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The Adversary
‘I was an agent of Dan, a captive of his, really. I went where he wanted me, and did as he wanted, and for a long time, in this way, I was happy.’
It’s been a long winter in a creaky house in Brunswick, where a young man has devoted himself to recreational showers, staring at his phone, and speculating on the activities of his best friend and housemate, Dan. But now summer is coming, and Dan has found a boyfriend and a job, so the young man is being pushed out into the world, in search of friendship and love.
The Adversary is a sticky summer novel about young people exploring their sexuality and their sociability, where everything smells like sunscreen and tastes like beer, but affections and alliances have consequences. It asks what kinds of stories are possible – or desirable – for which kinds of friendships, and what happens when you follow those stories to their natural conclusions.
It’s been a long winter in a creaky house in Brunswick, where a young man has devoted himself to recreational showers, staring at his phone, and speculating on the activities of his best friend and housemate, Dan. But now summer is coming, and Dan has found a boyfriend and a job, so the young man is being pushed out into the world, in search of friendship and love.
The Adversary is a sticky summer novel about young people exploring their sexuality and their sociability, where everything smells like sunscreen and tastes like beer, but affections and alliances have consequences. It asks what kinds of stories are possible – or desirable – for which kinds of friendships, and what happens when you follow those stories to their natural conclusions.
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2020
23 people are currently reading
1034 people want to read
About the author
Ronnie Scott
21 books42 followersRonnie Scott writes essays and criticism for newspapers, websites and magazines. In 2007 he founded The Lifted Brow, an independent literary magazine. He's a Lecturer in the Writing and Publishing discipline at RMIT University. The Adversary is his first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 143 reviews
July 31, 2024
Honestly, if Ronnie Scott wrote it.... I don't fucking want it.💅
I have read toe-curling smut that didn't intellectually poison me as much as this book did.
Here have an excerpt I copied for you.
He said "thank you for coming out"
He said "I'm sorry we want to go"
"whatever" I said "where are you even going?"
"nowhere. somewhere personal" I started at him. he shrugged.
"see ya" dan said
"See ya" I said
"see ya" said lachlan.
I NEED SOMEONE WHO OWNS THIS BOOK ON KINDLE TO TELL ME HOW MANY TIMES HE USES THE WORD "SAID" IN THIS WHOLE BOOK because HOLY FUCK IT'S ALOT.
In 2 minutes of audio, the word said was used 18 times.
HOW IS THIS AUTHOR A "CREATIVE WRITER?!"
Creatively... writing the word "said" on repeat. fuck awwwwwwwffff.
Someone buy this man a fucking thesaurus please.
IF YOU'VE NEVER HAD SCABIES, and think "hey I wonder what scratching me own skin off would feel like".. give The Adversary a try.. BECAUSE THIS BOOKS DIALOGUE BETWEEN CHARACTERS WILL MAKE YOUR SKIN ITCH.
Here is another wonderful example of writing. (context: barely any, the MC does not know this "chris", he's a friend of a friend, and the MC is walking up to chris in a night club)
Chris reached under his shawl, and withdrew two bottles of screw-topped beer. The bottles had been against his body, which was not my favorite thing, but I watched him unscrew the bottles and accepted one anyway, thinking about the possibility of sweat and skin flakes.
I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS????
Why is this man wearing a shawl in a queer nightclub?
Why does the mans have warm beers on his body?
and against his body how??
Are they in his armpits???
Also... what is this fucking inner monologue about skin flakes???
WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?
Shout out to homie, Brett, who left a review for this book in 2020 that says "Sadly the best thing about this book was the size of the font and the generous line spacing - it was a mercifully quick read." because BRETT WAS TOO FUCKING REAL FOR THAT STATEMENT 🤣🤣🤣
I have read toe-curling smut that didn't intellectually poison me as much as this book did.
Here have an excerpt I copied for you.
He said "thank you for coming out"
He said "I'm sorry we want to go"
"whatever" I said "where are you even going?"
"nowhere. somewhere personal" I started at him. he shrugged.
"see ya" dan said
"See ya" I said
"see ya" said lachlan.
I NEED SOMEONE WHO OWNS THIS BOOK ON KINDLE TO TELL ME HOW MANY TIMES HE USES THE WORD "SAID" IN THIS WHOLE BOOK because HOLY FUCK IT'S ALOT.
In 2 minutes of audio, the word said was used 18 times.
HOW IS THIS AUTHOR A "CREATIVE WRITER?!"
Creatively... writing the word "said" on repeat. fuck awwwwwwwffff.
Someone buy this man a fucking thesaurus please.
IF YOU'VE NEVER HAD SCABIES, and think "hey I wonder what scratching me own skin off would feel like".. give The Adversary a try.. BECAUSE THIS BOOKS DIALOGUE BETWEEN CHARACTERS WILL MAKE YOUR SKIN ITCH.
Here is another wonderful example of writing. (context: barely any, the MC does not know this "chris", he's a friend of a friend, and the MC is walking up to chris in a night club)
Chris reached under his shawl, and withdrew two bottles of screw-topped beer. The bottles had been against his body, which was not my favorite thing, but I watched him unscrew the bottles and accepted one anyway, thinking about the possibility of sweat and skin flakes.
I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS????
Why is this man wearing a shawl in a queer nightclub?
Why does the mans have warm beers on his body?
and against his body how??
Are they in his armpits???
Also... what is this fucking inner monologue about skin flakes???
WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?
Shout out to homie, Brett, who left a review for this book in 2020 that says "Sadly the best thing about this book was the size of the font and the generous line spacing - it was a mercifully quick read." because BRETT WAS TOO FUCKING REAL FOR THAT STATEMENT 🤣🤣🤣
March 30, 2022
This just didn't work for me at all. It is praised on the cover by some of my contemporary faves, including Benjamin Law, Christos Tsiolkas and Emily Bitto. Many professional reviews indicate Scott is well known in the Melbourne literary scene and for that reason reviewers have been awaiting his first novel. But... it didn't hit the target in this household. Interestingly, what the writers above credit most is what most disappointed me: the "honesty". Honesty is great but extreme verisimilitude in writing is something else altogether.
