationship instead.
The novel is violent, because the fall of the woman is as sudden, unexpected and irresistible as those things would happen in real life; in the course of a couple of pages, it all goes to a long development of the couple's life together, of their social ascension, of their carrying on the orbit of their destiny, into a sudden betrayal, a rapture of the woman who jumps into a sexual fling with a dirty, drunk "poet" who Howard has been supporting financially, and tolerating in his house. As Howards goes to take a shower, the poet—Redvers—in the guest room he's been given for the night, invites her: «'In', he sort of panted, 'get into bed, just for a minute.'» Her reply:
There wasn't time, and I told him so.
The novel is written from the point of view of the woman—Janet—and it becomes particularly painful in the intimate way in which she describes her husband, loving and loved, attractive, exceptionally smart (he has a photographic memory which, for the sake of the novel, is escalated to freak proportions) and succesful in bringing financial stability first, and then abundance, to the couple, but, all these qualities that accompanied her over decades, are suddenly contrasted to the appeal, the thrill and the excitement of the new lover, who desires her, who loves her with both envy but also attention. The newcomer completely shadows her feelings. While she expresses doubt, uncertainty, confusion and even guilt personally, in her interactions with her lover, she displays an immediate and obvious surrender, making this portrait of women particularly accurate and devastating.
I started reading this novel c. 2022 but I got so shocked by the breaking point where their life suddenly tips from some Rebecca atmosphere of thriving and happy coexistence, into this most vile and painful betrayal, that I found it hard to carry on after the pages that are, precisely, the most interesting, as this is when the novel acquires its dramatic dimension. The lovers plan their retreat in an hotel, where "there will be time". Chapter 15. That's where I couldn't read further, I was too affected by the story to keep it going. I left it at the conclusion of Chapter 14 «'I'll be at the Swinging Whatsit,' he whispered. 'I don't know what room, I've forgotten. Ask for me at the desk, ask for me.' And, like a fool from some points of view, I said yes.» I didn't want to know what would happen in this hotel. I was, then, with my wife, precisely at this stage, unknowingly, like Howard, where I was focusing on making things work, stabilize, concretize our careers and future. I suppose it was the least moment in my life where I wanted to read such material, although it was probably the most important one where I should have reflected on the more universal issues at stake, behind the more pleasant description of how social and intellectual outliers sometimes build something and achieve their goals, petty goals that miss grander ones that get to be fulfilled under their nose.
In April (2026), years later, on my way to PLMCN26, I read the novel anew. From start. I had this unpleasant feeling of reading something again which I didn't read fully, but Burgess is a fantastic story teller, so it was okay to go through all the déjà-vu. I then arrived again at this point where the poet seizes the wife of his benefactor, steals her for him, makes her his associate in their crime, adding to the sin of the adultery the infamy of the conjuration and the inequity of their cooperation. I went through her abandonment, the bliss of her rapture, I read Chapter 15.
I found it oddly relatable. Like me, Howard was focused on things which mattered to him as part of getting their couple somewhere, as opposed to, for his and my wife, a more practical, less rational but wiser, more natural too, more genuine certainly, need for normality, . A theme of the novel is that money does not bring happiness. The couple was happy in their dénument, then they became wealthy, and there started their real misery, that of their feelings: the "need" more than the "urge" to travel to fancy locations, to get the best of the best, only to find that all that is good cannot be bought anyway: time in front the TV, picking up each other after work, going together through the crises of life...
The title of the novel—one-hand clapping—refers to the broken marriage, to divorce, how things meant to work in pair carry on after they get dismembered.
I have my own reading of the novel, namely, that Janet is crazy, and that she is the main reason for their downfall, the real culprit. While Howard was indeed—as I sure was—omnibulated by details, too concerned on material asides, on success, on optimization, etc., he was still acting in good faith, with love and enough care, although not the passion that Janet found in the first poet crashing around. Howard was aiming at bringing their couple forward while Janet was concerned in feeling herself be transported upward. With or without Howard. And there comes my own understanding of the novel: Janet killed Howard on purpose. She felt too guilty of smashing their couple to attend her own needs, that she rationalized a scenario where she is the victim, where Howard is the one who wants to kill her, and thus, to defend herself, she has to kill him first. Remember that she narrates the story. It is not anecdotal that when it comes to the passage where she relates the murdering of Howard, she starts:
I should be careful to remember well
The story there stops making sense: the poet suddenly realizes a murder is planned (in reality she lures him as a tool of her execution and flees with him), Howard's special traits of introversion and social awkwardness become conveniently signs of demency and of someone suddenly dangerous, and by her own account, people harbour suspicion as to what she really did (so it's not only me, the reader, it's also the other characters, the rest of the world too... Howard not being present anymore).
I found this striking because this, too, was extremely relatable. When a woman decides to break a relationship, she can damage her mental health first and foremost as the result of the injustice, cruelty and sheer destruction of the other that this entails, leading her to a rage and hate that, in the novel, escalates to a murder. Of which, of course, she accuses the one who actually gets murdered. The victim gets accused to be the boureau.
I found myself—an INTJ who has always been socially awkward, reserved, focused on facts and practicality, assuming love being given and received without demands or needs of constant reassurance—suddenly be described as a monster with no feelings, someone driven by destruction and a desire to hurt, an autistic perverse, a sadist, with no concern for his daughters, exercising a toxic and damageable influence, inspiring fear and provoking medical conditions, stress, etc.