Jen Campbell – The Beginning of the World In The Middle of The Night

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Adult Faerie Tale, Book Review, Jen Campbell, Myths and Legends, The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night

Tender subversion

It has been a long two months since I last disgraced this website. Pressure of work has been intense, and spending too much time at the PC meant I had no more time to spare in front of a screen writing reviews.

I have been reading though, loads, some of it marvellous, but there is a serious review backlog which may never be properly surmounted. My resolution never to start a new book till the review of a just finished one was mapped out crumbled from the off, and I very much doubt whether many of those 15-20 books read in October and December will ever get written

But. What a wonderful find to share here

Jen Campbell’s collection of short stories is magnificent. Somewhere between myth, magic, philosophy and let’s pretend she re-conjures exactly why the short story is a perfect ‘Once Upon A Time’ perhaps a hark back to being read aloud to, or reading aloud to.

Campbell has a wondrous, unique imagination at play here. She takes the stuff of fairy stories, the stuff of reality, and mixes them together, playfully but deeply.

As an example, the title story ‘The Beginning of The World In The Middle of the Night’ is presented like a short play script. A man and a woman, talking, in bed. On one level, what is happening is something about their relationship. On another level, the conversation is about a tree which is due to be cut down by their local council. But…….it might just be a conversation about how the universe came into being. It is all delivered with a light and beautifully balanced wit. And yet…simultaneously, Campbell was making me cry, smile, aching my heart, breathless at the fragile delicacy she creates out of moments ending before we can grasp them. She is like some sculptor of something made out of fine, iridescent glass

A story about The Annunciation makes reference to Rossetti’s painting, so I read with this in my mind’s eye

Forgive the not-really-saying-anything-about-what-the-collection-of stories-is-really about, but no prospective reader should have the magic of their own discovery spoiled

Contrary to my usual habit, I post no excerpts of her writing, as each story needs to be read in entirety. Obviously, this can be done on Look Inside, (or hanging around in a bookshop, even better) to get a flavour. The first, very dark story perfectly illustrates the quote from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which Campbell has used to preface this collection

“It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attracted to one another”

Animals, that first story, is horribly dark, mesmeric and also, incredibly moving

A final high five must go to the publishers, Two Roads. The book itself is a thing of beauty, and each story has a lovely line drawing to illustrate it. As no artist is credited I can only assume the illustrations are by Campbell herself

My only advice to a reader is : do not rush and race through these stories. Each is perfectly satisfying and tasty, and if you eat too many at a sitting, you will miss a lot. I rationed myself to one a day, and let the stories settle and unfold

I’m certainly going to be keeping an eye out for future writing by Jen Campbell. She is a poet and author for children, and created a series of books about ‘Weird things people say in bookshops’ having worked in bookshops for ten years, but this, highly assured book is her first adult fiction foray. Perfectly done

I did get this as an ARC via NetGalley, but have to say that there were several formatting errors, which made me abandon the book quite early, as reading was a bit of a pain. Fortunately, i also then had it offered by Amazon Vine, which made for a beautiful read, as the book itself, physical object, is a delight to look upon and savour. Perfectly fits Campbell’s seductive writing, made to be lingered over, letting the flavours of her sentences unfurl. Please, don’t rush your read of this wonderful collection

The Beginning of the World In The Middle of the Night Amazon UK
The Beginning of the World In The Middle of the Night Amazon USA

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Katherine Arden – The Bear and The Nightingale

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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

Michael Cunningham – A Wild Swan: and other tales

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A Wild Swan, Adult Faerie Tale, Book Review, Michael Cunningham, Yuko Shimizu (Illustrator)

Subversive Once Upon a Time, They All Lived Mainly Unhappily after……………..

Michael Cunningham’s A Wild Swan is a darkly, slyly, sour and witty adaptation of some particularly potent faerie tales.

There’s more than a whiff of Angela Carteresque sumptuousness and sexual meaning out in the open, though Cunningham pulls many of these tales into the here and now.

How could I not start snickering, in a kind of wry, sophisticated fashion, at an opening like this:

Most of us are safe. If you’re not a delirious dream the gods are having, if your beauty doesn’t trouble the constellations, nobody’s going to cast a spell on you. No one wants to transform you into a beast or put you to sleep for a hundred years…
The middling maidens – the ones best seen by candlelight, corseted and rouged – have nothing to worry about. The pudgy, pockmarked heirs apparent, who torment their underlings and need to win at every game, are immune to curse and hex. B-list virgins do not excite the forces of ruination; callow swains don’t infuriate demons and sprites.

Most of us can be counted on to manage our own undoings

I was immediately captivated by the authorial voice which opens out ‘what’s really going on’ displaying the often difficult world of love and marriage, and mismatch between expectation and reality, to belie the traditional ‘they all lived happily ever after’ .

