Dan Vyleta – Smoke

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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

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Frances Hardinge – The Lie Tree

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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

J.D.Salinger – The Catcher In The Rye

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Book Review, J.D. Salinger, The Catcher In The Rye, Young Adult Fiction

Re-reading long after I left the age…………………

I read ‘Catcher’ for the first time when I was in my teens, and believe I may have read it again around 5 years later. It seemed interesting to try in again long after that time when the rapid hormonal changes are putting you through extreme autonomic nervous system hyper-arousal – fight, flight, dissociation and ‘whatever’ freeze

And what a very different (though enormously enjoyable) experience it has been, leading me to reflect much more on the writing than I ever did. When I read it, it was long before it was deemed necessary to get teens into reading by ‘books aimed at teenagers’ We were reading classics in school, dealing with adult themes, and expected to read them in an adult and sophisticated way (admittedly, my education was geared towards pushing us all into academia, so we were expected to pull ourselves upwards from an initial place of interest and enthusiasm)

Now, I gather that because this is about a teenager, written first person, it is deemed to be fit to ‘encourage’ reluctant readers – I think it’s absolutely the wrong book to be forced to approach in a lit-crit way, at the time when your relationship with it might be purely emotional identification – or, it might be too uncomfortable to observe, up close and personal your own psychology when in the middle of it. Not to mention the fact that some of the language will feel very dated – I wonder how books written by adults with a teen narrator will fare in 50 odd years’ time (Catcher was published originally in 1945. And, no, that’s not when I first read it!) I suspect the endless like, like, whatever dialogue – if the author really attempts to pin down current youth buzz-speak, will make for throw-the-book-against-the-wall annoyance. Salinger is pretty sparing of his I assume 1945 young-slang but I suspect it might distance a teen reader, as it will make it feel dated.

I think in many ways it is an ‘emotion recollected in tranquillity’ read, and far more interesting for an (ahem) mature reader. I really appreciated this time round, Salinger’s skill.

Firstly, that first-person narrative. Perhaps of late this has been overdone. I know a lot of readers dislike it intensely and find it false. When appropriate (like any stylistic choice) it works brilliantly. And this is, for sure, appropriate. Had Salinger decided on the narrator as third person god approach, the wonderful mismatch between the dismissive ‘whatever’ thoughts of Holden Caulfield and his tenderness, how much vulnerability of any kind ‘kills’ him, be it impoverished nuns with straw baskets or what happens to the ducks in Central Park in the winter. The swiftness of his movement from prickliness to vulnerability and compassion and back again is beautifully done, and very truthful.

In many ways, for those unfamiliar with the book, not a lot (externally) happens. Intelligent, sensitive, prickly-as-a-succulent-cactus Holden Caulfield, second son of an eccentric, gifted, clearly damaged, family. The third child died young, of leukaemia, before the start of the novel, and the shock-waves have hit everyone hard. Holden himself is at that stage where he is most unforgiving of everyone around him BECAUSE he is so vulnerable to their vulnerabilities – prickle is a defence against pain. He has just been expelled from his latest expensive school. He is a youngster with an attitude, self-destructive, wasting of his talents without being able to see quite why that might matter. The ‘story’ of the book is the three or four days between the expulsion and when his family would expect him home for the normal term end. Holden is looking back at that period, from a time some months in the near future, and he is telling his story possibly to us, but maybe to someone else – who that might be is suggested, quite early on.

He does his best to put his listener or his reader off wanting to know more, but, as he is both wittingly and unwittingly quirky and amusing, no doubt the reader, or the listener, will stay involved for the ride

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They’re quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They’re nice and all – I’m not saying that – but they’re also as touchy as hell.

The push-away, draw-in, sullen whateverness of this complex teen – not to mention teen-age itself makes for a read which is moving, funny – and deservedly has become an iconic book. Probably as much for those looking back through the mists of time feeling relief they are far away from its giddy heights and treacherous plummets.

