NerdsHeartYA: Last Day to Nominate

Just a quick post to remind anyone who knows of any good, underpublicised young adult fiction that was written last year to pop over and nominate it for NerdsHeartYA. Today (March 31st 2010) is the last day to nominate books and after that we’ll be working up a shortlist for the judges to get their teeth into.

I’m already really excited about the tournament. So far there’s been a great crop of nominations turned in, we have a bunch of terrific people signed up to consult with us on the shortlist creation and lots of wonderful bloggers signed up to judge the short list. I’m looking forward to see how it all works out and which book will be crowned the ultimate winner.

The Wilding - Maria McCann

I knew I wouldn’t love every book on the Orange long list, but I didn’t expect Maria McCann’s second novel, 'The Wilding’ to be the first book that disappointed me. McCann’s first novel 'As Meat Loves Salt’ was as far as I remember, a revelation in historical fiction. It was a bitter, dark novel set during the English Civil War, that avoided any suggestion that historical settings should just be used as a rather pretty backdrop. McCann successfully created a historical authentic novel and used a brutal, obsessive narrator to show readers the thought processes of a typical fifteenth century man, raised in a world where God was all.

Everything that ‘As Meat Loves Salt’ had ‘The Wilding’ lacks; the detailed characterisation, the authentic feel and the dark depths revealed. There is just no getting around the fact that the narrator, Jonathan Dymond is extremely dull. He’s overly angsty, subservient to his parents and essentially a stereotype of the solid travelling workman. Some of the problems with Jonathan’s character can be put down to McCann’s desire to create a historically accurate character. While religion does not play a massive part in this book, Jonathan grows up during the years immediately after The English Civil War, when religious fervour was at an extreme pitch. With this kind of upbringing it isn’t surprising that when he transgresses against religious teachings, or his parents he feels extremely bad. Unfortunately his inner turmoil is a long, loud refrain which the reader must suffer through before they reach the next bit of juicy action and even readers committed to historical authenticity will question why Jonathan has to be quite so concerned about breaking every little rule. It seems as if McCann has tried to create a character with historically accurate attitudes, but has done so at the expense of her story.

And yet she hasn’t really achieved the feel of an authentic fifteenth century character. Jonathan’s anxiety about doing things he knows are wrong ring true, even if his internal thoughts are a little over the top and McCann also has him mouth some of the popular views about women which makes his character feel more historically authentic, but the effect is fleeting, dispelled by Jonathan’s typically generic character. McCann tells us he’s a passionate cider maker, with no current interest in marrying the local girls and that’s about it. Giving her narrator one interest and no wish to marry seems to be enough character development for her, but it wasn’t enough to convince me that Jonathan was a character who fit into his time period, or that he was worth investing any emotion in.

McCann’s creation of her historical setting is also rather weak, as she fails to create a distinct picture of fifteenth century life. Her setting never feels like a distinct historical period, or geographic location. Although the reader is told where historical events take place and what period the novel is set in, most of the time her story could be taking place in any gloomy setting in the past and creating a dark atmosphere take priority over creating a historical reality. The lack of historical and geographic context is partly down to the fact that the reader sees the world through Jonathan’s eyes, as he is the narrator and he is extremely self absorbed. His deep involvement in the mystery surrounding his family means that he rarely takes a view on the wider world, or describes conditions outside of his personal experience. Although McCann includes a sprinkling of details about the Civil War and feeling after the war, she doesn’t make it a significant part of Jonathan’s life, or offer any alternative voices to provide these wider details. As Victoria at Eve’s Alexandria says in her review, while McCann makes Jonathan a good Protestant there’s no real discussion of religion, which seems incongruous with the time period of the novel. However this fits with Jonathan’s self centred mindset and his concentration on immediate family matters. McCann’s approach to incorporating a historical setting in her novel is so different to the way she treats historical detail in ‘As Meat Loves Salt’, where the attitudes and environments of the past are vital and I think cutting back the history in favour of plot has led to a weaker result.

Perhaps comparing this second novel with ‘As Meat Loves Salt’ isn’t fair. It’s clear that McCann wants ‘The Wilding’ to be a very different kind of novel from her first book. ‘The Wilding’ is, I think, intended to drop neatly into a very popular subgenre of historical fiction, stories where dark secrets are slowly revealed, in creepy, atmospheric settings. With a touch of dark female magic, a few hidden family secrets and a foreboding cave in the woods McCann situates ‘The Wilding’ in this category. The problem is that ‘The Wilding’ is missing the entertaining sense of tense mystery this kind of historical novel needs to excite readers, because Jonathan is constantly veering from the action to return to his personal angst. So McCann has cut the detailed inspection of character and historical attitudes in order to make space for a more complicated plot, but has left readers with a plot that is made rather dull by the flat main character who delivers the story.

