Madeleine L’Engle – The Young Unicorns

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Book Review, Children's Book Review, Madeleine L'Engle, The 1968 Club, The Young Unicorns

Read in time, for the 1968 club but bang-slap in the middle of my reviewing hiatus…..

Pressure of work had kept me away from reviewing for a good two months, and I have no idea, even now, when the reviewing backlog will get cleared, particularly as everything hots up again, work-wise, almost imminently.

Nonetheless, at the time I was keen to dig out from my shelves, and re-read, Madeleine L’Engle’s The Young Unicorns, which had been published that year

I had discovered L’Engle, primarily a children’s writer, as she would have been categorised, in the seventies. Her Newbery Medal winning book, A Wrinkle In Time, was published in 1962. This prize is awarded for ‘the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children’. The book was described as ‘a mixture of fantasy and science fiction’ Now, there are of course a lot of books written as ‘Young Adult’ these days, but this was a more unusual book at its time of writing, and the combination of mysticism, philosophy and rather horrifying, not to mention trippy vision, made this a book which was eagerly read by those who were turning on, tuning in and dropping out. ‘An evil planet where all life is enslaved by a huge pulsating brain’ could almost be a dire warning of technology to come, with the ‘brain’ one designed by us, but with capabilities far beyond those of its creators.

L’ Engle’s combination of scientific interest, rationality on the one hand (one side of the brain) and her spirituality and mysticism on the other, was one (and still is, in many many ways) which resonated very strongly with me. L’Engle, who died in 2007, was a Christian, and certainly active faith features strongly, with the Church seen as a powerful potential force for unity. L’Engle’s strong interest in science, and her Episcopalian faith meant that the right leaning fundamentalists within Christianity disapproved strongly of her writing, which was frequently banned from Christian bookstores. Her belief that

 “All will be redeemed in God’s fullness of time, all, not just the small portion of the population who have been given the grace to know and accept Christ. All the strayed and stolen sheep. All the little lost ones.”

would never have found (and perhaps will never find) acceptance by those who like to believe that some are more equal than others

So…..after a long introduction to L’Engle, whom I have been inspired to further read, or re-read, thanks to the initial push by the 1968 Club, what about this 1968 book?

L’Engle effectively wrote a couple of series of books, which do touch each other, through the meeting or cross-appearance of characters in one or other series. One series primarily concerns the artistic and scientific Austin family, the ‘Chronos books’ The Austin’s are the main players in this book. The other series of books feature the Murry and O Keefe families, the ‘Kairos books’ A Wrinkle In Time belongs to this series

The Young Unicorns is set in New York, at its time of writing.  Dr Austin is a scientist working on a laser micro-ray, which has huge potential for use in healing. However, there are others who become more interested in how the micro-ray might be used as a means of social control, a way of offering some manipulation of the pleasure and reward centres of the brain. Very Brave New World, but without the need for medication to be taken.

Dr Austin is an extremely kindly, moral man, but has a certain naiveté about him. The whole family is strongly musical, and have taken a gifted young violinist, Emily, into their home, while her scientist father, a colleague of Austin’s, is working abroad. There is a challenge for Emily and the Austins. Emily was blinded during what appeared to be a robbery at her home. The robbery appeared linked to the work Austin and others were engaged on.

In the bath Emily was singing. Vicky had learned that Emily did two kinds of singing: when she was happy she invented her own melodies; when she was angry or upset she picked more formal themes from the composers she was studying. Bach always indicated deep and serious thinking, coming to terms with some kind of problem. Chopin and Schumann were indications of self-pity, but were seldom heard. A purely intellectual problem, like trouble with her studies or memorizing from the unwieldy Braille manuscripts was apt to be approached with Beethoven or, by contrast, Scarlatti

Also at large in New York are a group of bad lads, the Alphabat Gang. Worryingly, this group appear to be more organised and manipulated than would be expected. Their numbers are growing. Even more worrying, there appears to be something rotten in the state of the Christian community which centres on New York’s cathedral. Some struggle for power is going on, and forces of light and darkness link both the Church itself and the Institute which Dr Austin works for.

And then, a mysterious genie appears, offering to grant one’s wishes, when the Young Austins, mooching around in an antique shop, rub an old Aladdin’s lamp………But this is not, in any way, a book about ‘magic’ – so what is going on?

This is a crime and mystery thriller, a good and thoughtful one. In many ways, her thoughtful depth and intelligent expectations of and for her young readers, (and older ones!) reminds me of Philip Pullman

Unfortunately, this book only seems to be available now in the UK as a collectable, second hand – without even market place copies at reasonable price. But, for those of you who pleasurably rifle through the shelves of second hand bookshops and charity shops, I really encourage you to snaffle up this, or any other L’Engle

Or head over Stateside, where that large Amazonian store has several market place copies, reasonably priced…..though shipping costs might render this advice stupid

Meanwhile…..Searching for some Scarlatti, finding the heavenly Hewitt, has sent me a scurrying for her two Scarlatti albums. Eagerly awaiting…expect musical reviews. The discs are not available as MP3s, so this YouTube offers the best chance.

The Young Unicorns Amazon USA

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Marcus Sedgwick – Saint Death

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Book Review, Children's Book Review, Marcus Sedgwick, Mexico, Saint Death

A fence, A wall. A border: who are the bad hombres, in the end?

I must confess I would never normally be drawn to a book with this sort of cover – it suggests some book focused towards those enamoured of zombie/werewolf/vampires and the like, but perhaps with a notched up degree of violence, and possibly of appeal to young boys with a yen for shoot-em-up video games.