The Catcher In The Rye Amazon UK
The Catcher In The Rye Amazon USA

Ilka Tampke – Skin

Tags

Book Review, Druids, Dystopia, Fantasy Fiction, Ilka Tampke, Iron-Age Britain, Skin, Young Adult Fiction

Excellently written YA/Fantasy Fiction/Historical Fiction/Dystopian Apocalypse with Lit Fic knobs on thrown in for good measure

Well. Ilka Tampke is an Australian writer, and Skin is her first novel. And what a strange, but excellent novel it is.

Skin is set in Britain, and specifically in Summer (Somerset) between AD 28 and AD 43 in a matriarchy. Iron-Age Britain, a Druid culture, and the might of Rome preparing for invasion.

The central character, Ailia, born in AD 28, is some kind of outsider, and part of the book’s journey is to find her complex destiny, which will bring her to become a leader of her people. Ailia’s age, and her intelligent nature, her individuality and leadership qualities of course suggest the book has a YA market, with Ailia as a role model to identify with. There are also strong young men who are leaders or seers – so heroes of action and heroes of reflection and emotional integrity.

But this is not only a book for a YA audience – it is likely to have appeal for those who are followers of all the heroic myth and fantasy serials which are increasingly popular, probably for a 20s audience.

Celtic knot

I’m neither of those markets, but was interested in this because although the cynic in me could suggest this might be a book written to capitalise on some populist markets, and is at least a small series (I understand there is a sequel), and the strong storyline and characters inevitably suggest filmic possibilities – the actual writing, not to mention the unusual setting, was the lure.

The exact rituals and beliefs of ancient Druidic culture have been rather lost in the intervening 2000 years, particularly as Rome did not tolerate Druidism, and, Christianity, some 300 years later, after Constantite the Great’s conversion, did much to complete its veiling. I’m not certain, one way or another how much Tampke’s very detailed, fascinating weaving of ‘Druid’ culture and ideology is real, partially real, wholly imagined – but what I will say is there is an absolute coherence in her blend, which is satisfying both in terms of its mysticism and ritual, and it’s very graphic depiction of the world. She has clearly woven into the story a central idea from Australian totemic spirituality (and, I think, Native American Indian culture) that of animal totems, a kind of connection to the rest of the living world which anchors humanity as a part of the animal kingdom and a part of the landscape. I found all those aspects of her possible invention absolutely fascinating and the book is ‘true to itself’ And has that wonderful quality of tapping in to deeper, wider myths. The book as a whole is absolutely ‘the hero journey’ It can be read on many levels simultaneously and doesn’t topple over itself for being made to bear too much.

Iron Age Celtic Des Res Round House

If you love adventure stories, particularly fabulous ones which make integrated sense, rather than just being a gung ho collection of mythic or actual battles, I recommend this. I swept through it, turning pages fast, caught up in the story, but also found myself very satisfied with the integrity of her characters, the complex relationships, the believable structures and culture of her ancient society. And there are some wonderful – didn’t see this one coming – twists and turns.

Ailia, her central character is without ‘Skin’ in metaphorical rather than literal, anatomical terms. Skin is the totem tribal connection – her journey to find ‘Skin’ and its meaning is satisfyingly archetypal.

The passage from womb to world was only half a birth – the body’s birth. Our souls were born when we were plunged, as babes, into river water, screaming at the cold shock of it, given our name and called to skin.

Deer. Salmon. Stone. Beetle. The North wind. Skin was our greeting, our mother, our ancestors, our land. Nothing existed outside its reach.

Beyond skin there was only darkness. Only chaos.

Because I was without skin I could not be plunged or named. I was half-born, born in body but not in soul. Born to the world but not to the tribe. I could never marry lest skin taboos were unknowingly betrayed…….I was not permitted to learn. All learning began and ended with the songs of skin

Finally, I received this as a review copy from Amazon Vine UK.

Even more finally, the hardback book itself is stunningly beautiful, with gold coloured mandala like shapes, suggesting complex artistic metalwork all nudging at symbols of interconnectedness, which underlines much of what the book is about.