Jonathan Dymond’s uncle Robin dies unexpectedly and a mysterious note encourages the young cider maker to set off for his aunt’s house, on the pretext of pressing her apple crop. While staying with his aunt Harriet he meets a wild, red haired servant called Tamar who nursed his uncle as he died and now wear a ring he gave her, on a chain around her neck. Her elderly mother is a beggar who lives in the nearby woods, reviled by the villagers and driven off by Harriet. Jonathan feels drawn to help the women with a few small gifts and through his inquisitive search into his uncle’s death, he soon becomes deeply linked to the two women. As his parents express their disapproval and his aunt tries her best to cut off his investigations, Jonathan begins to suspect that the secrets he seeks are larger than her ever thought.

That sounds intriguing, doesn’t it (at least I hope it does, if not then it’s my description, not the general synopsis that’s at fault). ‘The Wilding’ is full to bursting with the elements for a really intriguing plot, even if the mechanics of getting the characters together to make the plot happen are rather creaky. There are women practising devilish magic in the woods for goodness sake, but somehow having Jonathan Dymond narrate the story manages to nullify any excitement McCann creates with the woods and the caves and the wicked, secretive eyes of women. Whenever Tamar and her mother appear, or Aunt Harriet makes shifty moves the action feels like it’s picking up, but then it’s quickly off into Jonathan’s mind to examine the state of his conscience. Should he take some wood from his aunt to help a poor beggar women? Oh it is a hard moral dilemma indeed! And when Jonathan’s not chastising himself his father is doing it for him, stifling his exploration, until I began to wondered how Jonathan kept himself from raging, or more committing a more serious deception.

I do wonder if I’d feel less annoyed by this book if I hadn’t loved ‘As Meat Loves Salt’. I can’t be sure, but I think that if ‘The Wilding’ was measured against the average historical novel about a family secret, the beginning of the plot would seem clunky, the middle quite good and the ending predictable but still quite solid. Unfortunately Jonathan would still seem dull, even if I wasn’t always wishing he’d suddenly morph into Jacob Cullen (yes there was a Jacob Cullen before Twilight).

So that’s the third book I’ve read off the Orange prize long list and so far the least impressive. I’m currently powering on through ‘The Little Stranger’, which is a lovely fat book I’d happily read even without the possibility of ghosts. Up until the last chapter I wasn’t sure it was a prize winner, despite being lovely, but after that little episode in the car I’m thinking it might stand a chance.

Other Reviews

Vulpes Libres

Eve's Alexandria

my flutteringheart

New Books Part Two - But Wait There's More

I finally decided to buy Sara Ryan’s ‘The Rules for Hearts’ a while ago. And you can never buy just one book (well maybe you can...). I was in the mood for romance and young adult novels with GLBT protagonists and these came highly recommended:

'Boy Meets Boy’ – David Leviathan: Which I’ve already reviewed.

In for a Penny’ – Rose Lerner: The Book Smugglers described this in such an anti-genre stupidity way that I knew this was a romance I wouldn’t want to dash against the wall. I like romance, but they have to come very carefully vetted. After reading the interview with the author who says that getting angry at other generally wonderful romance novels, I’m further convinced I may be a good match for this romance novel.

‘False Colours’ – Alex Beecroft: Ships, gay romance and lashings of recommendations, from Smart Bitches to Vulpes Libres. Let’s see if it’s love between us.

‘Down to the Bone’ – Mayara Lazara Dole: Having a teacher read out a note about your crush is the ultimate teenage embarrassment, but if your crush is a girl it can get you kicked out of school in ‘Down to the Bone’. This is supposed to be a grittier young adult book about homophobia in a Catholic, Peurto Rican community.

‘The Rules for Hearts’ – Sara Ryan: I am going to be really sad after I finish this book because there will be no more readily available Sara Ryan novels. I will have to wait for her to write more *impatient foot tapping*

The Bermudez Triangle’ – Maureen Johnson: I don’t know much about this one except that there are three female friends whose friendship is disrupted when two of them become a couple. I do know I love Maureen Johnson’s voice at her blog, Nymeth really enjoyed this book and so far great author blogs translate into fun novels.

‘Out of the Pocket’ – Bill Koningsberg: I think I heard about this on Renay’s blog first. I am a big sucker for a sports book (ah the redemption) and after reading all those books about gay characters who run last year I fancied a change of sport. I promise not to mention that American football is like rugby with a lot more padding.

Today I went on a bit of an Orange prize buying spree, so look out for a modest pile of nominees appearing soon. I’m reading my fourth book of the 2010 long list now. I hope you’ll all be immensely happy to hear I caved to peer pressure and I’m cracking through ‘The Little Stranger’ at an almost indecently easy pace. What are you guys reading right now (it’s nice to get, off the moment updates sometimes).

They call to me in my sleep

I know it seems like I have totally disregarded your votes on what to read next, regular readers, but if you’ve ever had one of those periods of reading where it seems like all the books are calling to you at once then I hope you’ll understand.

