DEVIL'S CAROUSEL

by Jeff Torrington

By the winner of the 1992 Whitbread Award, this novel takes a memorable trip down the assembly line of the Centaur Car Company. The journey frequently borders on the surreal and is studded with bizarre characters, such as Tombstone Telfer, a man who believes smiling is a fatal condition.

Genres: Fiction

225 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Jeff Torrington was a novelist from Glasgow in Scotland.

His novels draw on the changing face of modern Scotland. Swing Hammer Swing (1992) was set during the demolition of the old Gorbals. It took 30 years to write. The Devil's Carousel (1998) drew on the decline of a fictionalised version of the Rootes/Chrysler car plant at Linwood. Torrington worked there for eight years before the plant's closure.

Reviews

[Peer Lenné · Rating 1 out of 5]

Swing Hammer Swing gehört zu meinen Lieblingsbüchern und hatte großen Einfluss auf mein Leseverhalten gehabt. Ich hatte mich gefreut, endlich das einzig weitere Buch des Autors lesen zu können. Leider war dies für mich persönlich eine einzige große Enttäuschung.
The Devil's Carousel setzt sich aus vielen einzelnen Kurzgeschichten zusammen, deren einzige Gemeinsamkeit darin liegt, dass sie sich um Angestellte einer Autofabrik drehen. Dazwischen gibt es immer mal wieder kurze Einblicke in die inoffizielle Werkszeitung KIKBAK. Letztere sind dabei noch am unterhaltsamsten, denn die Kurzgeschichten wissen, bis auf wenige Ausnahmen, nicht zu unterhalten. Oft habe ich mich dabei erwischt, das Ende eines Kapitels zu ersehnen, in der Hoffnung, dass das folgende besser sein würde. Von Torrington Wortwitz, den er in Swing Hammer Swing so herrlich präsentieren konnte und der mir beigebracht hat, dass nicht nur Fantasy und Science Fiction unterhalten kann, ist hier nur selten etwas zu spüren. Die Charaktere sind vergessenswert und die Handlung der Geschichten muss man oft mit der Lupe suchen.
Wer gute Unterhaltung sucht, sollte hier dringend die Finger von lassen und lieber nach Torringtons Swing Hammer Swing greifen.

[Andy Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone who has worked in a workplace that has its own idiosyncrasies and banter will love this book. Set on the assembly lines of the Centaur Car Company, The Devil’s Carousel introduces us to a range of characters, most inevitably nicknamed, and the goings on in the plant, many of which are documented by Kikbak, the unofficial staff magazine. The book is a rage against the mind-numbing tedium of modern production line working and makes its points with humour and sarcasm, even when dealing with deadly serious issues. Peppered with laugh-out-loud moments, ‘Carousel is an entertaining read from a writer who really knew his stuff. Highly recommended.

[Jack O'Donnell · Rating 2 out of 5]

After the success of Jeff Torrington’s Swing Hammer Swing!, The Devil’s Carousel is his follow-up novel. Only it isn’t. It’s not a success and it’s not a novel. The Devil’s Carousel is a collection of short stories, versions of which are listed and have appeared elsewhere, such as ‘The Poacher’ in the Glasgow Herald, ‘The Sink’ in BBC publications, ‘The Fade’ in the Scottia Bar Writers prize. The setting in each story comes from the same place, Centaur Car Co in Glasgow and the dinosaurs that roamed the planet when workers used to make things. Think of Linwood as a place where they used to make cars and I don’t suppose you’ll go far wrong. It’s an Us and Them world; management and workers. The end of a line when the opening bars of the song ‘You won’t get me I’m part of the Union’ meant something. A time when fax operators in the plant where ‘finkle fingers’ and high-tech whizz kids in the plant. A sequencer who sent telexes and worked in the MAD squad and not on the Widow, ‘a nickname from the main assembly track’. The play on words is familiar from Swing Hammer Swing. Thus, here in the opening page, you’ve got ‘Starting’, and you’ve got much the same story of booze and derring-do, with not much derring and with stoppages and the threat of strike action, even less do.
‘Shoes in hand, each boozy breath cautiously drawn, mindful of the notorious creaking seventh tread, Steve Lake tipsy-toed up the dark staircase. His stealth paid off, he made it to the bedroom landing without disturbing the snoozing trio. It was an accomplishment that even the most experienced cat burglar would have applauded, but he was only too aware of what proverbially follows pride.’
Joining together each chapter is, ostensibly, reproduction of a samizdat Centaur Car Co publication called Kikbak, A Laffing Anarkist Publikayshun. Issue 97, for example, offers a poem. ‘The Coming of the Centaurs’ ‘Where cars stand now/There once grazed cows/And ‘hairy engines’ / Pulled the plough/ As close to heaven/ As the Lord allows/ That was Chimeford/ Before the Centaurs came.’
I didn’t bother reading any other ‘Kikbak’ publication, but I did finish the book. Characters such as Tombstone Telfer who believed that smiling caused cancer didn’t make me smile. There was recognition of an industrial past long gone, but in Swing Hammer Swing we have the real thing, this is cardboard tatters full of punch-hole japes, by larger-than-life men, in the wrong place, in the wrong space, and clocking out was more of a relief than a hand job. Job done. This is the second time I’ve read this book. I couldn’t remember it. I won’t be back.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

only found out recently that Torrington died a year or so ago, reminded me that I had read this as well as SHS. This is a linked collection set in a car factory about to close and full of the usual fun and cynicism and wackiness of his work. Maybe not as good as his novel 'Swing Hammer Swing' but well worth a look..