Books like The Quorum

Newman's ambitious rethinking of the legend of the diabolical pact emphasizes the destruction Faust (or in this case, the Quorum) causes others; here, personal damnation is directly related to the harm done to the innocent in the course of enjoying the pact's benefits.Newman is never dull, but for all his thoughtfulness and insight, the novel doesn't quite work for me. The Quorum's casual, self-serving cruelty prevents one from developing sympathy for its members, although one of Newman's main contentions is that almost everyone would act as they do, given the opportunity. (Perhaps Newman, writing in the early 1990s, was reflecting on the explosion of ruthlessly exploitative capitalism in the Thatcher years).The aforementioned cruelty is especially jarring in juxtaposition with Newman's customary jocularity and pop culture satire. It's as if the reader is expected to enjoy the Quorum's sadism; but, for me, the pain of their primary victim is too believable, too well-grounded in real life to work as black comedy. Moreover, Newman's handling of the legend's moral conclusion, in which the diabolist is damned and the innocent experience some sort of redemption, is intellectualized and unconvincing. What is the purpose of the mephistophelean "Device" which extracts the victim's pain? (In this version of the story, the Devil is more interested in collecting misery than he is in collecting souls). And is anyone likely to emerge from fifteen years of low-grade torture in a confident, chipper state of mind? The sweetness of the ending scarcely mitigates the bitterness which precedes it.