The Adversary is set over one summer in the inner north of Melbourne where a twentysomething gay man with a university degree in literature avoids his feelings and flits between a number of insubstantial romantic possibilities. Like the heroine in Rebecca, the narrator has no name. His tendency to quote low-grade literary references such as Du Maurier in his Grindr profile (only to realise that he doesn't like any of the types who respond to such references) was about the only thing with which I felt I could relate, despite also being a gay man with a university degree in literature living in Melbourne and until recently a twentysomething. Strange, ain't it, how we can be so painfully different to those inhabiting our social group?
Ultra-naturalism is a time-honoured tradition in Australian literature. From Criena Rohan to Tim Winton, it has a storied history, and that is the vein in which Scott pitches his novel. Characters casually check out what TV series is playing on Stan, they disable internet pop-ups, exchange slang without translation (explicit or implicit) for non-local readers, and speak in a strange ironic tone that often left this reader baffled. (The narrator at one point muses to his housemate what their suburb will look like in a "billion years": "it might look exactly the same or completely different", he says, "[a]nd those are just the two most extreme possibilities".)
I expect this novel will have power for readers who are well-versed in the culture it depicts. Its world is that of a particular type of young gay man: not hugely into "the scene", nor especially hipster, but inner-city and just sort of "there". They aren't always at the latest events - perhaps they even seem self-consciously old fashioned - but exhibit an unblinking eye for drama and mystery where, sometimes, regular human interaction would serve just as well. They inhabit a type of social existence in which picking a hobby or showing enthusiasm for any sort of interest are shunned in favour of days by the pool, dinner parties, and checking hook-up apps numerous times a day even when one has no intention of hooking up. Never be too passionate or eager. Never give too much of yourself away. Reject social norms when it suits you (it's still amusing to make an "adult salad" for dinner) but retain all of the privilege that comes from being solidly middle-class and urban. I've met these people but have never felt welcomed into their world, so perhaps the translation issues are partly due to my inexperience. Scott is neither criticising nor extolling the virtues of this type of shallow existence; he is merely a chronicler of the current moment, of a snapshot in time that will only be relevant for how it progressed the maturity of one young man, largely through what he didn't see rather than what he did.
So this is a novel with what I call a "retrospective why", in which we embark on a seemingly aimless journey, find ourselves flabbergasted by the lack of a point, and then reach the understanding in the final few pages - like the unnamed narrator - of where life has been directing us. In that sense, those last moments carry a neat burst of pathos, and I appreciated that. Still, while it's clear Scott is deliberately robbing the narrator of any personality - perhaps so as to indicate the young man's lack of understanding or introspection - it's a great shame that he felt the need to leave the other characters equally bereft of substance. Why are their conversations so tongue-scrapingly vapid? Why does everyone refer to one of the characters "Chris L." when there is no other Chris with which to compare him? Especially as characters from different areas of his life all seem to do so, implying no mutual second Chris could possibly exist? Why does Richmond Man continue to message and visit our narrator even though all of their meetings seem to last mere minutes and end disappointingly? Why do conversations escalate from monotony to drama and then abruptly end, or vice versa? And why does everyone care about towels so much?
I must be the one at fault here for my lack of comprehension. I don't mean to impugn Scott's talent as a writer. His dialogue is no doubt eerily specific to people whom he has met, but without understanding the the characters uttering it I was left flailing as I tried to grasp at the flow of conversations. Perhaps they are more universal archetypes than I thought, but one wonders if some explanation of this world may have helped the book reach readers outside of the immediate proximity of Collingwood. The emptiness of his exchanges is aimed at creating an ambience, but it felt oppressive rather than amusing. I appreciate that there are lacunae here which more perceptive readers of the Australian experience may be able to shade in. No doubt to readers in the know, every page ripples with recognition and nostalgia.
And that, for me, is the tragedy of The Adversary. To use a metaphor that the novel's narrator would appreciate, I felt I was a lonely soul living next door to a manic house party. I could feel the bass of the music through the walls and smell the smoke from the BBQ. I could almost taste the wafting scent of imported beer. My ears could just make out the sounds of joyous laughter and camaraderie, but without an invitation I couldn't sample the food or understand the jokes. Desperate and dateless, I wish I could have shared in those feelings too.
The Adversary is set over one summer in the inner north of Melbourne where a twentysomething gay man with a university degree in literature avoids his feelings and flits between a number of insubstantial romantic possibilities. Like the heroine in Rebecca, the narrator has no name. His tendency to quote low-grade literary references such as Du Maurier in his Grindr profile (only to realise that he doesn't like any of the types who respond to such references) was about the only thing with which I felt I could relate, despite also being a gay man with a university degree in literature living in Melbourne and until recently a twentysomething. Strange, ain't it, how we can be so painfully different to those inhabiting our social group?
Ultra-naturalism is a time-honoured tradition in Australian literature. From Criena Rohan to Tim Winton, it has a storied history, and that is the vein in which Scott pitches his novel. Characters casually check out what TV series is playing on Stan, they disable internet pop-ups, exchange slang without translation (explicit or implicit) for non-local readers, and speak in a strange ironic tone that often left this reader baffled. (The narrator at one point muses to his housemate what their suburb will look like in a "billion years": "it might look exactly the same or completely different", he says, "[a]nd those are just the two most extreme possibilities".)
I expect this novel will have power for readers who are well-versed in the culture it depicts. Its world is that of a particular type of young gay man: not hugely into "the scene", nor especially hipster, but inner-city and just sort of "there". They aren't always at the latest events - perhaps they even seem self-consciously old fashioned - but exhibit an unblinking eye for drama and mystery where, sometimes, regular human interaction would serve just as well. They inhabit a type of social existence in which picking a hobby or showing enthusiasm for any sort of interest are shunned in favour of days by the pool, dinner parties, and checking hook-up apps numerous times a day even when one has no intention of hooking up. Never be too passionate or eager. Never give too much of yourself away. Reject social norms when it suits you (it's still amusing to make an "adult salad" for dinner) but retain all of the privilege that comes from being solidly middle-class and urban. I've met these people but have never felt welcomed into their world, so perhaps the translation issues are partly due to my inexperience. Scott is neither criticising nor extolling the virtues of this type of shallow existence; he is merely a chronicler of the current moment, of a snapshot in time that will only be relevant for how it progressed the maturity of one young man, largely through what he didn't see rather than what he did.