After ‘The Still Point’ I moved onto ‘Wench’ instead of picking up ‘Daphne’. I did dig into my big, red box and pulled out ‘Daphne’ to read the first few lines, but I’m afraid I was tempted to test out the writing in ‘Wench’ and gobbled up the first three chapters before I knew where I was. I am just now starting ‘The Rings of Saturn’ for The SofG discussion (edited to say – ha I was actually supposed to be reading ‘Vertigo’ for that discussion and I was well aware of that, but for some reason my brain did not connect with the knowledge I’d been given – ah well too late to get a copy and finish it now, I’ll just have to go on with ‘The Rings of Saturn’).

Now there seem to be three major sets of books competing for my attention. I am supposed to be reading from my TBR challenge list and in fact I would love to pick up a book from that list, like maybe ‘Sea of Poppies’, or ‘Funny How Things Change’ which seem to have ganged up on the same bookshelf and are constantly touting their exciting new wares to me.

But I am also itching to read some more books off the Orange longlist, before the shortlist is announced. Every other blog has people stockpiling the nominations in heavy, beautiful piles. I mentioned that I’m very excited about ‘The Wilding’ and Victoria at Eve’s Alexandria is reading it now, finding it light and that makes me want to investigate how it measures up to the powerful force of ‘As Meat Loves Salt’ for myself. All that peer pressure in the comments about Sarah Waters is getting to me and her Orange nomination makes this seem like the perfect time to try out ‘The Little Stranger’.

Then there’s Carl’s ‘Once Upon a Time’ challenge beginning this week. Carl’s challenges are the only challenges I can join before finishing up the TBR list so I want to take part and a good dose of fantasy sounds appealing. Right now I’m thinking of doing Quest the First, where you can pick five books from any of the four challenge categories (fantasy, folklore, fairytale and myth) and my reading pool looks like this:

'Bleeding Violet' – Dia Reeves
'Garden Spells' – Sarah Addisson Allen
'Runemarks' – Joanne Harris
'Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story' - Carolyn Turgeon
'Venemous' - Christopher Krovatin
'Unseen Academicals' – Terry Pratchett
'A Wish After Midnight' – Zetta Elliot

Carl runs short challenges that only last a few months so I need to get cracking, or it will be Midsummer’s Day before I can turn around.
And there is still that huge Stephen King tome borrowed from a co-worker that has been sitting around for three months now. Every day it reproaches me with its shiny, purple giantness...

So please excuse me, I will be getting to ‘Daphne’, but the siren calls of other books have been just a bit too strong to resist recently. How is everyone else getting along balancing reading priorities?

The Still Point - Amy Sackville

Well doesn’t this make me look like I’m jumping on the bandwagon? Just a few days ago Amy Sackville’s 'The Still Point’ appeared on the Orange prize long list and here I am about to tell you how wonderful it is. You’ll just have to take me at my honour that I already liked ‘The Still Point’ before the judges published their final decision and that the Orange prize nomination hasn’t made a bit of difference to me.

Where to be begin with this novel? There’s so much to discuss. Amy Sackville tells a story of a present day marriage, that is on the brink of breaking and a marriage from the past, which never gets the chance to be successful. Julia and Simon have been married ten years and several years ago started hiding their true selves from each other. Julia tries hard to please Simon by disguising her own personality, which readers might think weak until they begin to understand the fragile state of Julia’s current mental balance, which has been worn away by a marriage gone sour. Simon feels distanced from his wife, but resents her even though he loves her and fearfully observes that she is becoming removed from reality.

The two live in the house of Julia’s great grandfather, whose first born son was a famous explorer Edward Mackley. Edward left on a polar exploration at the end of the nineteenth century, leaving his new bride Emily with his brother John and John’s wife. They all lived together in Edward’s father’s house. Edward never returned from his journey, no one knew what has happened to him, but Emily waited to hear news, then waited to hear how he died. Once his body was found, along with his diary, fifty years later Emily quickly died. This is the great Mackley romance that is passed down through the generations. Julia is now in charge of archiving Edward’s belongings and setting the story into some kind of order. As she rereads Edward’s diary and revisits the artefacts that remain of Emily’s marriage the reader learns about the truth of their thwarted relationship.

Sackville has used an ambitious structure in her first novel. The present day events of ‘The Still Point’ all take place in one day. The linear timeline of the day, from early morning to midnight, is returned to throughout the book as the central timeline. Within that day the narrative switches back and forth between Julia and Simon’s day, so that one slot of the day’s time is revisited in a different location and often Julia and Simon’s drifting thought patterns allow the narrative to learn about snatches of their pasts.

Julia’s preoccupation with Edward and Emily’s story, leads her to reread Edward’s diary and other printed remainders of Edward and Emily’s lives, creating a second story inside the main narrative. This second narrative stream starts off as a linear exploration of Edward’s journey to the pole, but towards the end of the book it also moves back and forward, revisiting certain events as Julia adds information to her mental picture of the couple’s lives. It sounds a little complicated, but all the different perspectives fit neatly together investing this one day with the significance of several lifetimes. Towards the end of the book I was constantly amazed that everything in this book happens in one day. So much seems to have happened, although there’s really very little action and I felt like I knew the characters intimately, especially Julia, whose day is described in close detail.