Skin Amazon UK
Skin Amazon USA

Ransom Riggs – Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children

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Book Review, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs, Young Adult Fiction

Not just a book for Peculiar Children

Ransom Riggs quirky, spooky, YA lit-fic horror crossover, set in Wales, is a sure-fire delight – with this adult, never mind the YAYAs!

Riggs is/was an avid collector of strange photos from long gone times, and began, particularly to be fascinated by faded, peculiar photos of children. Probably they were attempts at trick photography techniques, with the photographer playing around with exposure, framing, shutter time and the like, but he had amassed a steady collection of these from various flea markets and vintage sales, as the afterword to my copy, where an interview with Riggs is included, explains.

So, the photographs and the development of a fabulous story to link them, developed. The central character in this book, 16 year old Jacob, is shown some of these photos by his Polish Jewish grandfather, and then discovers more, and the people and meaning behind them.

Jacob is in many ways a typical adolescent of his kind. Gifted, (though not really initially understanding in what way) intelligent, introspective, a loner, not quite the son his controlling parents might wish for, he is nevertheless extremely close to his grandfather, Abraham, who appears to be retreating into senility, with paranoid stories of monsters. Following his grandfather’s death, which damages and fractures Jacob, he becomes determined to try and track down and discover more of Abraham’s past as a young boy, leaving his native Poland as the Nazis moved in, and arriving as part of a kindertransport at a school on a remote island off the coast of Wales; that is Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

How Peculiar those children were, not to mention the Peculiarities of Miss Peregrine herself, and how Jacob (first person narrative) discovers his own connection to all this is a wonderful journey. It is extremely well-written, twisty, turny, mind-mangling and with some genuine shocks which do not feel gratuitous. And it has also a lightness of touch, Jacob has a self-deprecating, self-mocking sense of humour and is a fine companion for the reader.

And those photos (which made me choose to get the real, rather than eread, version) are most weird and wonderful

Although personally I felt that the inevitable fight between the goodies and the baddiesat the end was a bit clichéd, I am aware that such battles are needed, but this was the one section of the book where Riggs did not quite sustain his absolute originality for me, and also, the one area of the book where I realised I was not the intended audience.

Terrific page-turner.

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children Amazon UK
Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children Amazon USA

Marcus Sedgwick – The Foreshadowing

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Book Review, First World War, Marcus Sedgwick, The Foreshadowing, Young Adult Fiction

Beautiful weaving of myth and history

Marcus Sedgwick is a wonderful and layered writer, mainly for children and young adults, though he recently wrote a book very much for adults, with an interesting, unformulaic take on the vampire archetype, nothing at all like the rash of same old same old clonal dreary teeth and jugular inevitability A Love Like Blood

Much of Sedgwick’s writing inhabits a territory which is a kind of marriage between historical event, transposed into fiction, and the connection to myth and fairy tale. He opens out the enduring nature of archetype.

This story of the First World War, and the journey of a young woman who becomes a VAD, and then goes to the front to search for her brother, is a remarkably clear handling of political viewpoints as they changed throughout the war; most particularly the split between a ‘patriotic’ population at home, who thought the war a good thing, and how the reality of the carnage affected the soldiers. Sedgwick beautifully gets under the skin of his intelligent and likeable central character, and the beginning of change for a generation of young women who were beginning to see their lives might be more than marriage and motherhood.

         Flicr, Commons, What’s That Picture – WW1 Hospital Ward Postcard

Sedgwick gives his account extra depth and resonance through linking the protagonist with Cassandra – hence the title of the book, as Cassandra possessed the ability to perceive tragic events, but her vision was a curse to her, as no-one believed her, and she was spurned and outcast for her abilities. Sasha, Sedgwick’s central character, also has these ‘gifts’ and like Cassandra, they are visions of a time of war and conflict. The connection reminds us of how deeply wars are ingrained in our psyche.