So this is a novel with what I call a "retrospective why", in which we embark on a seemingly aimless journey, find ourselves flabbergasted by the lack of a point, and then reach the understanding in the final few pages - like the unnamed narrator - of where life has been directing us. In that sense, those last moments carry a neat burst of pathos, and I appreciated that. Still, while it's clear Scott is deliberately robbing the narrator of any personality - perhaps so as to indicate the young man's lack of understanding or introspection - it's a great shame that he felt the need to leave the other characters equally bereft of substance. Why are their conversations so tongue-scrapingly vapid? Why does everyone refer to one of the characters "Chris L." when there is no other Chris with which to compare him? Especially as characters from different areas of his life all seem to do so, implying no mutual second Chris could possibly exist? Why does Richmond Man continue to message and visit our narrator even though all of their meetings seem to last mere minutes and end disappointingly? Why do conversations escalate from monotony to drama and then abruptly end, or vice versa? And why does everyone care about towels so much?
I must be the one at fault here for my lack of comprehension. I don't mean to impugn Scott's talent as a writer. His dialogue is no doubt eerily specific to people whom he has met, but without understanding the the characters uttering it I was left flailing as I tried to grasp at the flow of conversations. Perhaps they are more universal archetypes than I thought, but one wonders if some explanation of this world may have helped the book reach readers outside of the immediate proximity of Collingwood. The emptiness of his exchanges is aimed at creating an ambience, but it felt oppressive rather than amusing. I appreciate that there are lacunae here which more perceptive readers of the Australian experience may be able to shade in. No doubt to readers in the know, every page ripples with recognition and nostalgia.
And that, for me, is the tragedy of The Adversary. To use a metaphor that the novel's narrator would appreciate, I felt I was a lonely soul living next door to a manic house party. I could feel the bass of the music through the walls and smell the smoke from the BBQ. I could almost taste the wafting scent of imported beer. My ears could just make out the sounds of joyous laughter and camaraderie, but without an invitation I couldn't sample the food or understand the jokes. Desperate and dateless, I wish I could have shared in those feelings too.
January 19, 2020
Over the course of a hot summer an idle young man is encouraged to stop repeatedly showering, internet stalking and vegemite on toast eating (smeared thinly of course) and actually leave the house. This book looks at the moments he does exactly that.
I travelled 100 kilometres on public transport while reading this and there was something about the motion of being on a train that made me very aware of the rhythm and cadence of Scott’s writing. This book has a very specific rhythm and cadence (and there’s so much to love in specificity) and not one I’ve encountered or if I have I can’t quite put my finger on it. I also keenly appreciated the insights this offered to some of the anxieties, existential angst and neuroses within the gay community.
I travelled 100 kilometres on public transport while reading this and there was something about the motion of being on a train that made me very aware of the rhythm and cadence of Scott’s writing. This book has a very specific rhythm and cadence (and there’s so much to love in specificity) and not one I’ve encountered or if I have I can’t quite put my finger on it. I also keenly appreciated the insights this offered to some of the anxieties, existential angst and neuroses within the gay community.
June 2, 2020
This is beautifully written, funny and engaging - I had a great time reading it. Scott leaves lots of things unsaid and the use of language is deft and unusual. It beautifully captures the feeling of an aimless student summer in Melbourne, exciting friendships and the confusion of youth. Be warned though: nothing really happens in this book, so don't expect dramatic plot twists.
August 21, 2020
Sadly the best thing about this book was the size of the font and the generous line spacing - it was a mercifully quick read.
The story is told by a young, unnamed first person protagonist who knows a lot of big words but doesn’t necessarily know how to use them in a sentence. The result is pretentious rather than stylish, with innumerable passages of meaningless waffle.e
For some reason our protagonist has a crippling lack of social and interpersonal skills, and the emotional maturity of a gnat. There’s also no flesh on the bones of the other characters in the book, so it’s quite difficult to care about anything that is happening to them (much less understand what is going on).
By the end of the novel I’m still not clear who the ‘adversary’ is, and I am completely stumped by the various tributes on the cover: elegant, funny, moving, sexy, instant classic. Oh please. This novel is the polar opposite. It feels like a first year uni writing exercise gone wrong.
I’m all for supporting new gay lit in Australia, but the The Adversary is the sort of throwaway nonsense that give this genre a bad name.
The story is told by a young, unnamed first person protagonist who knows a lot of big words but doesn’t necessarily know how to use them in a sentence. The result is pretentious rather than stylish, with innumerable passages of meaningless waffle.e
For some reason our protagonist has a crippling lack of social and interpersonal skills, and the emotional maturity of a gnat. There’s also no flesh on the bones of the other characters in the book, so it’s quite difficult to care about anything that is happening to them (much less understand what is going on).
By the end of the novel I’m still not clear who the ‘adversary’ is, and I am completely stumped by the various tributes on the cover: elegant, funny, moving, sexy, instant classic. Oh please. This novel is the polar opposite. It feels like a first year uni writing exercise gone wrong.
I’m all for supporting new gay lit in Australia, but the The Adversary is the sort of throwaway nonsense that give this genre a bad name.
April 30, 2020
A friend told me they assumed this was the male equivalent of Cherry Beach and it basically is. Not much at all happens in this novel, but it is eloquent and gripping and moving in its depiction of inner city Melbourne ennui, and the complexities of gay male friendship and relationships. Scott’s spare writing style leaves so much room for interpretation, which makes this an intriguing and addictive read.
April 2, 2020
What a treasure this is.
The Adversary by the perhaps too handsome Ronnie Scott.
So eloquent. So moving. So - and here’s the rare and best part - genuinely funny.
That sparkling lost summer.
xx
The Adversary by the perhaps too handsome Ronnie Scott.
So eloquent. So moving. So - and here’s the rare and best part - genuinely funny.
That sparkling lost summer.
xx
June 2, 2020
The Adversary takes place over a sticky Melbourne summer when schools are on break and there is nothing to do but wait for the cool change and blame bad decisions on heatstroke.
In a townhouse just off Lygon street a young man’s routine of cold showers and cheap wine is intercepted by his concerned roommate who urges him to do something, anything, this summer.⠀
⠀
This is an eloquent and gripping exploration of inner-city restlessness, the complexities of queer friendships and the looming expiration of acceptable young adult nonchalance. ⠀
⠀
Witty, genuine, and incredibly relatable I enjoyed this immensely and devoured it over two sweltering summer days last December and have since thought about often - I cannot wait to read more from this author.