For me, much of the charm of ‘The Still Point’ comes from the way Sackville uses language. It’s not so much that Sackville writes in especially ornate prose, although she creates her novel out of images and words that are elegant and beautifully simple:

‘…;listen to the insects and the rustle of plants, leaves unfurling, the fluff and settle of feathers, earth shifting under tiny paws and turned by pallid grubs and worms; the garden easing into the blue darkness. Night flowers open cautiously, quietly, the warmth of day transformed into deep sweet perfume.’ .

It is more the way that she approaches writing, which makes me happy. She writes as if the form she chooses to express the story is just as important as the mechanics of the plot, so her style is very controlled, yet her prose manages to achieve a breathy quality, that makes it hard to grasp at and pin down.

Consider the first lines of the novel:

‘Wait:

…

There. A little ellipsis, the smallest pause, opening for him to slide in. Then withdrawal and a full stop.’.

Wonderful. Automatically it is apparent that something important is happening in ellipsis, something which must not be disturbed, but then it is over and the reader is left wondering if they have interpreted the lines correctly. Instead of being annoyed at the vagueness, or desperate to find out more, readers will find themselves lulled into accepting the slow, pondering rhythm of the narrative. It is easy to automatically slip into waiting for the narrative to unfold at its own pace, just as the characters Julia and Emily wait for different events.

Then occasionally something will puncture this dreamy style. The image of a plate being dropped is repeated and because the reader was present when the plate was dropped, they understand the full chilling force of what this image represents. A short, knowing comment is made by Julia’s cousin and it lands with loud, devastating force. A door is slammed. Little moments give the novel a sudden immediacy, a fearfulness readers do not feel in the rest of the sun soaked prose and this contrast makes the book a little unknowable, a little sharper. As much as the prose encourages luxuriating in its slow, sleepy rhythm there’s always the possibility of something lurking, something bad waiting to happen.

More general details about Simon and Julia’s lives are hidden at first, as the reader has stepped into the middle of a ten year relationship and much must be slowly revealed. This gives Sackville extreme power over her reader’s reaction to the characters. Yet it’s almost never obvious that she is leading you by the hand and I certainly never thought to question her control over my perceptions. This is due to a number of factors, including the tone of the writing. The writing has an aura of ease, but must be tightly shaped to produce this effect, as one word that feels out of place could jar the reader and disturb the lazy, leisurely feel the author wants to create. Sackville also allows her readers to feel like they are equal with the books omniscient narrator, as occasionally the book speaks directly to the reader as they spy on Julia and Simon together, like children creeping around a house, ‘Following the trail of it through the dark house, we will find her once more in the garden…Pause now with her on the lawn and breath in…’ . This is a great way of redirecting the reader, as it immediately refocuses their gaze on the part of the story Sackville wants them to notice. It could feel pushy, but instead it feel companionable, as if you are in on a great secret with the author.

There are some weak points in ‘The Still Point’. The visit from Julia’s cousin gives Julia new information about Emily, but the reason for his appearance is very contrived. Personally I found the part about the beginnings of Edward’s trip to the pole, a little dull and inconsequential. Perhaps the ending is a bit too much like wishful thinking, too quick a fix for a troubled relationship and a deeply depressed young woman, or perhaps I am just being a bit cynical. None of these small details kept me from enjoying Sackville’s minute look at what makes up a life and a relationship.

There’s still so much more I want to mention, the exact specifics of what makes the characters so interesting, that delectable cover, the relationships between minor characters...but we’d be here all day listening to me burble on with joy. I’ll close by saying I think Amy Sackville is going to give ‘Wolf Hall’ a bit of a challenge and I’m excited to see such a promising new female writer landing on the Orange prize list.

Other Reviews

Cardigan Girl
gaskella
Kathleen Jones

I am about to fall asleep at my desk after a weekend of crashing on other people’s floors at 4am and seeing Turin Brakes play a super extended concert last night, but I just wanted to pop by and say thanks to everyone for coming out to post about their relationship with fashion. I couldn’t wait to see what you’d all been thinking so I checked my email by phone a couple of times and each time I found something to surprise me. Thanks for all chipping in.

I think sometimes in real life it can be hard to talk honestly about your relationship to fashion, because there tends to be a judgement that if you don’t fit clothes, or want to dress a certain way it’s your body shape or your mind set that’s wrong, rather than the lack of suitable clothes available. Having read through the comments I think it’s clear that women with all different shapes and ideas about style struggle to find a real connection with what’s available. I am absolutely shocked that tall, skinny women find it hard to shop – in all honesty I thought you guys were always sitting in your exclusive skinny bars, surrounded by shopping bags, heartily laughing at all other women’s attempts to buy things ; ) I mean models are skinny and aren’t all clothes made with models in mind? Apparently not, apparently there’s some sort of other weird, unrealistic body shape going around that dictates what we all get to wear. Another case of odd assumptions creating women’s products do you think?