These morality tales (what faerie tales often were) updated, are often beautifully upended. So, for example, the beginning of Cunningham’s version of Jack and The Beanstalk, Jacked :

This is not a smart boy we’re talking about. This is not a kid who can be trusted to remember to take his mother to her chemo appointment, or to close the windows when it rains.

Never mind asking him to sell the cow, when he and his mother are out of cash, and the cow is their last resort.

We’re talking about a boy who doesn’t get halfway to town with his mother’s sole remaining possession before he’s sold the cow to some stranger for a handful of beans….Jack isn’t doubtful. Jack isn’t big on questions. Jack is the boy who says, Wow, dude, magic beans, really?

I was absolutely thrilled to be offered this as a review copy by the publishers, Fourth Estate, in digital version………however, I would urge you to get the wood book, as there are stunning illustrations to each story, by the artist Yuko Shimizu, and I did long to see them on paper.

Yuko Shimizu’s illustration for the story “Beasts”

The stories are pretty well all magnificent, and it will be the readers’ pleasure to work out which fairy tales they are based on. The Hansel and Gretel tale is probably my own particular favourite. Most do not end anywhere near happiness, and one must feel grateful, therefore, for the absence of that ‘ever after’

Though, to be fair, kind, a little bit magical and hopeful , the final story, Ever/After does give us one redemptive sweet tale to take away, albeit one which starts more realistically and less under the illusion of the romantic happy ever after. In the last story, the couple have fewer stars in their eyes and are not bewitched by sprinklings of too much magic.

HIGHLY recommended; in fact magical

These are, by the way, very definitely faerie stories for ADULTS and not for children

A Wild Swan: and other tales Amazon UK
A Wild Swan: and other tales Amazon USA

Kate Forsyth – Bitter Greens

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Adult Faerie Tale, Bitter Greens, Book Review, Kate Forsyth

Easy read Bon-Bon with surprisingly satisfying dark, tough centre. And a feminist, and erotic tale, to boot!

This is a clever page turner, kind of easy, kind of straight forward. Absorbing, almost compulsively engaging until you realise that there’s a lot more going on, including neat and clever games with plot – a story being told within the central story which is also yet another story. Yet Kate Forsyth manages this without confusion or artifice, and the reader can easily hold the braided threads together

Bitter Greens is both a historical novel, a romance, and a fantasy, a fairy story – and at the centre of it all, are 3 strong female characters, fighting the powerlessness of a woman’s lot, in their differing ways. (And, of course, twining 3 stories together is a kind of plait of stories, to mirror the plait of hair – more of which, later)

The central character is a real character, who lived in Versailles, the King’s Court, during the reign of the autocratic Louis XIVth, the Sun King, to whom she was related, This was the time when the Catholic ruling elite were moving towards the eventual stifling of ‘dissenting’ Protestant religion. Louis XIVth’s reign saw the degree of religious toleration brought in by his grandfather, Henri of Navarre, being rapidly eroded. Louis was very far from being a tolerant king, and in 1685 revoked the freedom of worship act, The Edict of Nantes, which had been passed in Henri of Navarre’s reign. Huguenots were forced to ‘convert’, and to try to leave the country in order to avoid this, was punishable in some cases, by death.

Louis XIV in 1685, the year he revoked the Edict of Nantes. Unknown artist, Wiki Commons

Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de la Force, the main character, (whose childhood nickname in the book is Bon-Bon) was a relatively plain, highly intelligent woman, one of Louis’ cousins, who became a well regarded writer. She had several lovers, but did not marry (scandalously) till she was middle-aged. Her family were Huguenot, and she ‘converted’ to Catholicism, around the time when such conversions were enforced. She was exiled by Louis to a convent (a fate imposed on many women who displeased men, and particularly, a fate meted out to Huguenot women) So, ‘Bitter Greens’ is her first person narrated story, mainly taking place at the end of the seventeenth century, in that convent, as she looks back on her life. However, Charlotte-Rose is the writer who is known as the author of the fairy-tale initially known as Persinette – (a kind of variant on Parsley,which features in the story) ‘Persinette’ later was retold by the Brothers Grimm as ‘Rapunzel’ – or, to give it a similarly herbal flavour, a variant on ‘rampion’

Rapunzel is of course the story of the powerlessness of a young girl, who falls foul of a powerful witch, and is imprisoned in a tower (or convent, in Charlotte-Rose’s case, after she fell foul of a powerful despotic monarch) It is also a deeply erotic story, though the eroticism is covert in the children’s version. Rapunzel is rescued by (who else) a prince who climbs her outrageously snaky, ever-growing, shimmering ladder of hair.