(thanks penguin for the proof copy!)
In a townhouse just off Lygon street a young man’s routine of cold showers and cheap wine is intercepted by his concerned roommate who urges him to do something, anything, this summer.⠀
⠀
This is an eloquent and gripping exploration of inner-city restlessness, the complexities of queer friendships and the looming expiration of acceptable young adult nonchalance. ⠀
⠀
Witty, genuine, and incredibly relatable I enjoyed this immensely and devoured it over two sweltering summer days last December and have since thought about often - I cannot wait to read more from this author.
(thanks penguin for the proof copy!)
May 14, 2020
The Adversary is very interior, in a way which recalled for me both Call Me By Your Name and Cherry Beach, but less poignant than either. I enjoy books with few characters and although these ones are all pretty unlikeable, they feel true to life. The first section of the book is the strongest, accurately capturing the mood of a languid, unemployed summer in the inner north. Some will love the many references to IRL venues or shops but for me, it was maybe too much: you can describe the Retreat without naming it and everyone who knows the pub will still recognize it, while keeping a bit of mystery. Throughout the book there are some beautiful phrases and imagery, but also lines which feel like they’re trying too hard. Despite this, we were on track for a 4 star rating, but the third section felt too messy and weird, and the ending too obvious - so 3 stars it is.
August 21, 2020
The cover caught my eye at the bookshop, I picked it up, read the blurb and I was excited to read it. A great example that I shouldn't judge a book by its cover because I did not enjoy reading it at all. It was boring, there was no real plot, the characters were all awful. I cringed through most of it. I probably should have abandoned this one but it was short and I'm stubborn.
As a gay guy in his 20s living in Brunswick myself, I recognised very little of the world in this book - perhaps that's why I disliked it so much. It felt a bit like a cliquey, pretentious in joke I wasn't in on, and not one I wanted to be in on.
As a gay guy in his 20s living in Brunswick myself, I recognised very little of the world in this book - perhaps that's why I disliked it so much. It felt a bit like a cliquey, pretentious in joke I wasn't in on, and not one I wanted to be in on.
May 18, 2020
Read this in basically one sitting. A fantastic insightful read that paints some of the most wonderful Melbournian moments. Loved it!
June 5, 2020
I loved how realistic this book is. The writer’s style is engaging and very well crafted. The story is very basic -in the best possible way- that it’s easy to relate to it. I think Scott portraits the Melbournian gay lifestyle of the people in their 20s in a very accurate and fun way. Yes, there’s not much going in on in the plot, but I think that’s the beauty of this story because: it reflects the normal life.
October 18, 2024
Finished in Brunswick. Someone recommended this to me because it takes place on the same street on which I live. In an ideal world, I would have read this in one or two sittings stretched out in Princes Park. Unfortunately, despite efforts, this dream was not realised at all. Yet it was still pleasant reading. Perhaps someone living in Ontario or Boston would be bored, but I was not (or only a little). The gently humorous antics, the spacey, Ellis-esque dialogue, the tired yet prescient themes of twenties-aimlessness, the onslaught of spring, a scene set in the Retreat, all tided this book from something that might otherwise be a hollow & forgettable experience to a generally nice time, a solid 3.5.
January 22, 2022
3.5/5 stars
From memory (it was about a year ago) I bought Ronnie Scott's The Adversary because I thought it would be an angsty-young-people-interpersonal-relationships vibes-novel that would reward an ecocritical reading. And I think I was right! Not entirely in the ways I might have expected, but I think that that summary, though necessarily reductive for trying to be so short-and-snappy, is generally accurate. The novel follows our unnamed first-person narrator, a university student living in Melbourne, over the course of one summer. (Incidentally, because this has been somewhat haunting me, I'm pretty sure that the narrator and I started uni in the same semester, which means that he is almost certainly *younger than me* for the duration of the events of this novel. I guess this was always going to happen if I kept reading novels about university students, seeing as no one has (as yet) been able to stop the continuing passage of time, but still! Anyway, the exercise about pinpointing this novel in real-world time that's probably more interesting to everyone else is that I'm also pretty sure that this novel is set during the 2019-2020 summer, after which as we all know there was definitely not any major unforeseen world event that fundamentally altered everyone's life in multiple massive ways, especially not in Melbourne.) Something I didn't expect, but a great added bonus, is that this novel is consistently funny. The narrator does not hold back from being pointed and it makes for a lot of sharp lines. That feels like a hallmark of one of these vibes-novels but actually I think this is probably the funniest book I've come across in this literary fiction subgenre.
Actually, that ramble up there about when exactly this novel is set is not so incidental. I also took a creative writing course last semester, one which focused specifically on environmental writing/writing place. There are parts of this novel that I could imagine being used as examples in lectures or seminars: The Adversary is a novel firmly grounded in Melbourne. I really appreciate this, even if I don't actually understand the significance of most (lol, being honest: any) of the references to real suburbs and streets. You read and watch so much shit produced in the US and UK which, though not seeming to make any meaningful or conscious effort to be about those places, is incontrovertibly from those places. Like how it's just a given that I'll know how the American (why is everything "school"? in other countries, tertiary education and "school" are mutually exclusive terms! Not that you'd know that if you only engaged with American media!) and British education systems work, or what the fuck 70 degrees Fahrenheit or 25 miles per hour means. I love the shoe being on the other foot. Like, how many other novels have I read that reference the Somerton Man not once but twice! (Probably none.)
So the novel rewards an ecocritical reading. As for the other aspect of my expectations, the vibes-novel about young people and their interpersonal relationships, yes, The Adversary is one of those. By "vibes-novel" I'm not entirely sure what I mean, but our narrator is unnamed and makes questionable decisions that sometimes have repercussions for others. I mean that there's a character called "Chris L" who is referred to as "Chris L" throughout the entire text, including in dialogue with and text messages to this character, and that there is no other Chris who is of any significance within the book. He's just called "Chris L" the whole time. It's the kind of thing that feels vaguely irreverent, and also just vague. It's the kind of thing I'd associate with Literary Fiction (capital L and F) moreso than with real life. I bring up this name not because it per se bothers me — it actually doesn't, I think this is a fun choice, it feels like the kind of thing I would see in the kind of books I often choose to read — but because I think it's a noticeable detail that maybe I can use as a synecdoche to segue here into talking about the "issue" I had with this novel which isn't really properly described as an "issue".