Nothing like the prejudice of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ going on here, eh?

Well, this is certainly geared to YA readers, though they might find that the violence and darkness in the pages is a kind of sweetener to encourage facing still darker matters. This book carries weightier themes, is bang-on-topical, and mixes myth, responsibility, gang warfare and class consciousness extremely powerfully. Not to mention friendship, free-will versus destiny, chance and choice..

It was the author that drew me, despite the lurid cover. This is, after all, Marcus Sedgwick, a wonderful author, writing challenging, thoughtful books for a younger audience – and also the odd foray into adult fiction

Saint Death is set on the Mexican side of the border with the US. It’s theme is the exploitation of the poor by capitalism, and how that goes hand in glove with gangland control and exploitation, drug running, violence and prostitution. It is strong meat for an adult reader, never mind a teen

Arturo is probably in his late teens. His mother is dead, his alcoholic, violent father gone from his life. He lives in the shantytown neighbourhood of Anapra, in the city of Juarez, Chihuahua, close to the Rio Grande. He gets by through occasional casual employment in an auto-shop, and steers clear of the gangs. He had a dear, childhood friend, Faustino, an immigrant from an even poorer place. Faustino had not kept so clear of trouble – extreme poverty means even the most righteous might find they surrender to powerful, vicious people, for the chance to put food on a plate. Faustino is now in danger and comes to his childhood friend for salvation

Interspersed within this violent tale is a dark, older religion, a Death-cult figure, Santisima Muerte, ever present, who must be placated, prayed to, sought for protection against her own visitation. There are also reflections, riffs, poems, where Sedgwick, sometimes using the words of others, comments on the wider political, ethical issues. Reminding the reader that though this might be a story, it is, or something similar is, a reality happening daily

This book is about other stories that occur
over there, across the river

The comfortable way to deal with these
stories is to say they are about them.

The way to understand these stories is to say
they are about us”

Charles Bowden

There are aspects of it which don’t quite work for me – the Spanish punctuation, and the interjection of frequent snatches of Spanish dialogue. Okay, it gives ‘flavour’ but it seemed a little tricksy. I could imagine the slang would be something which might appeal though, to its target audience

And I do think Sedgwick is extremely skillful at writing something which has page-turning action which might appeal to younger readers, whilst what he is writing is very far from escapism; rather, an invitation to look at how an unfair world works, and then castigates those who it has forced into suffering

We handed the right to kill to that thing we call civilisation. Civilisation does our killing for us, and we can wash our hands of it. This is the management of death. But the blood will not wash off

I received this from Amazon Vine UK

Saint Death Amazon UK
Saint Death Amazon USA

This book won’t be published in the States till April 25th

Katherine Arden – The Bear and The Nightingale

Tags

Adult Faerie Tale, Folk Tales, Katherine Arden, Medieval Setting, Russian Setting, The Bear and The Nightingale

A perfect, darkly mythic tale of old Russia

Katherine Arden’s first book should grip anyone with a love for old folk/faerie tales, especially those who prefer their those tales to have more than a whiff of the darkly sinister about them – less Perrault, more Grimm, and. perhaps heavy with Pagan roots.

Arden, in transpires, is a Russophile, and spent some time in Russia as a student, steeping herself in its Medieval past. The Bear and The Nightingale is, by all accounts, the first volume of a trilogy. I’m glad I didn’t know that when I requested it from NetGallley, as I’m not wildly enamoured of the fantasy/fantasy YA genre, particularly where sequels are concerned, as my prejudices tell me this may all be too marketing driven and not enough driven by creative integrity.

However….prejudice is so often there to be exposed and exploded, and, after a slow start, Arden hooked me up and tied me tight into her wonderful tale of a family, minor relatives by marriage of the tsar of the time, living far away from Moscow. The central character is a wild, witchen child – or, at least one who sees more than others, and is aware of the myriad domestic and nature deities which are well established in the pantheon of pre-Christian (and even post-Christian) myths and legends from classical times. And Slavic folk lore has many of these.

Vasya’s mother Marina, who died giving birth to her, (they always seem to) had a kind of second sight, and could see those nature and hearth deities. She is happily and passionately married to Pyotr, a heroic, but ordinarily mortal man. Most of her children are four square without other powers, but Vasya and her older brother Sasha ‘see beyond’

The old religion and a mystical Christianity have to sit side by side with each other, sometimes easily, and sometimes….not. Some of those with additional powers, like Marina, and like Vasya, juggle a more universal sense of holy and sacred better than others.

16th century Icon, Kremlin : Only Begotten of the Father and the Word of God

When a highly devout and charismatic priest with dreams of leadership and glory is banished from Moscow to Pyotr’s domaine, a deadly clash between faiths and practices is set in place. And compounded by the fact that Pyotr has had a new wife foisted on him, by the Tsar – for political reasons. The new wife, Vasya’s stepmother, is not much older than Vasya, who is standing on the edge of moving from girl to woman. There are the usual folk tale tropes of wicked – or at least, spiteful, stepmother and far nobler, braver stepdaughter, but there are also darker forces around, as stepmother Anna, who also has powers to see the native deities of the house, the woods and the forests, fears and hates them as demons. She wishes not to be a wife, not to be a mother, and longs to be a Christian nun. Vasya, the most wonderfully spirited, passionate child and woman wishes to be curtailed by wifedom, motherhood nor a Bride of Christ. She is akin to elementals and wishes for a life of adventure, which her sex denies her

There are wonderfully dark forces abroad in this, satisfyingly archetypal battles between Good and Evil – except, which is which, is not always so simplistically obvious. The dark Marozko, Frost King, demon of winter is simultaneously a less malevolent figure, Jack Frost.