As for me, forging my style has been as odd a process as some of the rest of you have found it. In some ways I’m a typical fashion reactionary feminist (no bra, underwear is for comfort, legs get shaved when they get seen) but in many, many other ways I’m so not (dresses, heels, nail varnish, hair dye – hurrah). I don’t really feel those two elements of my style clash, it’s all about choice right? Then I had a really weird work place related experience at my last job, which made me realise that despite the feminine way I dress and the fact that I wear makeup, the little feminine efforts that I don’t make get noticed more than all the fashion things I do subscribe to. I guess that bummed me out and made me view my style in a more... eh, not a political way, but maybe as a statement of some of my values.

Now I spend more time trying to subvert the clichés of how I look and what I wear. So I drink pints while wearing elegant dresses, I wear a lot of stuff that reflects my darker musical tastes – which I didn’t do when I was young because it always turned into a ‘but you are blonde and look about twelve, clearly you cannot really be a fan of rock bands’ kind of conversation. And every day I feel like the way I dress looks like I am challenging something, or deeply confirming other people’s wrong assumptions of me, like there is no other option because of the way the world views the kind of body I was born with (I won’t bore you with the small troubles of looking sweet and doe eyed, because they are miniscule compared to someone who looks totally different from what society perceives as ‘normal’ but yeah they are annoying) . It’s only really recently that I’ve found a compromise style that fits me where I can mix harder, or sloppier elements, with pretty patterns and tailored things. But still I feel people making these ‘but surely you are this way, these things you say you like are just an act’ judgements without knowing anything about me.

So, yes sometimes I just want to scream, but it was good to be able to come by here and find out that everyone has a variation of their own bitch about the fashion industry, or the dress codes the world sets up.

I promise we can go back to talking about books now :)

Fashion and Feminism

I was pondering the great debate about fashion and feminism after reading this wonderful post at Booksnob, - namely are the two incompatible with each other. I don't think so, I never really have thought so, but often I feel like there are small things I do that would make others judge me as politically oppossed to fashion (ha they should see my wardrobe). I think a lot of women (including me) go through a phase of fashion rejection at some point in their life, which then leads them to create their personal style - a kind of compromise between fashion, real life, their personality and a rejection of the values fashion perpetuates. This adds up to some foxy, confident ladies who look fabulous. That's my own theory, based pretty much on my own life and the friends I see around me.

I realised that I really wanted to hear other people's stories about how they came to dress as they do, because fashion, not just the rejection of it, is a feminist statement. As much as fashion sometimes tries to chain us to definitions and styles, the sheer accessibility of the current high street fashion industry frees us to obviously and physically define ourselves and to change that definition whenever we feel like it.

So come one, come all and please add the story of your life with fashion. Write anything at all as long as it's about how you live with fashion and grooming every day. What do you love about fashion and what do you hate? What kind of compromises do you make between the aspiration of high fashion and living in the real world (for example I'd love to wander about in heels all day, but I'd never make it through work so I have pretty flats for work days - flats, according to at least one designer are pointless)? What do you reject (the new crazy practise of arm waxing for example)? How do you subvert tropes to create your own style? You don't have to pick a side on the fashion vs feminism here, because I believe that it's totally possible to have feminist fashion, choice based fashion where women don't push themselves into a style, but instead discard the parts of style that don't work for them and change fashion to fit them.

Thursday Thirteen - Historical Fiction I Have Loved

In the comments on my ‘Guernica’ review Danielle asked what other historical fiction I’d disliked and more importantly (because we do all like to find new books to read) which historical fiction I’d enjoyed. ‘Easy,’ I thought ‘I’ll just nip and have a look through my reading journal to see what historical I read and liked before I started blogging and make a list.

That would be one long list. Instead I thought I’d do a list in honour of Danielle’s regular feature ‘Thursday Thirteen’ where she creates themed reading lists based on what she’s interested in reading at the time. Here are thirteen historical novels I’ve really enjoyed:

‘Wolf Hall’ – Hilary Mantle: ‘Wolf Hall’ is the kind of history book I’d like to see more of. It plays around with language, structure, point of view (which inevitably means critics cry that it’s ‘so much more than a historical novel’) while telling a juicy story. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve all read enough about this one to know it follows Thomas Cromwell as he rises at Henry VII’s court, so I’ll leave ‘Wolf Hall’s new status as highest selling Booker to prod you in the direction of your nearest bookshop.

‘The Company of the Courtesan’ – Sarah Dunant: Fantastic story, well written and you can see that she’s worked hard to research 16th century Italy. You can’t go wrong with this story of a courtesan and her advisor who have to recreate her business in Venice, after they are forced to get out of Rome.

‘Life Class’ - Pat Barker: Barker once again takes up the theme of art in war. Three young art students work together and fall in love, before being plunged into the horrors of the First World War. It’s not quite as good as ‘Regeneration’, but it is very distinct from Barker’s previous examination of young artists at war and I was impressed by how she managed to reuse the same theme, without making ‘Life Class’ feel the same as ‘Regeneration’.