At our last book club meeting, I made my same stupid joke about how I don't read/can't read/hate reading, which at this point I may have told to every single person I've single person I've spoken to in the last year or so, because it's true that I have not read very many books for basically the entire time I've been at university — as Goodreads proves —in spite of the fact that I have been working towards a literal English degree. This time, someone, I forget who — because I was ill recently and was very much not recovered from that illness when we had the meeting and I spent two and a half hours word-vomiting about Emma Cline's Daddy (which beats actually vomiting by a very, very long shot, lol) — suggested that perhaps I was reading the wrong books. And, yeah, perhaps. A lot of what I've read has been for uni, so there wasn't any choice there, but I have been thinking as I've been reading The Adversary about this whole set of young-people-relationships vibes-novels (e.g. Sally Rooney's three books, Naoise Dolan's Exciting Times, this novel) and whether/what it is that I like about them. The answer is that I do like them. Conversations with Friends is still one of my favourite novels. I haven't actually disliked any of the five books I've just mentioned. I do generally enjoy reading these kinds of books. Often, though, they're fairly demanding — you only get a lot out of them if you put a lot in. Which is fine by me, because consistently for years every book I've loved has been one that has demanded effort on my part. The thing about Scott's The Adversary, though, is that sometimes I felt it was just too elliptical. I couldn't understand what I was actually meant to be taking from the sentences on the page. I not unoften felt that I couldn't understand how or why scenes were playing out the way they were; characters doing and saying things and seemed to come from nowhere. I felt kind of stupid sometimes when I was reading this book. I wouldn't expect to feel this way just because I don't have as much in common with the characters as I could (how tiresome a hobby reading would be if we could only ever read narratives that centred ourselves). I could try to blame the fact that I'm recovering from being sick, as aforementioned (see, there was a point to that tangent, lol), though that feels kind of flimsy. I don't really know what it is, but I felt not infrequently that The Adversary was just too much of a vibes-novel: that the narrator was too unreliable, that the characters' actions were too difficult to understand, that too much was being left to me as a reader. I think part of this is a product of a deliberate choice that Scott makes in his style of writing. Some unreliable narrators leave things out of the stories they tell you, perhaps because they, for one reason or another, are not able to face them directly. Though I read it like five years ago at this point, Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day comes to mind as an example of one of those narrators. (Again my memory is vague but I could see the case being made that The Great Gatsby's Nick Carraway is another example of this type.) There are other unreliable narrators who give you a version of events, which is put down on the page, but their authors give us reasons to doubt the veracity of that version: perhaps, instead of what is written, something else is true(r). Conversations with Friends is a book I'd put into this category: there is an episode in that novel where our narrator literally writes a short story based on real events but tells us that she adds something to her text that did happen, though just not to her. It's pretty obvious. (Again, disclaimer that I read that novel two whole years ago so that might be a bit of a fuzzy summary, but still.) I think that our unnamed narrator in The Adversary is a different kind of unreliable narrator; or more precisely, is unreliable in a different way. I felt that when reading this novel, the unreliability was arising not out of me being uncertain whether the words on the page were an accurate account of how things happened, but that I was uncertain about what the words on the page even meant in the first place. Like I wasn't even sure which signifieds these signifiers were meant to correspond to, let alone whether that correspondence was an accurate one. Instead of considering whether the truth might be some kind of deviation from the text on the page, I wasn't sure I was able to figure out a benchmark from the text on the page from which I could then consider whether some deviation from that might be the more truthful thing that the unreliable narrator was concealing. I'm not sure that I've articulated the difference clearly, but I am convinced that there is in fact a distinction here, that I have recognised a real difference and not merely invented one that doesn't exist. Whether I'm right in putting The Adversary into the category that I have is another question, but this is all basically just my feelings and impressions and the general idea of it that I got, I said basically this same thing aloud to myself as I was reading it and now I'm typing it up here and inflicting it on you (though by this point do I expect "you" to be an actual reader? Not really lol!), so don't take this seriously.
Anyway, the short of it is that I basically felt a distance from this novel not infrequently, that it was sometimes too elliptical for me to properly understand, and feeling like you're not understanding something, not capable of understanding something, is not particularly pleasant, no matter how much you believe in the value of reading texts that challenge you etc, etc. With that said, though, I have to say that it really took me by surprise that I felt — and pretty strongly, too — that it all does come together really well in the end. Not with a sense of finality, because that would be ridiculous because (though it's easy to forget, I think) these characters are just barely into their twenties, and life does not end at 22. But I was really struck by a sense of things coming together: things work out, or not, but life goes on, and as it goes on you change, a little, and get your shit together, a bit, and life goes on. I end the novel with an understanding that people continue to change and not and live their lives and even if it seems to just happen around you, shit does get gotten together, even if in a piecemeal way. Anyway all that sounds very vague and sappy which you might think is the exact thing I've criticised this book for and then also just overly sentimental, but actually I think the ending feels earned, even if I couldn't properly follow a lot of what happens in the lead up to it, perhaps only because the novel does end with .
On the whole this has left me with a good impression; I've given it 3.5 stars (for now at least; it'll be interesting to see what some time does to this experience, especially since, and this is an aberration, I've done the actual reading of this novel in less than a single week). Although that's definitely rounded down, even if it is only because for me, this just didn't work as much as I wanted it to. I just couldn't get a grasp on even what these characters were doing or why, in a way that felt less like it was the state I was meant to be in and more like something was just not clicking for me.
Finally, because I can't not mention this, Hamish Hamilton have done such an excellent job of publishing this book. I love the cover, but also the back cover, spine, and French flaps (the background image of a pool with its distorted lines feels perfect), and the typeface, and the blue/white/yellow colour scheme — it's all so great. I can't believe I love yellow so much.