Tarot Card of The Tower, Flicr Paul Walker

However, an earlier version of the story exists, from the pen of an Italian writer, Giambattista Basile, published some 60 years earlier, as Forsyth relates, but scholars have puzzled how (or if) Charlotte-Rose might have read it as the story was written in Neapolitan, and was not translated out of Neapolitan till many years after Charlotte-Rose’s death. As she never went to Italy, and did not speak Neapolitan, it is something of a mystery. One which Forsyth wonderfully disentangles, explores, invents, surmises.

So, the second story is that of ‘Marguerite’ a fairy story told by a wise nun, who is the convent’s infirmarian and herbalist, Soeur Seraphina. Marguerite, (another plant, name ‘Daisy’) of course, is the girl who becomes ‘Persinette’ and she too, like Charlotte-Rose, will transcend the powerlessness imposed on her by the witch.

Where do malevolent witches come from, however – in this story, we get to understand, and see a further story about the powerlessness and lack of choices available to women.

It is a marvellous tale within a tale within a tale – and, moreover, Forsyth upends the ‘victim’ status of her imprisoned female, – though there are some attractive princes, even princes may be imprisoned by those more powerful than they – kings, fathers opposed to rebellious sons.

Interspersed are also various poems by other writers on the ‘Rapunzel’ theme.

Hopefully, the fact that I’ve unpicked some of the rich substance to the story will not put potential readers off – this is a wonderfully told tale, with 3 extremely interesting major characters, one of whom (Charlotte-Rose) is wonderfully witty, sardonic, amused – and a remarkably sensual woman as well as a highly intelligent one. So the book has its degree of raunch as well!

There is a wealth of historical, literary, artistic information, in here, but Forsyth wears her obviously careful research lightly, seamlessly, gracefully. You learn without ‘being lectured’

Highly recommended, and I shall certainly investigate her second book for adults, which again mixes history and fairy story as it is about one of the Brothers Grimm.

Bitter Greens Amazon UK
Bitter Greens Amazon USA

Susanna Clarke – Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell

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Adult Faerie Tale, Book Review, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Napoleonic Wars, Susanna Clarke

Enchanting – literally!

This book is such a pleasure!

But,  it is indeed, very long.

It is, if you like (and even if you don’t like!) an alternative view of the Napoleonic era, in this country, and at war with the French. However, it isn’t the world quite as we know it as the agency of strange and egotistical magicians is sought by the powers that be, to help this country win the war

To those who got hooked, as I did, nearly 10 years ago, when I read it (no it didn’t take me 10 years to read!) the length was a pleasure, not a torment, as i wanted to stay within its world. It certainly isn’t a ‘page turner’ that races you along because of a plot driven narrative, but it lures the reader in nonetheless.

Its a bit like an absolutely delicious, but very, very rich traditional fruit cake, so if you really want to get the best out of it, its better savoured and enjoyed rather than crammed down in one sitting!

At the time, her writing was being compared to both Jane Austen and to Thackeray, I think both because of the undoubted wit in the writing. Personally I think the Thackeray comparisons are quite accurate, more so than the Austen ones, as she writes on a ‘world historical stage’, as Thackeray did in his time.

This is certainly a high, fantastical novel but not really ‘an adult Harry Potter’ – perhaps, more properly a magical view of real history. She sets the book as if it were written ‘now’ in the early 1800’s, with a literary style to match, writing about the Napoleonic Wars as if they were happening. There is a wealth of historical detail, colour and flavour – and into this, she injects her fantasy about magicians – but because she sets this magic firmly within the historical context, – even down to the brilliant device of citing earlier magical texts (which don’t exist of course!) which she quotes extensively from in the footnotes you will find yourself believing this alternative view of history.

Beautifully written, very funny – in a sly and witty manner – and also terribly moving, I was torn between the desire to finish it – and also couldn’t bear to finish it.

I’m not altogether sure whether the history books’ descriptions of how Britain won the Napoleonic Wars may not be the fantasy version, and Clarke’s version – disappearing armies, altering landscapes and resurrected soldiers of earth isn’t the true version after all!

Battle Of Waterloo. William Sadler, Wiki Commons

This will i think appeal to those who at the same time also were entranced by Elisabeth Kostova’s The Historian – possibly the only vampire book, apart from Stoker’s original, that i ever gave house room to. Both writers are really firmly in a fascinated with history itself camp, and are also well imbued with discipline in their writing, and fine, dark, occasionally quite terrifying imagination.

And I suspect a re-read may be on the cards, once autumn comes, nights draw in and the world of dark magic seems closer.

