Sensing the life in everything : Magic for adults which will make, and break, your heart. Repeatedly.
Who did not, as a small child, believe their toys were alive, or, at least, HOPE they came alive when your back was turned…….and so, yes, reading the synopsis of this book, my heart quickened a little in anticipation of recovering that state of ‘magic, real magic IS the world’, that was some of the place of that child, not ‘pretending’ a toy was alive, but, even if only momentarily, believing.
The fact that this book was being compared to The Night Circus (which I adored, and catapulted me back into that place) was also appealing. The fact that it was compared also to The Miniaturist gave me pause (lacked it, in my opinion). I needn’t have worried. The Night Circus pleasurable shivers of delight up the back of the neck started very early with The Toymakers.
Primarily taking place in 1917 and making a journey TO that time and place from some 11 years earlier, the Toymakers is set in what any toyshop should really be – a magical place where the maker-of-those-toys really is a true mage and can make the toys live.
Though the period of the First War will occupy a bulk of the book, it will end in the 1950s.
The most terrible things can happen to a man, but he’ll never lose himself if he remembers he was once a child
And that ‘primarily set in the period of the First War’ gives, I must warn, a lot of heartbreak to readers. A good author will have us invested in many of their characters – and Dinsdale, on this showing, is a very good author indeed.
Mightn’t it be…that until you’ve seen the dark, you don’t really know the light
Do take delight, as much as you can, in the playfulness and yes, that childhood remembered magic in the early part of the book, because payback time of grief will come. Without this reader feeling in any way manipulated, or in any way that the author was mechanically moving any of his sometimes surprising cast of characters around, my heart was being swung between imaginative delight and ‘I can’t take the sorrow of this’ moments.
Readers’ Appropriate Behaviour In A Public Place warning : Do not read in a public place.. If you must, ensure you have a ready supply of tissues. Involuntary cries of ‘oh no, no, no’ whimpers of grief and the like can alarm innocent bystanders.
Brief synopsis and subject matter, avoiding spoilers :
Cathy, a young girl, pregnant, single, disgraced, runs away from home in Leigh-on-Sea to London, after seeing a curious, alluring advertisement in a local paper
Help Wanted…Are you lost? Are you afraid? Are you a child at Heart? So are we. The Emporium opens with the first frost of winter. Sales and stocktaking, no experience required. Bed and board included. Apply in person….
Cathy becomes winter help in a most extraordinary toy shop, Papa Jack’s Emporium. Papa Jack, originally a man with a different name, and we suspect, a tragic story, set up his extraordinary toyshop, after arriving in this country from Eastern Europe, and Tsarist Russia, the father of two young boys he had not seen for many years.
Papa Jack, originally a carpenter, crafts exquisite toys, out of quality material when he can, but he can also create something extraordinary out of found materials such as pine cones, twigs and grasses. Really extraordinary.
By the time young Cathy reaches the Emporium, it is a famous and established place, financially successful, fabulously strange. Those two young boys, Kaspar and Emil are now also extraordinary toymakers, a little older than Cathy. Fast, loving, supportive brothers; fierce, struggling sibling rivals, both as inheritors of Papa Jack’s love, Papa Jack’s dream for the stability and future of the Emporium, and … well, much more.
A secret has been revealed, and finally I understand the true meaning of toys….When you are young, what you want from toys is to feel grown-up. You play with toys and cast yourself as an adult, and imagine life the way it’s going to be. Yet, when you are grown, that changes: now, what you want out of toys is to feel young again. You want to be back there, in a place that did not harm nor hurt you, in a pocket of time built out of memory and love
There are toys here, of course; there is magic, too. What is this book? It is a story of war, it is a story of the tangled web of relationships – parents and children, brothers and sisters, men and women. Not to mention toys themselves. What relationships might they have? What relationships could they have? Dinsdale makes us think about Creation itself, question who we are. He creates puzzles of time and space for us …..we just need to let our imaginations surrender to what once they were
I can’t praise this highly enough. I’m intrigued to discover Dinsdale has written earlier books, and I shall nervously explore them…….nervously because this book is so extraordinary that I would be surprised to have missed a writer so fine, for so long
The challenge is the one a reader has with a book which makes its own world so very much realer than the world we know. What on earth can I read next, that will not disappoint and seem pale and insubstantial? Poor author who has to follow Dinsdale. Not fair!