From memory (it was about a year ago) I bought Ronnie Scott's The Adversary because I thought it would be an angsty-young-people-interpersonal-relationships vibes-novel that would reward an ecocritical reading. And I think I was right! Not entirely in the ways I might have expected, but I think that that summary, though necessarily reductive for trying to be so short-and-snappy, is generally accurate. The novel follows our unnamed first-person narrator, a university student living in Melbourne, over the course of one summer. (Incidentally, because this has been somewhat haunting me, I'm pretty sure that the narrator and I started uni in the same semester, which means that he is almost certainly *younger than me* for the duration of the events of this novel. I guess this was always going to happen if I kept reading novels about university students, seeing as no one has (as yet) been able to stop the continuing passage of time, but still! Anyway, the exercise about pinpointing this novel in real-world time that's probably more interesting to everyone else is that I'm also pretty sure that this novel is set during the 2019-2020 summer, after which as we all know there was definitely not any major unforeseen world event that fundamentally altered everyone's life in multiple massive ways, especially not in Melbourne.) Something I didn't expect, but a great added bonus, is that this novel is consistently funny. The narrator does not hold back from being pointed and it makes for a lot of sharp lines. That feels like a hallmark of one of these vibes-novels but actually I think this is probably the funniest book I've come across in this literary fiction subgenre.
Actually, that ramble up there about when exactly this novel is set is not so incidental. I also took a creative writing course last semester, one which focused specifically on environmental writing/writing place. There are parts of this novel that I could imagine being used as examples in lectures or seminars: The Adversary is a novel firmly grounded in Melbourne. I really appreciate this, even if I don't actually understand the significance of most (lol, being honest: any) of the references to real suburbs and streets. You read and watch so much shit produced in the US and UK which, though not seeming to make any meaningful or conscious effort to be about those places, is incontrovertibly from those places. Like how it's just a given that I'll know how the American (why is everything "school"? in other countries, tertiary education and "school" are mutually exclusive terms! Not that you'd know that if you only engaged with American media!) and British education systems work, or what the fuck 70 degrees Fahrenheit or 25 miles per hour means. I love the shoe being on the other foot. Like, how many other novels have I read that reference the Somerton Man not once but twice! (Probably none.)
So the novel rewards an ecocritical reading. As for the other aspect of my expectations, the vibes-novel about young people and their interpersonal relationships, yes, The Adversary is one of those. By "vibes-novel" I'm not entirely sure what I mean, but our narrator is unnamed and makes questionable decisions that sometimes have repercussions for others. I mean that there's a character called "Chris L" who is referred to as "Chris L" throughout the entire text, including in dialogue with and text messages to this character, and that there is no other Chris who is of any significance within the book. He's just called "Chris L" the whole time. It's the kind of thing that feels vaguely irreverent, and also just vague. It's the kind of thing I'd associate with Literary Fiction (capital L and F) moreso than with real life. I bring up this name not because it per se bothers me — it actually doesn't, I think this is a fun choice, it feels like the kind of thing I would see in the kind of books I often choose to read — but because I think it's a noticeable detail that maybe I can use as a synecdoche to segue here into talking about the "issue" I had with this novel which isn't really properly described as an "issue".
At our last book club meeting, I made my same stupid joke about how I don't read/can't read/hate reading, which at this point I may have told to every single person I've single person I've spoken to in the last year or so, because it's true that I have not read very many books for basically the entire time I've been at university — as Goodreads proves —in spite of the fact that I have been working towards a literal English degree. This time, someone, I forget who — because I was ill recently and was very much not recovered from that illness when we had the meeting and I spent two and a half hours word-vomiting about Emma Cline's Daddy (which beats actually vomiting by a very, very long shot, lol) — suggested that perhaps I was reading the wrong books. And, yeah, perhaps. A lot of what I've read has been for uni, so there wasn't any choice there, but I have been thinking as I've been reading The Adversary about this whole set of young-people-relationships vibes-novels (e.g. Sally Rooney's three books, Naoise Dolan's Exciting Times, this novel) and whether/what it is that I like about them. The answer is that I do like them. Conversations with Friends is still one of my favourite novels. I haven't actually disliked any of the five books I've just mentioned. I do generally enjoy reading these kinds of books. Often, though, they're fairly demanding — you only get a lot out of them if you put a lot in. Which is fine by me, because consistently for years every book I've loved has been one that has demanded effort on my part. The thing about Scott's The Adversary, though, is that sometimes I felt it was just too elliptical. I couldn't understand what I was actually meant to be taking from the sentences on the page. I not unoften felt that I couldn't understand how or why scenes were playing out the way they were; characters doing and saying things and seemed to come from nowhere. I felt kind of stupid sometimes when I was reading this book. I wouldn't expect to feel this way just because I don't have as much in common with the characters as I could (how tiresome a hobby reading would be if we could only ever read narratives that centred ourselves). I could try to blame the fact that I'm recovering from being sick, as aforementioned (see, there was a point to that tangent, lol), though that feels kind of flimsy. I don't really know what it is, but I felt not infrequently that The Adversary was just too much of a vibes-novel: that the narrator was too unreliable, that the characters' actions were too difficult to understand, that too much was being left to me as a reader. I think part of this is a product of a deliberate choice that Scott makes in his style of writing. Some unreliable narrators leave things out of the stories they tell you, perhaps because they, for one reason or another, are not able to face them directly. Though I read it like five years ago at this point, Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day comes to mind as an example of one of those narrators. (Again my memory is vague but I could see the case being made that The Great Gatsby's Nick Carraway is another example of this type.) There are other unreliable narrators who give you a version of events, which is put down on the page, but their authors give us reasons to doubt the veracity of that version: perhaps, instead of what is written, something else is true(r). Conversations with Friends is a book I'd put into this category: there is an episode in that novel where our narrator literally writes a short story based on real events but tells us that she adds something to her text that did happen, though just not to her. It's pretty obvious. (Again, disclaimer that I read that novel two whole years ago so that might be a bit of a fuzzy summary, but still.) I think that our unnamed narrator in The Adversary is a different kind of unreliable narrator; or more precisely, is unreliable in a different way. I felt that when reading this novel, the unreliability was arising not out of me being uncertain whether the words on the page were an accurate account of how things happened, but that I was uncertain about what the words on the page even meant in the first place. Like I wasn't even sure which signifieds these signifiers were meant to correspond to, let alone whether that correspondence was an accurate one. Instead of considering whether the truth might be some kind of deviation from the text on the page, I wasn't sure I was able to figure out a benchmark from the text on the page from which I could then consider whether some deviation from that might be the more truthful thing that the unreliable narrator was concealing. I'm not sure that I've articulated the difference clearly, but I am convinced that there is in fact a distinction here, that I have recognised a real difference and not merely invented one that doesn't exist. Whether I'm right in putting The Adversary into the category that I have is another question, but this is all basically just my feelings and impressions and the general idea of it that I got, I said basically this same thing aloud to myself as I was reading it and now I'm typing it up here and inflicting it on you (though by this point do I expect "you" to be an actual reader? Not really lol!), so don't take this seriously.