Ivan Bilibin, artist and stage designer 1902: The Heroine Vasilisa outside the hut of Baba Yaga

And saint-like beautiful priest Konstantin, who paints fabulous icons, and seeks to lead the people away from worshipping older gods, is desperate to hear the voice of God

Suffice it to say, the story started a little slowly, but I kept reading with some interest until the hooks took hold, as Vasya became old enough to show her heroic qualities

The marketing of the book is falling between several stools – because the writing itself is quite complex, it has an adult, fantasy marketing but the age of the central character mark it as Young Adult. I requested it from NetGalley on its General Fiction (ie NOT YA) marketing, and only as I neared the end wondered whether it would ALSO appeal to that market.

Lacquer box illustration of Morozko folk tale

Definitely a read for short days and long midwinter nights though………..

And, yes, I WILL be looking out for the sequel………

The Bear and The Nightingale will be published on the 12th January in the UK and two days earlier in the States. The young author, one to watch, surprisingly has not grown up in the far North – she is a Texan, but I was convinced she dwelt in frozen, evergreen forests, and gambolled with the wolves……

The Bear and The Nightingale Amazon UK
The Bear and The Nightingale Amazon USA

Paul Gallico – Jennie

Tags

Book Review, Cats, Children's Book Review, Children's Classics, Jennie, Paul Gallico

Learning the profound arts of purring, mousing, and, above all, washing.

I was sent scurrying to a re-read of this following a chance post by a fellow blogger about fictional books with a cat-focus Interesting Literature. Particularly as another post by a different blogger, about a book by Beverley Nichols Kaggsy’sBookish Ramblings had sent me to my bookshelves in remembrance of a book from childhood by Nichols, about his cats. Beverley Nichols’ Cats’ A. B. C.

I first read Paul Gallico’s delightful (and sobbingly heart-aching) book about a little boy who finds himself changed into a cat, when I was probably at target age 8-11, I think. And I have occasionally read it again, and it’s similarly cats-eye view orientated successor, Thomasina.

Although the protagonist is a little boy, this is by no means childishly written, nor does it just offer whimsicality about cats. I’m afraid, despite of course knowing the story well, that I sobbed in all the places I had ever sobbed before – perhaps partly because of memories of the first sobbing, aged somewhere around 9 or 10, but also, because some quite deep themes are being explored – particularly loss, friendship, betrayal of trust, death.

Hers was the call of the loneliness of the rejected, the outcast of the granite heart of the unheeding city

Peter Brown is a lonely rather privileged little boy – he has a Nanny and two successful, socialite parents who are too busy to give him much love and affection. Above everything, he wants a cat, but as Nanny doesn’t like them and his parents are too occupied with their own concerns to risk upsetting Nanny, Peter’s dearest wish is denied. Seeing a little kitten across a busy main road, Peter follows his tender instincts and runs, without doing his Green Cross, across the road. And is knocked down. Unexpectedly he finds he has become a white cat (I know, I know, but stick with it, this is far from merely twee fantasy)

A typically charismatic and flirtatious Siamese also figures,, and is the source of some trouble and strife for our hero……

Gallico, a life long animal, and particularly cat-animal lover, absolutely takes the reader inside cat-dom. Peter retains human consciousness, and has no idea how to circumnavigate his new world. Starving, chased away, stepped on by unaware people because he lacks the cat sense to get out of the way, Peter is almost killed by a ferocious territorial feral top cat. Fortunately, he gets rescued by the eponymous Jennie, a sweet-faced, sweet-natured, intelligent and rather plain fellow stray cat. Jennie is a cat who now hates people, following her abandonment by the loving family who were everything to her. She begins to teach the little boy trapped inside a cat’s body how to be a cat. And the reader too! Peter must learn the intricacies of being able to wash himself, the difference between the game of catching your breakfast mouse and killing a deadly rat, cat courtesy, the rules of cat conflict, how to open dustbins – and much more.

Although Peter comes to think as cat, he also retains his little boy ability to understand human language, and, rather importantly, to read. He has many exciting adventures with Jennie – including travelling, as the two stowaway and work passage on a Glasgow steamer. They have several instances of narrow escapes from various dangers which might befall a cat, and, as in all good books, grow, develop and change through their relationship with each other and external events.

Peter and Jennie learn from each other and teach each other how to be more – soulful, whatever the shape of the body that encloses them.

Gallico leavens sadness with much fun and good humour, and all his characters, feline and human are quirky, recognisable and sharply delineated

This is a gorgeous book for a tender-hearted child, and a tender-hearted adult too. And with even more appeal if some of your tenderness is cat shaped

Happily now re-issued as a Modern Classic, it was originally published in 1950

Jennie Amazon UK
Jennie Amazon USA

Astrid Lindgren – Seacrow Island

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Astrid Lindgren, Book Review, Children's Book Review, Evelyn Ramsden (translator), Seacrow Island, Stockholm Archipelago, Sweden, Swedish

More innocent times, more innocent places: extreme charm without saccharine

I had not encountered Swedish author Astrid Lindgren as a child (Pippi Longstocking) and I have no idea why she fell below my radar (or parental radar) at the time that I would surely have loved her. Nonetheless, I was delighted to read the reissued Seacrow Island after hearing Lindgren’s daughter, Karen, (for whom Pippi was created) talk about her mother.