The book was weirdly and spookishly illustrated by Portia Rosenberg, however the illustrations are copyright, as she sells them as digital versions, so i guess you won’t find them accessible (though you can look on her website) unless you get the book

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell Amazon UK
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell Amazon USA

John Connolly – The Book of Lost Things

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Adult Faerie Tale, Book Review, Fantasy Fiction, John Connolly, The Book of Lost Things

Angela Carter For Boys – mythic, subversive, dark

My title does not imply that this isn’t a wonderful read for girls and women, just that where Carter often ‘rewrites’ the fairy story from the perspective of the female characters, and explores the inner lessons of myths and fairy stories for women’s ‘heroic journeyings’, Connolly has a young boy, on the edge of adolescence, whose journey is explored, and he meets a particularly strong cast of male archetypes, as he makes his hero’s journey, and discovers what being a hero is really about, and what it means to accept the challenge and face one’s shadow.

This was a wonderful, and surprising read for me – came from an Amazon recc because I loved Susanna Clarke’s ‘Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell’

I’ve never read any of Connolly’s other writings, and gather that he seems to write 2 – or maybe even 3, sorts of novels.

This is a reworking, or perhaps an underneath working, an inner working, of various fairy stories. Beautifully written, its like a cross between the aforementioned Angela Carter in ‘Company of Wolves’ mode, and George MacDonald Fraser (the Curdie books) Fairy stories are pretty dark and subversive anyway – or at least the Grimm versions are, not the prettified Perrault workings, which take the deep truth, magic and shadow element away.

Connolly goes back to the heart (or should i say the jugular!!) of the stories, and subverts the subversion further. – its a bit like reading Jung, – you get incredible psychoanalytic depth – but, hey, this is a fairytale, and the writing is quite clear and spare.

There’s (a bit) of welcome light relief, in the form of the Seven Dwarfs, who are Marxist-Leninists, – they aren’t too keen on princes (or on Snow White, who is a bully with an eating disorder!) – best laugh out loud moment was the description of the Prince who ‘ponces in on his horse like a great big perfumed teacosy’ – to a Snow White with more than a touch of PC attitude about being kissed by a strange man!

From here in things get very dark indeed. The background of the story is set in 39, so there is a very dark subtext to the ‘Huntress’ story, in the light of how ‘science’ and ‘scientific research’ was proceeding in concentration camps.

This is definitely a book for re-reading – it is very easy to read, but touches deep.

The Book Of Lost Things Amazon UK
The Book Of Lost Things Amazon UK

Neil Gaiman – The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

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Adult Faerie Tale, Book Review, Myths and Legends, Neil Gaiman, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane

Deep, Deeper, Deepest – oh why did this have to end!

Neil Gaiman has written a marvellous book here, poised beautifully between literary fiction, fantasy and horror, and adult (or child) fairy story

The central character, a man in middle age, with the disappointments of adult life upon him, turns down memory lane, when the death of a parent and the funeral gathering will unite him with the years passed. A failed marriage, work, creativity and the dreams of youth not having quite turned out in the way the younger man or boy might have wished he physically revisits where he once lived, as a seven year old boy, and recounts and remembers what the adult man has forgotten.

What makes this different from other ‘revisit childhood’ books is that the revisited land is large with powerful myths, and presided over by 3 potent female figures who live by ‘the ocean at the end of the lane’ The 3 powerful women a grandmother, a mother and an 11 year old (crone, mother, maiden)are constantly reminding this reader of other pagan and indeed religious threes – a matriachy of power and goodness to rival patriarchal religion, – including a willing sacrifice – the three Fates of Greek mythology, even as they appear to be initially easily dismissed perhaps as the three witches.

Goya : The Fates

Gaiman narrates a brilliant story – more than a battle between good and ill (is it really good to have all desires met – even the desire to be happy?) but under the tight and page turning narrative drive, the fine writing, the believable characters and relationships, philosophical and psychological insights are placed for the reader to chew on.

Its certainly a book which might be enjoyed by a child, even read to a child, especially as the central character is a child, but it reaches, I think, to the wisdom within a child, and to the child within an adult:

As Gaiman has his central character say:

I liked myths. They weren’t adult stories and they weren’t children’s stories. They were better than that. They just were.

I also liked the absolute truth (so it seems to me) of this:

Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.

And, if you don’t like that sort of psychology, what about the plunges into transcendental experience – perhaps the experience much fine poetry and music takes us towards:

In those dreams I spoke that language too, the first language, and i had dominion over the nature of all that was real. In my dream, it was the tongue of what is, and anything spoken in it becomes real,, because nothing said in that language can be a lie. it is the most basic building block of everything.

As adults, we have (in the main) forgotten the power of words, of the naming of things, of how potent the dominion of naming and language must have been to our species. And why (some of us) venerate poets, who give us back that place

Ailurophiles will appreciate the central part cats play in this book!

The Ocean At The End Of The Lane Amazon UK
The Ocean At The End Of The Lane Amazon USA