Anyway, the short of it is that I basically felt a distance from this novel not infrequently, that it was sometimes too elliptical for me to properly understand, and feeling like you're not understanding something, not capable of understanding something, is not particularly pleasant, no matter how much you believe in the value of reading texts that challenge you etc, etc. With that said, though, I have to say that it really took me by surprise that I felt — and pretty strongly, too — that it all does come together really well in the end. Not with a sense of finality, because that would be ridiculous because (though it's easy to forget, I think) these characters are just barely into their twenties, and life does not end at 22. But I was really struck by a sense of things coming together: things work out, or not, but life goes on, and as it goes on you change, a little, and get your shit together, a bit, and life goes on. I end the novel with an understanding that people continue to change and not and live their lives and even if it seems to just happen around you, shit does get gotten together, even if in a piecemeal way. Anyway all that sounds very vague and sappy which you might think is the exact thing I've criticised this book for and then also just overly sentimental, but actually I think the ending feels earned, even if I couldn't properly follow a lot of what happens in the lead up to it, perhaps only because the novel does end with .
On the whole this has left me with a good impression; I've given it 3.5 stars (for now at least; it'll be interesting to see what some time does to this experience, especially since, and this is an aberration, I've done the actual reading of this novel in less than a single week). Although that's definitely rounded down, even if it is only because for me, this just didn't work as much as I wanted it to. I just couldn't get a grasp on even what these characters were doing or why, in a way that felt less like it was the state I was meant to be in and more like something was just not clicking for me.
Finally, because I can't not mention this, Hamish Hamilton have done such an excellent job of publishing this book. I love the cover, but also the back cover, spine, and French flaps (the background image of a pool with its distorted lines feels perfect), and the typeface, and the blue/white/yellow colour scheme — it's all so great. I can't believe I love yellow so much.
February 2, 2021
Just not for me. I wasnt engaged at any level. The characters were not familiar in my world at all but the absence of any energy, insight, thought......if they werent going to have any investment in themselves, why should I? Perhaps people closer/more knowledgeable about the sub-culture might have connected more strongly with the book. But I have read lots of books where I have had no connection with any part of character, place, time or plot and learned lots.
June 11, 2020
Not good
Unlikable characters and unnecessary dialogue make this one of the worst books i have read in recent memory. Good thing its short.
Unlikable characters and unnecessary dialogue make this one of the worst books i have read in recent memory. Good thing its short.
June 21, 2020
3.5 Stars
An offbeat yet poignant novel expressing the awkward uncertainty a twenty-something faces one humid summer when things start changing. His best friend and housemate Dan is seemingly moving on with life, with a boyfriend and job after uni, and our narrator is prodded to leave the safety of the house, showers, and familiarity to explore Melbourne, his sexuality, and the possibility of other friends. The setting and social scene are so distinctly Melbourne, it was refreshing, but the inner city heat combatted against the constant presence of water/liquid in the novel - giving an interesting unity to the eventful summer.
Ultimately, the novel perfectly captures that desire we all feel in our twenties to shed our skins and try to find ourselves in the opinions and habits of others.
An offbeat yet poignant novel expressing the awkward uncertainty a twenty-something faces one humid summer when things start changing. His best friend and housemate Dan is seemingly moving on with life, with a boyfriend and job after uni, and our narrator is prodded to leave the safety of the house, showers, and familiarity to explore Melbourne, his sexuality, and the possibility of other friends. The setting and social scene are so distinctly Melbourne, it was refreshing, but the inner city heat combatted against the constant presence of water/liquid in the novel - giving an interesting unity to the eventful summer.
Ultimately, the novel perfectly captures that desire we all feel in our twenties to shed our skins and try to find ourselves in the opinions and habits of others.
May 5, 2023
whatever ronnie scott has to say, it means nothing to me
June 5, 2020
I really enjoyed Ronnie Scott’s sense of humour.
Alas this genre really isn’t my thing though and the book is filled with characters I remember from clubbing days that used drive me insane 😅
Alas this genre really isn’t my thing though and the book is filled with characters I remember from clubbing days that used drive me insane 😅
May 10, 2020
Such good writing, like really good.
July 30, 2020
Ronnie Scott’s debut novel The Adversary (Hamish Hamilton Penguin 2020) is a strangely compelling, esoteric, stream-of-consciousness contemporary story that reminded me in form and language of novels such as Normal People by Sally Rooney. We are introduced to a group of young gay men who revolve around the narrator as he struggles in his search for self-identity. Much of the narrative is seemingly benign – the characters sitting around the pool, staring at their phones, deciding whether or not to go out and socialise. Much is made of the small details – what they choose to wear, their affectations, how they drink and have sex, who they choose to spend time with, whether or not they converse over the kitchen table. Separately, these minutiae are pedestrian, even banal, but when combined together, the story becomes much more than the sum of its parts. Scott has constructed not only a way of life, but a way of being; he interrogates the narrator’s mindset and challenges his thoughts and prejudices, his doubts and insecurities, his hopes and ambitions. Nothing much happens in terms of plot – he takes a taxi, he flirts with someone at a party, he swipes through Grindr, he debates his own superficial thoughts and desires. But underneath all of that, the author builds a picture of the underlying meaning of the lives of these young men, he questions their motivations and their behaviour, he asks us as readers to step right into the space inhabited by these characters and to experience their lives, if only for a short while.
This is a novel about sexuality, dominance, control, sociability, friendship, desire, fear, inertia, agency and alliances. ‘I was an agent of Dan, a captive of his, really. I went where he wanted me, and did as he wanted, and for a long time, in this way, I was happy.’ This sums up the narrator’s ambivalence towards his own fate; his tendency to attach himself to others and react accordingly. The story begins and ends with a gift. The opening lines are: ‘A smart man once told me to be careful around gifts, as they’re often more complicated than they first appear. The savviest recipients plumb their gifts for hidden questions, such as what secret agenda has been furthered by this gift? And why have I been chosen to receive it?’ The conclusion also contains a gift, albeit of a very different sort, but one that again, asks as many questions as it answers. There are many innocuous phrases that nevertheless express a familiar opinion or quandary, such as: ‘Their living together suggested that Lachlan was more mysterious than he seemed, or that Chris L was less mysterious than we’d judged him to be. I did not know which scenario was more likely.’ Or this: ‘… so I resigned myself to a narrow life, a joyless tomorrow.’