Seacrow Island has left me with an extreme sense of loss that I didn’t read it in-the-day of childhood. Published in 1964 I can see its connection to childrens’ writing I was devoted to – Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons, as there is a lot of messing about in boats, but Lindgren, writing this in the 60s not the 30s, would have had an immediate allure for me (had I found it) because she was writing from such a different world, and the exoticism would have appealed – the Stockholm Archipelago.

It is her characters and setting which most enchanted me – though the writing itself is wonderful, here in an unobtrusive translation by Evelyn Ramsden, and the ‘storyline’ believeable and with the right amount of drama, page turn, and rest-and-look-around-you – it was the island itself I fell in love with (like her central characters). And I also utterly surrendered to the wayward charms of her characters, particularly the triumvirate of the three youngest ones, Pelle, Tjorven and Stina.

Stockholm Archipelago Photo by John Sodercrantz

The Melkerson family, who are headed by an accident prone, not quite practical father, Melker, an author, have rented an unseen cottage on a far island, Seacrow, for the summer. ‘Mother’ to the family is Melker’s beautiful, strong daughter Malin, aged 19, who had to assume this role when her youngest brother Pelle, now 7, was born, as their mother died in childbirth. Malin, always being fallen in love with by besotted youths and men, also has to manage and mother Johan and Niklas, 13 and 12, her middle brothers, similar and different in nature – one more practical and steady, the other more of a reflective dreamer.

Seacrow is a tight knit community, invaded in the summer months by tourists renting cottages.

There are also resident island children and other ‘incomers’. The most important of these are the three children of the local shopkeeper. Teddy and Freddy, 13 and 12 are exact matches in age, temperament and adventurousness to Johan and Niklas, except, as island dwellers they are far stronger, tougher and more resilient in such matters as sailing boats, fishing and trekking than the city-dwelling Melker boys.

The four almost adolescents have their adventure companions; Malin, apart from keeping every one together has her tribe of wannabe swains, but the real central characters are the youngest ones.

Flicr Commons, Photo by Per Ola Wiberg : Midsummer in Stockholm Archipelago

Pelle Melker is a little like Dickon in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, in that he has a special relationship with animals of all kinds. He is exceedingly tender–hearted and cannot even bear to disturb the wasps from nesting in the eaves of their holiday cottage. Nor can he go fishing, as he is too empathetic to put worms on hooks. Pelle is enchanting, and a very strong minded little boy because of his tender regard for the suffering of others.

Perhaps the most memorable character however is bossy, obstreperous, fiendishly precocious, warm-hearted, volatile Tjorven. She is the youngest child of the shopkeepers, Teddy and Freddy’s little sister, Pelle’s contemporary.

She looked like a well-fed sausage…round and wholesome. The face which was visible under the raincoat was, as far as he could see through the smoke, a particularly clear, charming child’s face, broad and good-humoured with a pair of bright, inquiring eyes. She had the enormous dog with her, which seemed even more colossal indoors than out. He seemed to fill the whole kitchen

And the final child of great note and uniqueness is dreamy Stina, Tjorvald’s great friend and nemesis, aged 5. The two little girls jealously vie for ownership of Pelle, and also jealously vie for ownership of, and friendship with, a variety of animals – a raven, a lamb, dogs and puppies, a rabbit and, most valued of all, a rescued baby seal.

Little Stina, who has managed to lose all her front milk-teeth simultaneously, presenting the world with a perfectly gummy smile, is a natural story-teller, obsessed with myths and fairy tales, and more than half-convinced all the tales are true. There is much humour to be had from this. Frogs feature delightfully.

This is an utterly enchanting book – it needs no fantasy, no magic, no superpowers – the enchantment is firmly set in the reality of small island life in the far North. Its reality also means that things don’t always go well, there can be danger, sorrow, anger, loss, as well as fun, games and happiness

Despite the fact that the central three characters are between 5 and 7, I would surmise this is most suitable for children 8-11. Boys and girls will find characters to identify with and there is an effortless, rather than a tickboxy, avoidance of gender stereotyping, though I would suggest this comes from Lindgren’s ability to see each child as unique and complex, rather than a strapped on PC consciousness

If I HAD to pick a favourite, it would probably be lovable and annoying, bossy, sassy little Tjorvald. I suspect a lot of little girls (not to mention grown women) will be able to identify with this spirited little girl. But choosing between any of the youngest is impossible.

I received this as a review copy from Amazon Vine UK

PS I know some of the readers of this blog have extremely sensitive dispositions, so, hopefully this won’t be regarded as any kind of spoiler, but I do want to reassure you than fur-traders and the like do NOT make any kind of appearance within these pages. All Seacrow Islanders seem to be remarkably united in their love of animals, tame or wild, and live in harmony with the creatures gambolling through these pages. Except, perhaps for herrings, which seal-pups eat a lot of . Perhaps tender-hearted herringophiles may find this book a bit upsetting. Though rest assured, Pelle will also empathise with your fishy friends.

Seacrow Island Amazon UK
Seacrow Island Amazon USA

E. Nesbit – The Railway Children

Tags

Book Review, Children's Book Review, Children's Classics, E. Nesbit, The Railway Children

 

A beautifully written, heart-warming and exciting ‘real’ adventure story for pre-teens

I neither remember reading this as a child, nor do I remember seeing the TV or film adaptations, though the story was extremely familiar – and, as I have a clear image of Jenny Agutter seeing her missing father, and wringing the withers of the viewer with a line which is in the book, causing the image to surface, as I read, I can only assume I did read, did see, or both

(the 1968 BBC TV adaptation – regrettably wooden and a little ponderous, lacking the charm of the book on this showing!)