‘The Wedding Officer’ – Anthony Capella: Capella is one of the lighter writers on this list. I keep seeing him touted as the male Joanne Harris, which is weird because his grasp of sensual details just doesn’t compare with hers, but he does write about food quite a bit. An army officer is ordered to stop American soldiers marrying their Italian girlfriends, but is soon falling in love with a girl who works in her family restaurant. Oh and there’s an entertaining buffalo.

‘The Gates of Rome’ – Conn Iggulden: Excellent, excellent beginning to a series. In the first book of Igullden’s ‘Emperor at the Gates’ series we meet Julius Caesar and his lifelong friend Brutus, in their childhood years. It’s not just battles you’ll find in these books, there’s an in depth look at how Julius and Brutus’s relationship develops, then sours and a good root around through Roman politics.

‘The Far Pavillions’ – MM Kaye: Sweeping Indian drama that I’d be hard pressed to describe fully. There’s a romance, a young man who doesn’t fit in anywhere, army politics and the pervading spectacle of the Himalayan mountains.

‘The Visible World’ – Mark Slouka: ‘The Visible World’ is another case of a piece of historical fiction that plays with structure and hides secrets from the reader, while beguiling them with beautiful language. Its use of language could be compared with Mantel’s in ‘Wolf Hall’. Set in Czechoslovakia during the Second World War.

‘Martha Peake’ – Patrick Mcgrath: This book’s 17th century gothic creepiness will swallow you up. A young girl supports a drunken father who has been mangled by an accident of his own making.

‘Ten Cents a Dance’ – Christine Fletcher: ‘Ten Cents a Dance’ was my first exposure to the world of taxi dancing and young adult historical fiction. I’ve found there’s lots to explore in both areas. Ruby is a feisty girl, struggling to support her family with a job in a canning factory. When she meets a handsome young gangster he finds her a high paid job ‘dancing’ (he is a gangster, so it turns out to be seedy dancing).

'Burning Bright' – Tracy Chevalier: I find that this is the Chevalier novel no one likes, which I cannot understand at all. Alright the ending is a little sweet and moralistic, but then William Blake is a little sappily idealistic sometimes and the book is essentially explaining the genesis of Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence’ and ‘Songs of Experience’. I liked this story about two kids from different backgrounds, a travelling circus and William Blake.

'The Needle in the Blood' – Sarah Bower: I think what I liked about Sarah Bower’s first book was that she tried something different. I’ve never read a novel where the invading Normans end up being sympathetic characters and I’ve never read a novel where embroidery is made to seem so vital and important. Lots to think about in this novel that imagines the creation of the Bayeux tapestry.

'Quicksilver' – Neal Stephenson: ‘Quicksilver’ is historical fiction, but not as we know it. Stephenson is very focused on 17th century ideas and sometimes there can be pages explaining mathematical or scientific ideas. There’s an entertaining cast of characters, full of big name 17th century scientific rock stars like Newton and Hooke. It’s also a brutal book where people die, horribly and disease is everywhere. I can’t say I understood everything the first time round, but I liked that Stephenson was willing to trust me as a reader, rather than trying to simplify things. I enjoyed the complexity and the seediness of this book. It’s part of a fat series, which means there’s lots of enjoy.

'Empress Orchid' – Anchee Min: Finally something completely different. An account of the daily life of an Imperial concubine in 19th century China. Orchid is taken in by the Emperor, but discovers that she and many other concubines may be kept waiting years before they get the chance to make an Imperial heir, which would bring great power. The air is full of conspiracies and concealments as Orchid schemes to get into the Emperor’s bed, but she is also shown as a fragile young girl who has to do extraordinary things to survive.

And two I thought were a waste of time:

'Labyrinth' – Kate Mosse: A perfect example of why historical fiction doesn’t need an alternating modern narrative to make it relevant. The modern story line was convoluted and silly, while the historical story was well paced and dark. Whenever the novel hit the present day I wished we were back in the past. I also found the writing a little repetitive.

'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' – John Boyne: Just awful. Twee and attempts to be moralistic, but the morals it’s based on are dodgy.

Have you read any of the books I liked? What’s the one piece of historical fiction you’d recommend I try next?

Boy Meets Boy - David Levithan

David Levithan’s own words best explain why ‘Boy Meets Boy’ is so wonderful:

‘With Boy Meets Boy, I basically set out to write the book that I dreamed of getting as an editor - a book about gay teens that doesn't conform to the old norms about gay teens in literature (i.e. it has to be about a gay uncle, or a teen who gets beaten up for being gay, or about outcasts who come out and find they're still outcasts, albeit outcasts with their outcastedness in common.)’

Achieved in style.

‘I’m often asked if the book is a work of fantasy or a work of reality, and the answer is right down the middle - it's about where we're going, and where we should be.’

Awesome answer to a tough question.

