Magnus Mills
|
|
Magnus Mills is the author of several novels, including The Restraint of Beasts, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread First Novel Award in 1998. He became initially famous for being a bus driver who had hit the big time with his first novel and earned a total of £1,000,000. The real figure was closer to £10,000 and Mills was a journalist as well as a bus driver when he signed his first publishing deal.
| Contents |
Background
Magnus Mills was born in Birmingham in 1954 and brought up in Bristol. Between 1979 and 1986 he built high-tensile fences for a living, an experience he drew upon for his first novel, The Restraint of Beasts. In 1986 Mills moved to London and became a bus driver. Although much was made in the British press of Mills's bus-driving background, in reality he had been writing for newspapers for some time before completing The Restraint of Beasts.
Themes
Magnus Mills's books usually feature one or more working-class men as the protagonist(s). In The Restraint of Beasts, an unnamed supervisor works alongside two Scottish fence-builders as they move from location to location building high-tensile steel fences. The theme of repetition is established early on, as the men fall into a routine of working during the day, going to the local pub at night and 'accidentally' killing people along the way. The same kind of repetition occurs in Mills's later works All Quiet on the Orient Express and The Scheme for Full Employment. All Quiet on the Orient Express is about a man who stops at a camp site in the Lake District to kill some time before embarking on a journey on the Orient Express. Gradually, he becomes involved in the local community and offered jobs until it becomes clear that he may never leave. The Scheme for Full Employment tells of a 'beautiful' scheme whereby people are employed to drive around on set routes, stopping at depots to offload the contents of their vans. What this content comprises will not be revealed here but is absolutely typical of Mills's deadpan plot-twists and the workaday, routine-obsessed culture that he always satirises.
Freedom is a key theme in Mills's work. What do the fences in The Restraint of Beasts suggest? Who, or what are the 'beasts'? Will the protagonist of All Quiet on the Orient Express ever assert his freedom? Can he? Does it exist?
Mills himself has talked about themes of punishment and reward as being key themes, particularly in The Restraint of Beasts.
Style
Magnus Mills's style has been called 'deceptively' simple. His prose style is rhythmic, often repetitious, and his humour is deadpan. He favours short sentences, little description and a lot of dialogue.
Short Extract from The Restraint of Beasts
"The wire tightening gear consisted of a wire gripper and a chain winch. Tam began the process by anchoring the winch to the straining post at the start of the fence. As he settled into his work, the true form of the fence began to appear. The second wire was tightened then the third and fourth each providing a new taut parallel line. It was beginning to look good."
Magnus Mills, 1998
Influences
Magnus Mills has cited Primo Levi as a key influence.
Bibliography
- The Restraint of Beasts - novel, 1998
- Only When the Sun Shines Brightly - stories, 1999
- All Quiet On The Orient Express - novel, 1999
- Three to See the King - novel, 2001
- The Scheme for Full Employment - novel, 2003
- Once in a Blue Moon - stories, 2003