I came to this reading belatedly on the back of a marvellous book for adults, covering a similar territory – Helen Dunmore’s Exposure. That book clearly references this one – 3 children, 2 girls and a boy, a father working within Government, a secret disgrace, manipulated, innocence wronged, and trains an integral background, Dunmore’s book was set in the early 60’s, and this one by Nesbit in 1905. Obviously Nesbit was writing for children, and it is the three children in this one who occupy centre stage – they are the calalysts for all events – whereas Dunmore was most focused on the husband and wife, but, still, what struck me was an optimistic innocence in the Nesbit. This is, in the end a feel-good book. There isn’t an unpleasant character within it – and even ones which might seem, on first meeting them, to be aggressive and unpleasant – like a bargee, are only waiting to have events transpire which reveal their humanity.

Still from 1970 film. Agutter, now 15 as the 12 year old Bobbie has put on a bit of a growth spurt!

Though this does not have the goody goody children of much ‘improving’ fare for Victorian children – Nesbit had, after all, a rather complex, progressive character – she was a co-founder of the Fabian Society, did not marry her first husband till she was seven months pregnant, and ended up adopting the two children he had with his mistress – Nesbit’s good friend – there is a strong moral sense that everyone can be, and wants to be, ethical.

The three children argue and fight, and struggle to swallow their pride and apologise. They sometimes do wrong things – steal coal, because they are cold and poor, but are lucky enough to find that acknowledging their wrongdoing leads to kindly forgiveness. Lots of opportunities for heroics present themselves, and the children prevent a railway crash, rescue someone with a broken leg in a train tunnel, save a baby from burning, and unite a community. The book is a remarkably uplifting and moral one – but it is not the morality of ‘know your place’ or pious god-fearing, but can clearly be connected to Nesbit’s political consciousness.

2000 remake – and here is Agutter again – but this time as Mum!

I was also struck by the ‘reality’ of the book – this was not a book set in a fantasy world, but one set ‘in reality’. The children are children of a middle-class family but for reasons which we learn as the book progresses (I suspect adults would immediately leap to the correct conclusions) the family have fallen on hard times, and it is the mother who has to earn money to put food on the table. The children and their mother struggle over their ‘hard times’ – but they get through by supporting each other. Even the youngest child contributes. If there is ‘unreality’ it is only because (or is that just my cynicism) not everyone so clearly chooses to be progressive, enlightened and morally working for the common good as Nesbit’s characters all do.

I think everyone in the world is friends if you can only get them to see you don’t want to be UN-friends”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Mother, and she sighed

It is, of course ‘only’ a book : one I enjoyed immensely, one with a lot of engaging humour, one very well constructed, one full of hope and positivity – but I kept thinking that Peter, the young boy, brave and sometimes impetuous, ‘in real’ would have no doubt become trench fodder in 1914 : I was very aware, reading this, that it came out of a sense of progressive hopefulness that events of 1914-1918 rather destroyed, and I suspect this book could not have been written 10 years later

The Railway Children Amazon UK
The Railway Children Amazon USA

Dan Vyleta – Smoke

Tags

Book Review, Dan Vyleta, Dystopia, Smoke, Young Adult Fiction

Reservations about beginning section and how it careers towards ‘action wrap’ : the ‘filling’ in the sandwich hooked me completely

Reading Dan Vyleta’s Smoke has been a sometimes absorbing, sometimes slightly frustrating experience

The dust-jacket blurb, which I feel is somewhat misleading, would have made me pass on by – it suggests this is a YA book, it suggests there will be magic. There is a kind of truth to the former. Though the central characters in the book are certainly mid-teens, privileged, and attending schools where the offspring of the privileged and wealthy are sent, this is no school for fledgling magicians (the ’if you liked’ Rowling hook) . I can see certain similarities – the literary, gothic imagination – with Pullman, though other than the original concept – the presence of sin and more sinisterly – sinful thoughts – made visible, almost everything else comes from science and politics, albeit in an altered world.

The hook of the book for me was Vyleta as author. I admired The Quiet Twin, his dark, rather Kafkaesque, look at life in a Viennese tenement square of apartments, circa 1939. It was mordant, real, and grotesque.

To some extent Smoke, set in a kind of alternative, steam-punkish late nineteenth century Victorian universe, has many of the wonderful, eccentric, imaginative strengths of his earlier writing. Vyleta’s dark, rich imagination, and the adventure, problem solving, ‘detection’ narrative drive of the book, to uncover a mystery about how this society is organised, serves as a terrific vehicle to examine aspects of our own, as well as an earlier society’s politics of privilege structure, and heading-towards-dystopia-and-control science

In Vyleta’s book, the central characters engaged in the quest are two friends, both at a privileged school in Oxford. Charlie is a genuinely ‘good’ boy, kindly, loyal, intelligent, compassionate. He comes from one of the very privileged and wealthy families in this world who make up (some things never change!) the ruling class. Most of the politicians and movers and shakers have come from this privileged educational background. Educated at the best private schools they will go on to the best Universities. Privilege and wealth will also give them access to all sorts of darker advantages. Thomas is his friend, a damaged boy, also privileged, but the whiff of dangerous subversion hangs around him. I was reminded of Lindsay Anderson’s ‘If ‘ on one level. Set against Thomas is the gooder-than-gold Head Boy. Unlike the truly laudable Charlie, Julius is absolutely not as he seems.