Paul, Tony and Joni go to see a friend dj at their local chain bookstore. In the bookstore Paul meets Noah, who has just transferred to his school. They start dating and everything is lovely for a time, but then Noah starts to pull away and Paul makes a mistake with an ex called Kyle, who needs a supportive friend. Joni starts dating someone Paul dislikes. Tony ends up grounded by his parents, because they want to set him on the path to straight enlightenment. Paul must find a way to bring those he cares about to a happy place, in time for the big Dowager dance.

In Paul’s town being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transsexual is not a problem. The gay scene and the straight scene joined together and his school year all hang out together. Sexual identity is fluid and boundaries have been smudged, an idea which Levithan amusingly explores by pairing less heard of combinations to create new high school activities, for example there’s a team that bowls while answering quiz questions and the cheerleading team does motorcycle tricks. Levithan uses unusual pairings in a similar way, to challenge ideas about the link between personality and sexuality. One of his characters, a transvestite called Infinite Darleen, is both Homecoming Queen and a quarterback, pushing against the idea that you can be sporty, or interested in fashion, but not both. These surprising combinations are a big part of the small book’s charm.

In the background there are signs that some people would feel more comfortable if everyone was labelled one way or the other. Paul’s ex-boyfriend Kyle can’t handle discovering that he’s bisexual, rather than gay or straight. He wants to be ‘be one or the other’. Other characters express negative feelings about Infinite Darleen, whose behaviour transcends any stereotypical gender categorisation. It’s perhaps unsurprising to find these words coming from a bicurious macho team mate, Chuck, who feels Darleen should ‘just enter the beauty contests instead of heading onto the gridiron…’ but Levithan takes an extremely honest tack by showing that Darleen’s fellow drag queens also find the way she lives her life unacceptable as they ‘rarely sit with her at lunch.; they say she doesn’t take good enough care of her nails, and that she looks a little too buff in a tank top.’ It’s interesting to see that it’s not just straight characters like Tony’s parents, who embrace labels and boxes, it’s also conflicted characters like Chuck and Kyle, as well as out and proud characters, that help to create harmful definitions of right and wrong behaviour.

I feel like I’m making this book’s subject sound like a typical fraught battle between gay teenagers and the rest of the world. It’s not, a minority of the characters voice their dislike of how things work in Paul’s town, I just thought it was interesting to see how Levithan incorporates the problems of reality into his utopian society. Rather than allowing his book to be an entirely positive book, which might easily be dismissed as fantasy, or a morality tale he allows for problems in this generally happy society and creates voices for gay teenagers whose lives have not been as easy as Paul’s.

Overall this is a very happy book, full of charming details guaranteed to make readers laugh a little and smile. The ending is sweet, almost verging on whimsical without being overly saccharine. It cheered me up and it showed me all these new possibilities for authors writing books about gay characters. Typical coming out stories are still important, but Levithan reminds us that after coming out gay teens live and that they’re not all hiding in fear, or reviled by their classmates, even if some of them are. ‘Boy Meets Boy’ is an alternative voice, sweeter and softer than the hard tales of kids rejected and beaten for their sexuality, but no less important.

Other Reviews

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Portrait of a Woman

The Orange Prize - 2001

It seems like I’ve been waiting for this for months, but finally I can say yippee the Orange prize long list has been announced. All women, all the time. Let us chat about the list.

Looking down I can see a couple of books I recognise form my own reading. I just finished ‘The Still Point’ by Amy Sackville which I think will make the decision very hard for the judges (review coming soon). ‘Wolf Hall’ must be a contender for the short list. It would be a nonsense to leave the highest selling ever Booker prize winner off the shortlist, especially when it’s so darn juicy.

There are also quite a few authors I love whose new books I haven’t read yet. I am really miffed that Sadie Jone’s new novel is still in hardback, because as much as I liked ‘The Outcast’ I’m not going to fork out for a hard back copy of ‘Small Wars’. ‘The Outcast’ was an involving read, but not a keeper. I’m glad to see Lorrie Moore and Maria McCann make it, basing my judgement purely on their past work. I had no idea Clare Clark had a new novel out (hopefully with a less misleading blurb than that of ‘The Great Stink’). Sarah Waters and Amanda Craig are authors I’ve always been interested in reading. Yes I am the last person alive who hasn’t read a book by Sarah Waters.

Then there are the delightful randomers. I’ve never heard of some of these books and surely my reading list notebook is hungry for new titles? ‘The Twisted Heart’ and ‘This is How’ sound the most intriguing of these.

And finally the missing. I have no right to judge because I haven’t read their new books, but I thought it odd that Margaret Atwood, Tracey Chevalier and Sarah Hall are absent from the list. Interesting... I almost feel like Tracey Chevalier has fallen out of favour with the literary big guns since ‘Burning Bright’ (which I thought was great and a lot of other people disliked). Sarah Hall seems to be stuck in an awful ‘also nominated...again’ situation, but I thought that after missing out on the Booker again she would at least have another shot at the Orange prize. And Atwood missing out on nomination for arguably the most politically relevant book she’s attempted since ‘the Handmaid’s Tale’ seems odd.

