Authors have used innumerable methods and styles of writing to describe the physical and mental experience of everyday life in fiction, but Rebecca Watson has developed a technique which feels wholly unique. “Little Scratch” is the story of a day in the life of an unnamed young woman in London from the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to sleep. The text is spaced across the page in a way which captures the repetition of the character's actions or how she might be thinking one thing while doing something else or how she might be surprised by a physical sensation like hot water. In this way we get a feel for the overlapping/simultaneous thoughts and sensory experiences she has throughout the day which at first appears to be an ordinary day like any other, but gradually it's revealed that she's really struggling to deal with a traumatic event. Encountering text which deviates so radically from the uniform paragraphs we're accustomed to might feel gimmicky or alienating at first, but it soon felt totally natural to me as I got into the rhythm of writing. It's also highly relatable because it captures something true about how we judder throughout our days getting lost in distractions or small obsessions or the tedium of office life or how we avoid thinking directly about things which seem insurmountably difficult. Watson creatively shows this to be both comic and tragic.
Reading this book I became newly attuned to the way consciousness works. Within the process of thought we can get caught up in trivialities and possibilities which won't ever happen. I became aware how the imagination takes such a presence within our minds that we can playfully distort reality or build fictional narratives about the world around us to suit our desires. Watson demonstrates this in an early scene where the narrator observes someone with a small dog that looks like a bear and suddenly starts conjuring fantastical scenarios around it. She also shows how our laziness can become justified by thinking ourselves out of a situation. For instance, when she throws the remainder of an apricot away and misses the bin she goes on an elaborate train of thought about how it's the gesture to get it into the bin which really counts and how if she's questioned about the litter she'll refuse to accept any accountability. Obviously, it'd be much easier to just pick up the apricot and throw it away properly but it felt realistic how she avoids doing what's clearly sensible. The same proves to be true for larger issues in her life and this is conveyed in a poignant way. While the novel is mostly funny at first it slowly reveals the more serious issues she's avoiding and this is encapsulated at one point with the devastating line: “Is silence lying?”
The narrator is also a writer who frequently thinks about the book she wants to write or ways she can get into the literary scene rather than actually writing. Again, this feels highly relatable and though it can seem like a cliché to write a novel about the experience of wanting to be a writer, Watson addresses this in the text as well when reading a review about a book heavily based on an author's own life: “before having read the book, and despite liking autofiction! liking blurred memoir! still thinking, oh stop, stop with the talk about yourself, make something up, anything, anything, escape from yourself, just give me someone else's sincerity apart from your own, not your own!, trauma borrowed from yourself reads sore, feel it in me too much, no distance right now, need distance”. It seems almost contradictory that we often want authors to write what's true and important to them but also to use their imaginations to take us somewhere far from the author's own experience. It's interesting how she conveys this sense while also knowing that she doesn't want to confront the terrible thing that has shaken up her life.
Though I read this novel in its physical form I also listened to it as an audio book. When reading the physical book it's interesting to see all the gaps on the page and the way the text is creatively laid out, but it was also a unique experience hearing how this is conveyed in the audio book. Of course, pauses are used to dramatic effect but in some sections the overlapping text will be read simultaneously so you get a strong sense of how the narrator is thinking one thing while doing another. Sometimes books which use such a unique format feel like they are just being wilfully different, but this novel departs from a conventional narrative form in a way which is truly meaningful. It gets at the truth of experience to an almost uncomfortable degree. I found it highly relatable how she gets annoyed at someone on public transport because she can't read the title of the book they're reading, but I also got irritated with the narrator for being so consumed with such trivialities. However, I realise that what I'm really irritated with is myself because my mind is so often consumed with similarly petty or silly things. This novel has a disarming effect and I admire how it creatively presents experience in a way which feels truly novel.