Sedgwick ostensibly is writing for ‘young adults’; his writing is deep and true enough to satisfy old adults as well. He reminds me so much of Alan Garner, another writer as mythic and satisfying for not yet adults and adults who have not forgotten their connection to childhood – whatever their age!

This particular book of Sedgwick’s was written some years ago – it’s not a ‘cash-in’ on the 100 year since the start of the First War, but I remembered reading this book some 6 years ago, and the 100 year since…reminded me to go back to it

The Foreshadowing Amazon UK
The Foreshadowing Amazon USA

Jodi Lynn Anderson – Tiger Lily

Tags

Children's Book Review, Disney Film, J.M.Barrie, Jodi Lynn Anderson, Peter Pan, Tiger Lily, Young Adult Fiction

Tiger-Lily, not Wendy, is the Darling: Women Who Run With The Crows

Jodi Lynn Anderson has written a darker version of Peter Pan, Although this is probably aimed at readers who are early teens girls, the quality of the writing, and the exploration of the world, meant that this very far away from any teen-age reader, was thoroughly absorbed and admiring of it

Do not think of any sort of popcorn Disney version, or even the sweet safety provided by the Darling pere and mere, Nana or Wendy as proto-mama in training to Lost Boys.

Instead, this is a story of first love and the absolute potential pain of that – of being betrayed or worse, never even figuring on your beloved’s radar; it is a story of death, violence, of being outcast and beyond the pale of your tribe, of the corrupting, dictatorial nature of patriarchal religion; a story of impossible demands of duty and loyalty to the belief systems of your tribe, of the confusions of gender identity and ‘what a girl should be’ and how small, delicate balances between differing groups of people occupying a territory (Pirates, Lost Boys, The Tribe) can be undone by the smallest of taboos being broken, the smallest of alliances being made, causing a tidal weight of change.

It’s not like this:

The narrator for Anderson’s dark story, whose central character is a strong, complex, feisty, deep thinking and feeling Tiger Lily, is the ‘do you believe in fairies’ Tinkerbell. And moreover this Tinkerbell has a subtle ‘Nana like’ care for Tiger Lily as that dog did for the well-scrubbed, well-heeled Darling children in Barrie-land

However, this is also a Tinkerbell who falls deeply and hopelessly in love with Peter, as both she and Tiger Lily do and is then caught on the painful place between love, loyalty and care for Tiger-Lily, and the intense jealousy she feels that Tiger Lily is Peter’s chosen one, at least for a while. So there is also something about the challenges of friendship versus self-interest, when they conflict.

Tink is as complex and enjoyable a narrator as someone who can’t actually speak words out loud can be She can communicate by thought, in words – the reader can receive her thoughts, but she is incapable of vocalisation, so she can only nip, bite, buzz in an insect like way to attract or distract the attention of humans, or indeed vicious mermaids. And most of those nipped and buzzed at humans will probably think the nipping was done by a gnat, and account said gnat of no value at all. At least (occasionally) Peter and Tiger Lily do seem to notice she is something other than featureless gnat.

Tiger Lily is a magnificent heroine. Adopted daughter of a shaman, wise, individualised, challenging and thoughtful, this is no princess needing rescue. In fact SHE is the rescuer – though her rescuing of a washed up sailor is the event which begins to unravel Neverland.

Life is not always easy for challenging heroines however. Even wild Lost Boys who appear to admire strong, intelligent, truthful independent females may prove rather sickening pushovers for manipulative females playing their simpering wiles. Yes, that is Wendy, when she eventually appears upon the scene. And how we are taught to despise her (and Peter too) Hiss, boo the Wendy villain!

This is an excellent, provocative reading of a Shadow-Side Neverland. Anderson rescues some of the more peripheral characters from Barrie’s story, and places them centre stage.

Her cast of characters are fearsome, entertaining, hateful, loveable, irritating and all are recognisably individual. A page turning pacy plot, whether or not you are familiar with the original Barrie and the more winsome Disney or not, this is enjoyable. But probably MORE so if you have an awareness of the original, and can then absolutely appreciate the clever subversion of this.