In very Victorian fashion, the underclass are despised and feared (has this quite passed, in our current society?)

The conceit that structures the book links sinfulness (which becomes visible as the thoughts of sin are revealed by the sinner emitting smoke) as very much something which that underclass inhabit – their sins and degradations are highly visible. The whole purpose of the elite’s schooling is to force sublimation of sin and sinful thinking. The aristocracy hardly emit smoke, so the lower classes are presented with daily reminders of their own inferiority.

However, as in ‘If’ resistance and revolution, and its possibilities can arise from everywhere. There are some mysteries to be uncovered, as Thomas too is not quite as he seems. Two friends, an enemy – and a girl. Livia is the daughter of an extremely privileged woman, Lady Naylor, who is also a radical, highly intelligent, highly influential, and a scientist. Livia has an utter compulsion to ‘goodness’ and is quite priggish. In a neat twist the mother is more ambivalent, and wishes her daughter were less rigidly sublimating and repressing – certain parallels to eating disorders suggest themselves.

                                     Crystal Palace

I was fascinated by the way Vyleta weaves politics, class, religion, social control, rebellion, science together, and his skilful using both of what is real, and of what might arise from reality with a slightly altered science behind it.

What did not work for me as an adult reader were the more luridly dramatic inevitable battles between good and evil, which became a little cartoonish for my adult tastes.

The beginning of the book, the setting out of the world is a little slow and ponderous, and might even mean that its perhaps intended audience does not stick with the book, once past the opening, and once I had accepted the premise, I found the central section becoming engaging, but did find myself disengaged (as is usual for me) by the inevitable battles, fights, and all the rest – the kind of event in Hollywood movies where with more than physically possible mortal wounds the heroes, anti-heroes and villains are able to miraculously somehow continue their deadly fisticuffs over and over, streaming blood etc etc.

I guess also the ‘love triangle’ at times felt a little predictable, but Vyleta did have a very interesting take on it.

Does it/ will it fall between the stools of YA and adult audience, or will it also satisfy both? This is what I can’t quite decide. The ‘filling’ as in a sandwich, I found fed me well as a reader, I had reservations about the two quite different kinds of bread, beginning and end!

I received this as a review copy from Amazon Vine UK. Curiously, it will be released Kindle only in the UK on 24th May, and not available, wood, till July, whilst that May date sees publication wood book in the States, but no digital release pending.

AND an earlier request for this on NetGalley was also granted later. Thanks NG, thanks Vine!

Smoke Amazon UK
Smoke Amazon USA

Frances Hardinge – The Lie Tree

Tags

Book Review, Frances Hardinge, Gothic Fiction, The Lie Tree, Victorian set fiction, Young Adult Fiction

“Faith had always told herself that she was not like other ladies. But neither, it seemed, were other ladies”

Frances Hardinge’s YA book, The Lie Tree, with its angry, highly intelligent, discounted central character, fourteen year old Faith Sunderly, is set in 1868, with a central theme involving scientific enquiry, fossil hunting, Darwin’s theories, their impact on faith, and the deepening realisation for the central character, that her life is unlikely to be what her character and abilities should fit her for, due to the unfair opportunities closed to her gender.

There was a hunger in her, and girls were not supposed to be hungry. They were supposed to nibble sparingly when at table, and their minds were supposed to be satisfied with a slim diet too

Hardinge won the Costa Children’s Book Category Prize with this – and, in fact, the Costa Judges also awarded it the Costa Book of The Year, the outright winner over the other category winners. And it is easy to see why

Firstly, she is a wonderfully rich literary writer, taking pleasure in rich language, gorgeous imagery – and giving huge pleasure to the reader. She has created a brilliant central character – awkward, fierce, resentful, loving, frustrated, and far more intelligent than most of the other inhabitants of her world, male and female, her contemporaries and the adults.

Faith is absolutely believable as an educated, intelligent, individual middle class girl on the edge of womanhood in Victorian England and she also stands for what it might have been like for many young girls of similar intelligence and independent thinking, rammed into the corseted embrace of narrow opportunities and confined expectations

For most of his six years, Howard had looked to Faith to be his oracle, his almanac, his source of all truth. He had believed everything she told him. This tide was changing though. Girls don’t know about sailing, he would say suddenly. Girls don’t know about the moon……Each time he said such a thing it was a shock, and Faith felt her domain of expertise breaking apart like an ice floe

So Hardinge’s book inhabits a real society at a certain time, but is also very much a fantasy historical novel, and a kind of detective story. It’s a mash-up which for the most part works very well indeed, and has much to absorb and fascinate the adult reader as well.

Faith, her winsome, eyelash batting, flirtatious mother, her far less intelligent younger brother, Howard, and her austere, secretive clergyman fossil hunting father leave their Kent home under some sort of secret cloud of impending disgrace. The Reverend Sunderly has achieved fame (and in fact, notoriety) around the discovery of a fossil which appears to verify the existence of the biblical Nephilim. Sunderly and family decamp to Vane, one of the Channel Islands (an invention which seems as if it must in fact exist!) which is a hub of archaeological interest.

Her emotions were so large and strange that they seemed to be something outside her, vast cloud patterns rolling and colliding above while she watched

There are darker matters afoot, and this is much more than a working out of Victorian reality – Hardinge injects dark Gothic fantasy into the mix, including a search, by several interested and fanatical parties, for a fabled and curious tree, The Mendacity Tree, which grows in complete darkness, has frightening hallucinogenic fruit and may even possibly be The Tree Of Knowledge of Good and Evil. There is even a beloved pet snake.