I received this from NetGalley as a (very well done) digital ARC
Lucky, lucky readers about to start their journey with this one
Lady Fancifull 
Thank you for the warning – as someone who’s been known to get embarrassingly emotional in public places about books, it’s always good to know when there are likely to be triggers…. 🙂
You are welcome…wept too often in public with a book myself ..also shouted out, laughed uncontrollably, etc etc. A fellow bookie might say ‘excuse me, what are you reading’ – especially if it was on a Kindle so they couldn’t peer at the cover, but others might nervously back away……..
I loved this book too.
It’s so wonderful
This sounds like a book that would be perfect medicine for the winter blues. I am so tempted …
Jane, I do think this would delight you. Despite the heartbreak, it has so much kindness, holding a steady light. And, of course, wonder. I think Briar would like it, too!!
I often catch myself laughing or sobbing while I’m reading on the train… It gets me a seat to myself! I’m excited to read this after reading your review.
Rose it really is one of those books which reminds you of the excitement and magic hidden inside what human imagination can create. Although he is dealing with weighty issues, and making the reader reflect, he is also absolutely brilliant at the ‘what happens next’, total immersion, and knows how to grab a reader and hold them fast. I see this is garnering rave reviews, and I do believe they are well deserved.
I’m going to be exploring his back catalogue, and his first book, The Harrowing, also with a first world war setting, published in 2009 has been delivered, second hand copy, by the postman this morning. It will go quite high up on the TBR pile! I don’t think it will be sitting on that pile for too long
It sounds as if you have had a lovely morning, with a book arrival 🙂
The Harrowing also sounds like an emotional read, hope it lives up to The Toy Maker for you. Even if it doesn’t, it is a pleasure to find a new-to-you author and work your way through their books, watch them refine their style and see their courage grow in their storytelling, in this case possibly how far Robert Dinsdale dares to go with imagination in each successive story.
My library has Little Exiles, so I’ll start there, although it is The Toy Maker I’m keen to read most.
This sounds like a wonderful story, in the most realised sense of that word. I’ll save this one for a time when I have quiet and time to become really immersed in The Toymakers’ world. Robert Dinsdale does seem like an interesting author; I’ve just had a quick look at the books he’s written to date. Thanks for another great recommendation LF 🙂
You’ll be in for a real magical mystery tour with this one, underrunner!
This sounds wonderful! Like you, I enjoyed The Night Circus but felt a bit meh about The Miniaturist, so I’m pleased to hear it tends towards the former. One reason I’m sure I’ll enjoy this is that even at my ripe old age I’ve never entirely let go of the idea that my childhood toys are a teensy bit magical 😉
I don’t have any left now ( childhood toys) but I’m still a little regretful about putting THE BEAR which I took a little shamefacedly on all the adult house moves out to grass, during a major breaking links with the past stage. She was eyeless, growl less ( bathed too often) completely moulted, and a severely bedraggled dusty object. I think she might even have been a he at one point. I half connect to a kind of magical thinking that to abandon a bedraggled soft toy which was the world of comfort to a very small LF was an unforgivable act, and almost feel ‘ how horribly abandoned that ailing old bear must have felt…guilt, GUILT GUILT!!!
Lady F, I’m so sorry I’ve caused these feelings to surface! I’m sure the bear is having a grand time, running through fields & stealing honey – just as long as no-one’s watching… 🙂
Oh, oh, oh, I feel myself falling into the abyss of want. Perhaps it’s truly need. There’s something about this book that speaks to me. And perhaps your review applied a megaphone to that whisper.
Jilanne, this one is such a marvel! I’m currently reading his first, The Harrowing. Different, apart from the fact that sibling rivalry and the first war are a background, but it isn’t quite working for me. I could not have seen what he did with The Toymakers coming from that one.
Interestingly, he became a father betweeen The Harrowing and The Toymakers, and said that THAT has changed everything. In fact, it was seeing the extraordinary way his little daughter could imbue objects with kindness, love, and imagination which provided the springboard for The Toymakers, as it also took him back to that charged and magical place of his own childhood. And he returns the reader, beautifully, achingly, there as well. Read it, you who are so responsive to books for the young, READ IT. The siren call sings to you……you need this, you need this.
I am officially hook, line, and sinkered. Will be out and about today, and The Toymakers will be on my list to find.