Audience: YA and adults who love other readings of childhood staples.

I received this as a review copy from the Amazon Vine UK programme

Tiger Lily Amazon UK
Tiger Lily Amazon USA

Geraldine McCaughrean – The White Darkness

Tags

Antarctic, Book Review, Geraldine McCaughrean, Polar expedition, The White Darkness, Titus Oates, Young Adult Fiction

Very disturbing, very dark teen-read.

Geraldine McCaughrean, whose Not The End of The World, a subversive way of looking at Noah’s Flood, I had absolutely adored, here turns her pull-few-punches gaze on a story of the Antarctic, marrying revisitings of Scott’s expedition with the story of a young girl, and a fascination/obsession with Titus Oates, from that expedition, and her own, much darker trip to the Antarctic.

I am devoted to books with Polar, frozen settings, and I do very much like fine writing for teens which does not patronise, dumb down, or underestimate the intelligence of that audience. As McCaughrean is definitely a writer without an ounce of ‘talking down to’ in her writing, and is moreover a writer who makes any reader – teen or far beyond the YA world, work and pay attention whilst at the same time being driven on by ‘what happens next and to whom’ urgency, I really expected to love this book

And I did and I didn’t. The central character, Sym, is intelligent, wounded, rather a loner, and out of step within the world of her peers, who appear to be an unlikeable, superficial, tiresome bunch,

For some crime committed by my ancestors in the dark and forgotten days, I came into the world already tarred and feathered. With shyness. It hurts terribly-every bit as much as hot tar choking every pore-and I wish I could get rid of it. But it hurts a lot less than having someone try and peel the shyness off. That’s like being flayed alive.

Sym is extremely likeable, an attractive combination of maturity and integrity but despite some sort of emotional wisdom, she is extremely innocent of ‘street smarts’, and therefore extremely vulnerable to those without the integrity she has. And that is pretty well every character in the book.

Sym has a rich inner fantasy life. Her father died when she was quite young, and she has constructed a strong inner male hero, protector, guide, who teeters between father figure, someone SHE protects, and possible future lover. This fantasy figure is Titus Oates, always in her head and heart, with whom she has imagined conversations, whom she goes to for advice – he almost functions as an aspect of her best self. She is extremely complex, and absolutely out of step with a more simplistic, unsubtle world, especially a world filled with people on the make.

Captain Lawrence (Titus) Oates Wiki Commons

I failed to completely love this book in part because the situations Sym was manipulated into were very distressing indeed to an adult reader. I suspect the intended audience may have slightly tougher skins, certainly those that are possessed of street smarts and affect a world-weary demeanour. I found myself slightly shocked that this is a book for children. But it can’t be denied that the world contains plenty of people who DO prey on, and exploit children, in many different ways.

McCaughrean tells her story sensitively and some of my sense of disturbance, paradoxically comes because she is so light touch. She trusts the reader’s sensibility. . It is a book, apart from Sym herself and her imaginary presence of Titus Oates, pretty much without another major redeeming or redeemable character, whether adult or child/teen.

Sym herself is the only light, brightness. The frozen, indifferent, beautiful, treacherous landscape is a major character in this.

I stood on the edge of Camp Aurora where icefalls tumbled away from me like frozen river rapids and formed a buckled chute downwards on to the Ice Shelf that exists in place of the sea. And I looked westwards across it – a thousand kilometres of flat, frozen nothingness…..The Ice doesn’t differentiate between land and water; it just smothers the whole continent, from the middle outwards, then keeps on spreading outwards over the sea, roofing over huge sea inlets for a thousand kilometres.