Along the way, murder, suicide, good old fashioned lust for riches, thwarted passions, revenge and a small society turning on those who flout its conventions flicker in and out of view. Hardinge also skilfully exploits that favourite crime-fiction trope, the country house murder – in this case, as the shenanigans which are going on happen against the background of a small island, the list of suspects, and the motives for the various mysteries which will need unravelling, are dizzyingly busy.

My only reservations about this glitteringly absorbing book came in the last 40 or 50 pages, where the pace of plot, ravelling up and being unravelled, became a bit too much for me, and the sense of galloping towards the tie up, the reveals, the explanations for the first time made me realise that I was reading a book for a younger market, perhaps one more desirous of fast, dynamic, dramatic action

The Lie Tree Amazon UK
The Lie Tree Amazon USA

Ross Welford – Time Travelling With A Hamster

Tags

Book Review, Children's Book Review, Ross Welford, Time Travelling With A Hamster

Beware of tin baths containing electronic equipment

I am not the target audience for this one, but, like I think many really excellent books for children, it certainly appeals to the inner child of this adult. And I suspect it also appeals to the inner adult of a child!

Albert Einstein Hawking Chaudhury (Al) our twelve year old narrator lives in Northumberland, with his mum, his stepdad Steve, and his stepsister from hell, Carly, who is definitely not emo, but is a goth. Nearby lives Al’s wonderfully eccentric grandpa, Grandpa Byron.

When Al was 8, his father (Byron’s son Pythagoras, Pye) died suddenly, aged 39. We don’t get to find out exactly how and why, initially. Some time later Al’s mum got together with Steve (whose wife had died from cancer). Steve is a good man, though rather dull, and tries really hard to be a replacement dad for Al. But he can’t really come close, because Pye was a wonderfully eccentric and interesting man. For a start, it turned out that he built a time machine, and wrote a letter before he died, to be delivered to Al on his twelfth birthday. And what he wants Al to do is to find the hidden time machine, travel back in time and prevent Pye from dying. Full instructions will be given.

Meanwhile, apart from the unexpected birthday present of a letter written by his dead father, Al has a more conventional present of a football shirt for Newcastle United from Steve (Al hates football) and a more appreciated present of a hamster from his mum (the one in the book’s title) At least Steve suggests a name for the hamster which Al thinks is actually better than what HE would have thought of (Hammy or Fluffy) Al has no idea who Alan Shearer is, but it seems a mite more hamster original than Hammy or Fluffy.

A lot of the book is involved in explaining Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and his Special Theory of Relativity, and how time travel might or might not work. This is done in an amusing and interesting way so that not only eight to twelve year olds but even adults without advanced qualifications in physics and maths might become a little the wiser.

                       Commodore 64 computer, 1982

This most enjoyable, page-turning, warm-hearted and funny book is about a lot more than time travel however. There’s a lot of emotional learning happens in the story, about love, loss, death, adventure, how to deal with bullies, friendships, not to mention the surprising relationships which become possible if you can time travel backwards and get to meet your relatives when they were younger.

Al, Grandpa Byron, Pye, and even Carly the Stepsister From Hell, not to mention Alan Shearer, are delightful companions for this journey, and I recommend this book most highly, not just to the target audience (probably 8-12 +, and especially boys as Al will be a wonderful peer to identify with) but also to those well past the age of 8-12 and of female gender. And, of course, to hamsters. Hamsters are Heroes!

I was lucky enough to request and receive this as a digital copy for review purposes from the Publisher It is author Ross Welford’s first book. I look forward to more!

Time Travelling With A Hamster Amazon UK
Unfortunately this is not available in the States till the Autumn – except as audible/audio book
Time Travelling With A Hamster Amazon USA
You could always order it as a wood book from the UK site! Or go for Audible

(I reckon this to be the most appealing, adorable, melt-the-heart and compulsive viewing post I have ever made. A hamster wrapped in a cuddle blanket filmed at a ridiculously sympatico angle, endlessly chewing on an everlasting carrot slice, clutched in its tiny paws takes some beating. Come on, let me hear you all say Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh! Even a  winsome kitten or twelve would find it hard to beat this one.)

Frank L. Baum – The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Tags

1900, America 1900s, Book Review, Children's Book Review, Frank L. Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Somewhere Over The Rainbow……………….

I have never read The Wizard of Oz. Not as far as I remember. My childhood books were very much the classics of English literature for children. I remember of course, A.A. Milne, Lewis Carroll, Wind In The Willows (very strongly), the marvels of the Andrew Lang coloured fairy story books, which I was forever borrowing from the library, Dodie Smith, the marvellous Moomins, a few Blytons – the Faraway Tree stood out. The famous five appealed less than Swallows and Amazons – I wanted to be Pirate Nancy Amazon, the Swallows were too tame! , Noel Streatfield, and, most of all, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett – a marvellous central character, a cross, imperious, bad-tempered girl who discovers a real love of the natural world (clearly, lots to identify with!) My guess is that what lay over the Atlantic did not really enter my mother’s mind. I don’t think I even saw the film till I was an adult, probably on one of the perennial TV showings.