This is a very literary and highly unusual novel that will appeal to readers who like to be dropped into the messy life of strangers, without a map or a compass, and try to work out what the hell is going on. It is warm and tender, intimate, moving, funny, ironic, neurotic and honest; a surprising and sharply observed tale of the authentic details of the human experience.
This is a novel about sexuality, dominance, control, sociability, friendship, desire, fear, inertia, agency and alliances. ‘I was an agent of Dan, a captive of his, really. I went where he wanted me, and did as he wanted, and for a long time, in this way, I was happy.’ This sums up the narrator’s ambivalence towards his own fate; his tendency to attach himself to others and react accordingly. The story begins and ends with a gift. The opening lines are: ‘A smart man once told me to be careful around gifts, as they’re often more complicated than they first appear. The savviest recipients plumb their gifts for hidden questions, such as what secret agenda has been furthered by this gift? And why have I been chosen to receive it?’ The conclusion also contains a gift, albeit of a very different sort, but one that again, asks as many questions as it answers. There are many innocuous phrases that nevertheless express a familiar opinion or quandary, such as: ‘Their living together suggested that Lachlan was more mysterious than he seemed, or that Chris L was less mysterious than we’d judged him to be. I did not know which scenario was more likely.’ Or this: ‘… so I resigned myself to a narrow life, a joyless tomorrow.’
This is a very literary and highly unusual novel that will appeal to readers who like to be dropped into the messy life of strangers, without a map or a compass, and try to work out what the hell is going on. It is warm and tender, intimate, moving, funny, ironic, neurotic and honest; a surprising and sharply observed tale of the authentic details of the human experience.
May 29, 2020
‘Dan blamed my personality. No one thought to blame the mouths’ Ronnie Scott creates a truly quirky, uncomfortably close-to-home, hilarious and unnamed character stumbling through summer and life in Melbourne. We’ve all had no idea what we are doing and plowed on based on luck, hoping personality alone will be enough. In The Adversary, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t but it’s hard not to fall in love with the character and hope that he’ll stop fucking it up.
March 8, 2020
Smart, funny, super witty and super gay.
July 30, 2020
The Adversary is so clever and insightful and wryly funny, a deceptively delicious read with great emotional depth and sophistication of ideas. At first I thought there was not much plot (which I enjoyed in just the way the dog days of summer unspool aimlesslessly in your twenties) but by the end I was so impressed by the precision of characterisation despite tightly restrained dialogue, and transfixed by the reversal of fates and the revelation of motivation that flash onto both protagonist and reader.
June 21, 2020
What an utterly distinctive book, I enjoyed it a lot, the tragi comic (non) drama of it all was endearing and true, against all the odds. The unnamed narrator is a shit, the world is small & claustrophobic, the stakes seem low. But it was hilarious, poignant and original & very well written.
February 8, 2022
love ronnie scott
January 26, 2020
I was going through all the ARC’s in my work lunch room and I saw The Adversary and it’s gorgeous summery cover, I took it home and threw it on the stack and thought I’ll get to it eventually, maybe.
Well for some reason I found myself drawn to the cover more and more every time I went to look for something new to read, so I moved it to the front of the queue. I read it in one day, and it was one of the hottest days on record for Sydney, 41 degrees Celsius, which let me tell you is HOT AF!! Reading it on such a hot day was perfect because the book is set during a stifling summer, where our main character sits in Grindr for hours, takes shower after shower in the hopes of cooling down and alleviating himself from the stickiness of summer. Oh hello, that’s basically how I spend all summer so yeah.
Anyway, enough about me, the book is great. I like that it’s a queer story but it’s not trying to be profound or important or deep, it’s just a simple story about a regular guy trying to find his place in a big gay world. It’s a perfect summer beach read and I’d recommend to any young gay guy after something that they’ll be able to see themselves in.
Check it out when it hit stores in April. Happy reading.
Well for some reason I found myself drawn to the cover more and more every time I went to look for something new to read, so I moved it to the front of the queue. I read it in one day, and it was one of the hottest days on record for Sydney, 41 degrees Celsius, which let me tell you is HOT AF!! Reading it on such a hot day was perfect because the book is set during a stifling summer, where our main character sits in Grindr for hours, takes shower after shower in the hopes of cooling down and alleviating himself from the stickiness of summer. Oh hello, that’s basically how I spend all summer so yeah.
Anyway, enough about me, the book is great. I like that it’s a queer story but it’s not trying to be profound or important or deep, it’s just a simple story about a regular guy trying to find his place in a big gay world. It’s a perfect summer beach read and I’d recommend to any young gay guy after something that they’ll be able to see themselves in.
Check it out when it hit stores in April. Happy reading.
June 5, 2020
THE ADVERSARY was a wonderful novel about self-identity, belonging, purpose, adolescence and sex. I absolutely loved this story. The interconnecting relationships between the characters really drew me in, as well as the namelessness of the protagonist who remains so as to highlight the theme of identity (at least that was my personal view). The themes of life, growing up and youth permeate the story-world, imbuing the reader with a sense of there-ness, as if you're really following the characters along in this journey. Ronnie Scott's writing style is concise, elegant and easy to breeze through, a quick summer read that sticks with you long after you read the final page. An excellent read.
February 19, 2023
While it isnt a great book , it is a refreshing queer story. It isn't necessarily romantic in nature , its not about our protagonist finding "Mr Right" even if thats what the text itself suggests. Its a journey of self-discovery, social commentary and ultimately depicts contemporary queer relationships in a new light. The ending hints at a glimmer of hope but the novel overall suggests contentment arises from self worth , rather than external validation. Only once the protagonist learns his own self worth and stops relying on other people (Dan, Vivian, the Richmond Guy) does he truly mature as a character.
Again, not the best technical work but a worthwhile read nonetheless.
7.5/10
Again, not the best technical work but a worthwhile read nonetheless.
7.5/10
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