Brrrrrrr

The only concession to the age of her audience, I felt, was the ending. Not quite one which works for this reader, I felt the author had pulled a little back from reality, allowed a couple of coincidences too far, to provide something a little more palatable, a little less bleak

The White Darkness Amazon UK
The White Darkness Amazon USA

Marcus Zusak – The Book Thief

Tags

Book Review, Marcus Zusak, The Book Thief, Young Adult Fiction

The Book Thief  – then and now

I read this book, 5 star reviewing it, back in 2007, and it rather hung around in my mind. However, I must have either borrowed it from a friend, or a library, as it seems not to be on my shelves. So……….when offered the opportunity to re-read again, for free, by the publishers, as a link-in to the recent film I jumped at the chance.

I read the book again (and it resonated strongly for me again) but I got interested in what grabbed me then, and now.  Back in 2007 I wrote this:

Every word of praise this book has received is richly deserved

This is a book so beautiful, so tragic, so tender, about the depths and the heights of what it means to be human, and despite the horror of its subject matter – the Holocaust, it speaks of redemption, of hope and of what brilliance humanity is capable of.

Though this book is a novel, told from an unusual angle – that of a young German girl growing up in Germany in the 30s, it surely speaks of real acts of compassion, bravery, tolerance and understanding which quite ordinary people carry out. Even though there is an awful ‘herd instinct’ which we can also follow, which denies the other an equal humanity with ourselves, and which demagogues and the power driven can exploit, there have always been those who arrive at a more real understanding, and act with heroism, often at cost to themselves.

A book that deals with this subject matter can never have a ‘happy ending’ – every character we have grown to care about in the book – like every ‘real’ survivor, carries the burden, weight and memory of all those millions who did not survive.

That’s why books – whether factual or fiction, about our most awful dark history need to be written – we need to remember, we need to have an awareness of both the best and the worst we may be capable of.

The actual craft of writing in the book is wonderful, clear, deceptively simple, without obfuscation or pyrotechnics. One of Zusak’s subtexts is the magic (real magic) of the word. We don’t generally think about what an extraordinary feat language itself is, what an amazing development it has been for us as a species. The demagogue unfortunately is one who DOES understand the potency of language, and uses it to manipulate. The Book Thief follows a different route, and shows us how language can heal – language, the ability to name, to conceptualise, and to consider, offers us a tool to communicate for understanding.

The 2014 re-read, in the light of the release of the film, provoked additional thoughts:

Writing this warm, this kind, must break the reader’s heart

I firstly must state I have no desire to see the film, there is something about the connection to the subject matter of the book and the act of reading words which have a profound resonance which no film can give. The power of private reading, and the seeping of words into the reader’s mind, the ways in which the reader creates images, this is the subversive power of literature. Now I love film, but the film-maker makes decisions on what I see and experience in a way the writer can’t. Film is of course a collaborative, collective medium: it is true the film watcher will have their own experience of the film, and there is much to be said for the collective experience if an audience watch together in a cinema – but I always have a slight resentment at the fixity of film, the manipulation of film, by choice of shots, editing, takes, the deliberate use of score and cinematography to ‘play’ the audience.

Perhaps what engages me about reading, is the unpredictability of the individual reader response, some sort of mysterious, personal engagement (or not) between the solitary writer and the solitary reader. What might happen differently for the reader because of the place (geographical, temporal) where the reader is engaged. What are the effects of ‘real-life’ seeping into the reader’s reading?

So……this second reading provoked me into no, no, no for the idea of seeing the film.

The second major arising is, curiously, when I first read it I had absolutely no perception at all that this was a book ‘for Young Adults’ or as it might have been then ‘older children’ So when I recently read such phrases as ‘Marcus Zusak’s book for Young Adults’ I had jaw-drop moments. Sure the central characters are children/early teenage, so the book is filtered through the narrator (Death) filtering through their perceptions, but I guess I always saw Death as the narrator, rather than Liesel, though Liesel is the central character.

And what I had forgotten, completely, were the heart-breaking illustrations in the book which Max leaves for Liesel, The Word Shaker.

Others with more advanced touch-screen ereaders may have a different experience – but I always end up grinding my teeth in irritation at the virtual experience of reading when there are illustrations, and having to rescale page size and scan in order to read the tiny handwriting.  So this was frustrating in virtual, taking me away from the emotional engagement with those illustrations. Go real, new reader, with this, eschew ereading!