W.W.Denslow, Illustrator

So, having discovered that Baum wrote it – it never even occurred to me that it had had a literary beginning way before Judy Garland developed an obsession with rainbows – and that it first saw the light of day in 1900, it seemed time to see what a 1900 child was getting, particularly as the version I got on Kindle came with the original drawings (albeit in black and white). I gather that one very original feature of the book was that it had colour illustrations, which of course is something we absolutely expect in a children’s book these days. Thinking about those illustrations it was interesting to see that Dorothy is quite a stocky, solid, normal looking little girl, not stylised into extreme pulchritude in the Barbied or Disneyfied fashion of today

I was intrigued by Baum’s reasons for writing this . In the foreword, he states he wanted to write a book full of magic and wonders but without the moralising aspect of children’s books of the time – fair dos to that – but, curiously he was troubled by the nightmares and the horrors in children’s books – as in traditional fairy stories, for example, Brothers Grimm style. However, I was less impressed by that idea. Children do tend to rather love a degree of grisly, and I think it’s adults who then forget that as children there was a kind of terrified delight in the grimness of those dark tales. Things always came right in the end, despite the horridness.

I do have to say I rather missed the scary in this. There are of course baddies – the two Wicked Witches, though the first one is killed by Dorothy’s house landing on her before we even know she exists, and the second one, though not the nicest of lassies by any means, certainly is no where near as chilling as witches generally are in fairy tales. Besides, Dorothy is such a sensible and grown-up little body that though we are told she is frightened, homesick and the rest, Baum doesn’t really go in for the kind of description which really gets you into identifying with the feelings of the central character. And, perhaps this was an unusual aspect in the book. It is the little girl, Dorothy, not to mention the good and beautiful witch Glinda who are the most sensible and grounded, as well as psychologically balanced. Dorothy might almost be said to be too good to be true. I liked very much that the driver of resolutions (with a little help from her friends whom she, of course, had enormously helped in their own psychological development) was a female child. Dorothy is rescuer as much as she is ever rescued.

It was also interesting to see that her heart’s desire was always practical and pragmatic – to get back to Kansas. In large part because the kindly girl does not want to leave her aunt worrying about her. Her companions, the brainy scarecrow who believes he has no brains, the highly empathetic and feeling tin man who feels he lacks heart, and the cowardly lion who constantly behaves bravely but not does not realise that feeling fearful doesn’t mean cowardice, have problems in being unable to positively see themselves as they really are. Likewise, the wonderful wizard of Oz himself is a fake, who is afraid of being seen for himself. It’s only Dorothy who doesn’t really have time for all this neurosis which, in their different ways, the over-imaginative chaps of straw, tin, lion and wizardry are expressing.

Difficult to completely cast myself back into the mindset of the child I was, and try to see this through that child’s eye, but I suspect Dorothy would have been far too sensible and perfect for me to identify with, though I would have liked the fact that she’s the one who solves the problems rather than just waiting feebly for the prince to come and rescue her.

I also very much enjoyed the warm humour. Much of this may have resonated more for the adults reading the book to their children, though I’m not really convinced that those adults would have been thinking ‘here is an allegory about economic theory’ (see below):

Something I enjoyed almost more than the story was the inclusion, in the interesting after material of a fabulously, barkingly hot air academic analysis of this which tied itself in ever more ridiculous knots to find political, economic and sociological analysis of the text, indeed, going so far as to claim that Baum clearly wrote the book to engage with a major strand in economic theory thinking at the time – bimetallism. Oscar Wilde makes satiric reference to this theory in An Ideal Husband, as Mabel Chiltern deflects the often proposing Tommy from yet another proposal :

At luncheon I saw by the glare in his eye that he was going to propose again, and I just managed to check him in time by assuring him that I was a bimetallist. Fortunately I don’t know what bimetallism means. And I don’t believe anybody else does either. But the observation crushed Tommy for ten minutes. He looked quite shocked.

Bimetallism referred to a monetary standard which gave a fixed rate to both gold and silver – a fixed rate of exchange between them. Both gold and silver can then be exchanged into fixed rates of legal tender

Henry Littlefield, an historian, produced a highly complex analysis of the Wizard of Oz in the 60’s (irreverently I wondered under what influence!) claiming that the Yellow Brick Road which led to the Emerald City represented the Gold Standard. Which led to the fakery of The Emerald City with its fake wizard and the green glasses which deceived wearers into only seeing green: the fraudulence and fakery of ‘greenbacks’ – paper money. The silver slippers which finally will get Dorothy back to Kansas represent the stability which ‘Bimetallism’ would bring (according to its adherents) to the economy, compared to only using the Gold Standard.

Frank L. Baum

You’re quite right, I went cross-eyed trying to work out the theory of this, as reported in the afterword which reported on Littlefield’s theories, and others.

I think I’m with Mabel Chiltern.

I enjoyed my reading of Baum, and the inevitable inclusion of that iconic rainbow moment from the 1936 film.

I shall be looking forward to including some more books written for children, in due course, as I progress, increasingly slowly, through the century. It seems harder to move on from a year than I anticipated

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Amazon UK
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Amazon USA
This Kindle version has the original illustrations, but in black and white, and with the addition of a lot of extra background material

I have since found another version, also on Kindle, with those original illustrations by W.W. Denslow, but as colour illustrations. Heaven. I’m not sure whether it has all the interesting postscripts that the copy I had contains – I suspect not, from the big difference in numbers of pages. I suspect the first version is perhaps of more interest for adults, with all the background. Me, I’m greedy, one version with both please!
Original illustrations in colour Amazon UK
Original illustrations in colour Amazon USA

A READING THE TWENTIETH POST – 1900 : FICTION  (CHILDREN’S)– NON UK

Finally – I’m told by the Site Admin that this is my 500th post. It seems more than fitting that a blog called ‘Lady Fancifull’ should have a distinctly fantasy/fairy tale book review for such a momentous number