In Halving the Orange, Michael Hetherington forges a universe in which SFU’s medieval studies program is not a small rump, but instead bolstered by quirky, world-renowned, (and unfortunately fictional) Allenbeigh College. Amidst the seemingly idyllic academic environment, however, are the seeds for conspiracy, drama, and intrigue which slowly become more apparent as the plot progresses.
While Hetherington flips back and forth between over half a dozen different viewpoint characters, the bulk of the novel follows the journey of Isabella Allenbeigh, daughter of the college’s founders. Raised completely inside its walls, she is kept cloistered by fear of the outside and devotion to her parents’ wishes for her insulation. The crux of the novel’s plot revolves around Isabella’s deliberation about whether or not to challenge this status quo. These deliberations amount to an incredibly taxing personal struggle, intended to be emotionally evocative.
Yet Halving the Orange is not Isabella’s tale alone. Her story is complimented by a range of characters including her patriarchal father Richard, the wayward Malcolm, the mysterious Filbert, and even a flashback to the perspective of her deceased mother. One thing that shapes nearly all the characters, though, is their academic environment and association with the focused study of Allenbeigh College.
Many of the characters express anxieties and obsessions that we students should find all too familiar — worries about job prospects, enthusiasm for obscure books, and fixation on each other’s educational pedigree. Perhaps the greatest strength of Hetherington’s work is his ability to realize his characters distractions by mundane mental meanderings that readers like us will surely emphasize with.
Unfortunately, the ability of the characters to come to life on the pages of this book is greatly hampered by his narrators’ indistinctive voices. Each seems to approach the world in a matter-of-fact way. Dialogue and internal monologues alike seem to be more reminiscent of a technical manual than vibrant living beings, bubbling with emotion.
For example, when the gardener, Gregory is faced with an unsettling proposition, Hetherington writes: “He thought more about his predicament. He was not certain he would consider himself in a predicament, but that was the way he felt. He had to be careful how much he disclosed.”
If one is to pick Hetherington’s chief literary sin, though, it is that he violates the sacred authors’ adage of ‘show, don’t tell.’ Indeed he has the subtlety of a rhinoceros, seeming to have absolutely no confidence in his audience to pick together anything on its own or draw the most basic conclusions. Every plot turn and character attribute seems to be directly explained, re-explained, and then re-re-explained once again.
Another deeply disappointing aspect of Halving the Orange is simply the prose itself, which is as flowery as a dry tumbleweed. Hetherington, with his three university degrees from two top-notch schools (as well as UBC), seems to bear the curse of an academic writing tradition that values concise clarity over any measure of confusion or floridity. This greatly undermines the ability for the story and characters to truly come alive on a visceral level.
The advantage of Hetherington’s style affords the reader a great deal of clarity. I do not think I was left confused about what was happening at any point in the book, despite the somewhat convoluted plot. While I believe Halving the Orange lacks the emotional punch Hetherington aspires to, anyone who opts to pick up a copy can fully expect to read something that is both complex and coherent.