So, I come back again, to the pleasure of this book which recognises the nuances and complexities of being human. It’s a book about the horror of the Holocaust, but, more, the horror of ignorance, prejudice and manipulation which gives rise to the expression of those aspects of human nature which create Holocausts, which allow them to happen.

The suffering faces of depleted men and women reached across to them, pleading not so much for help – they were beyond that – but for an explanation. Just something to subdue this confusion.

The Liesels, the Rudys, the Hubermanns, Steiners and Maxs are as much potentialities within all of us as those potentialities to ostracise and scapegoat the ‘other’ and to put them beyond the pale by dehumanising them.

The Book Thief reminds me again of the subversive, challenging power of human imagination, its aspirations and achievements, and all that language can be. And how the writer can make the half aware, half awake reader, come alive and notice.

When he turned the light on in the small callous washroom that night, Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father’s eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver. Like soft silver, melting. Liesel, upon seeing those eyes, understood that Hans Hubermann was worth a lot.

The Book Thief Amazon UK
The Book Thief Amazon USA

John Knowles – A Separate Peace

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A Separate Peace, Book Review, John Knowles, Young Adult Fiction

Restrained and careful writing; curiously ignores testosterone

I am not convinced that John Knowles’ A Separate Peace is quite the enduring classic and exploration of adolescence as some reviews of the time suggested, or continue to suggest. Originally published in 1959, with a setting in 1942 and 1943, at a privileged boys’ boarding school in New Hampshire,  the background is the draft into the second world war already looming or having happened, for some of the older boys, and focuses on the boys too young – yet- for draft, but not by much.

The book concerns a group of initially 16 year old boys and specifically the complex friendship between 2 of them, charismatic,  golden, charmed, rebellious Phineas, hero athlete, successful effortlessly,  and his best friend Gene, darker, more intelligent, more conventionally aspirational, more biddable. The book primarily explores complex admiration and jealousy at the heart of friendship, comradeship and competition, set against the conflicts around being a hero, – or seeing through the pomps of the heroic myth sold to young men, particularly in war-time.

I believe I came to this on the back of a ‘customers who read, also read’ link, when I was reading (and intensely disliking) Bret Easton Ellis’s The Rules Of Attraction, a later set exploration of privileged youth, which I found vapid and shallow.

Knowles is certainly neither, but there is a curious sense, for me, of an author who curiously side-steps one of the major obsessions of boys (or girls) on the verge of becoming (in society’s eyes, the biology of it having happened a little earlier) men or women. Namely, how much is driven by both an overt and a covert setting of agenda by sexual hormones.

It is astonishing that SEX appears to play no part at all in the interior monologues or exterior conversations of our privileged band of brothers – there is, a degree, perhaps of hidden homoeroticism, but if feels more as if sex has been ring-fenced by the author. Inevitably this set me wondering whether the author ignoring sex in any overt way perhaps reflected the mores of the time towards same sex relationships.

Reading various impassioned one star reviews of this (mainly, it appears, from young boys and girls given this in school as ‘classic’ writing for their age group) it is not difficult to see that such a huge omission (sex firmly unaddressed)makes identification hard. Some writers long past those hormone fuelled times can still remember and write from that place, but Knowles ignores it for reasons one can only surmise.

The book was later made into a film (twice) with no doubt the ringfenced sexual element brought more into focus but was, by all accounts, a perfectly missable experience, both times, despite the author himself  having involvement.

There was much I did enjoy, very much, the complexities of these friendships, the fact that the other is ultimately unknowable, the effect of guilt, the looking back to a golden age which was illusion, and the ever present subtext of society preparing the young to be sacrificed in war, but for me the complete non-existence of anything expressed about sexuality at all, struck an unreal note. A cerebral exploration rather than one which is both cerebral and embodied

A Separate Peace Amazon UK
A Separate Peace Amazon USA