Anyway now that all my griping is out of the way I can concentrate on the list we actually have. Every year Victoria at Eve’s Alexandria tries to work their way through the long list and I’m tempted to try it this year. I’ve read two of the books (crucially I’ve read the biggest book) and I own two more. It would be nice to have a go at reading at least half of the books on the long list.

I’m making a vow to stay out of the ‘Is the Orange prize necessary?’ ‘Does the list represent the best fiction by women, or the kind of fiction we assume women want to read?’ debates this year. The Orange prize is here to stay and as long as no one pulls the ‘should there be male judges’ argument out of their hats I think I can keep myself calm.

What do you think of the list? Do you find the Orange prize an exciting annual event? Are you looking forward to any special events as the prize turns 15 this year?

Too Safe

Last week I read an article at Bibliobuffet about Nicki Leone’s book club commitment issues. Once people start saying ‘I won’t read a book about –‘ bookclubs stop being fun for her, because they are picking safe choices that won’t disturb their members. Fit of bookish conscience time for me! I suddenly flashed on all the ‘unsafe’ reads I’ve been meaning to get to, but avoided last year in favour of safer things.

Feeling the need for some unsafe, unstable book choices I wandered around the blog world and came on a few posts about what the wonderful organisers of ‘Woolf in Winter’ plan to read together this year. Not a safe read in the bunch in my opinion, these people are not flinchers. So sign me up for ‘madness, despair and death’ in June (‘Moo Pak’) and possibly a trip with a famous corpse in September (Santa Evita).

Do you ever feel like your reading has reached a safe kind of stasis? What would you feel was a dangerous read?

Guernica - Dave Boling

My brain is still a little stuffy so please bear with me through my scattered thoughts on ‘Guernica’. I finished reading it during my first sick day and that means I was grumpy, with an extremely low tolerance for annoying writing tics. The things that bothered me may not bother you, but they kept me from fully enjoying the story of a family full of warmth, devastated by horrific events.

Unsurprisingly the story of ‘Guernica’ is set in the small Basque town of the same name, that was destroyed by bombs during the Spanish Civil War. The Navarro family and the Ansotegui family are both Basque families, the Navarros live in the fishing village of Leskitio and the Ansoteguis live on a baserri in Guernica. When Dave Boling gently describes these loving Mediterranean families who have dedicated themselves to farming and fishing he creates a casual, but engaging tone. When Miguel Navarro and Miren Ansotegui eventually marry, a lively romantic partnership is formed which continues to be interesting, without being extremely dramatic.

Boling’s closest attention is reserved for the ordinary citizens of Guernica and the best moments in this book come from tender family interactions and funny studies of the characters small weaknesses. ‘Guernica’ is a novel that concentrates on social history more than big historical characters and the larger picture of political events. However Boling can not entirely resist showing what is happening in other parts of the world, as the book builds to the bombing of Guernica. His most successful device for explaining wider events to the reader is to set up a friendship between one of the Ansotegui brothers, Xabier, who is a priest in the Catholic church and a political figure called Jose Antonio Aguirre who later becomes president of the Basque region. The two engage in covert conversations that explain the current political situation and for the most part, the dialogue of these conversations feel authentic rather than a way for Boling to teach his readers some history.

Unfortunately Boling is careless when using well know historical figures as characters who explain the political background to Guernica’s story. I always think it’s extremely difficult for novelists to incorporate real historical personalities as minor characters and Boling uses both Picasso and the Red Baron as bit players in his novel. Instead of developing these well known men of history as people, with complex feelings he recounts their lives quickly and uses them as tools to illustrate the political feeling in France and the attitudes of the fascists. Boling recounts Picasso’s life in a series of short sketches that lead up to his creation of the famous mural, ‘Guernica’. These short asides have the ring of text culled from a popular biography; facts are presented, the reader is told how Picasso thinks and feels by sentences like ‘This moved Picasso, as both an artist and a Spaniard…’ but there is never any opportunity for the reader to connect with Picasso, or feel his emotional connection between the artist and his painting. Stilted, reported feeling like ‘Picasso had never painted anything of that size, considered the notion garish, and did not appreciate the concept of an artist’s being commissioned in such a manner.’ keep readers distanced from the character. In ‘Guernica’ Picasso appears dispassionate and lifeless, although details of his racy personal life and his high emotion about the situation in Spain are available in ‘Guernica’s pages.

Later in the novel Boling turns to using fictional characters as tools, this time to resolve a tragic part of the book’s plot. A young English woman works with Basque children who have been shipped to England for safety. She meets an engineer called Charley, who will later fly in the British air force during WWII. From their earliest introduction it is clear that they have only been introduced into the story to help Miguel regain something of great worth, after the bombing has destroyed his life. While both Charley and Annie are well developed characters, I found myself resenting an author who would introduce characters, encourage his readers to care about them and then reveal that they were nothing more than plot tools. After Charley and Annie’s fulfil their narrative jobs their story vanishes from the novel.

Alia, Miren’s blind best friend, suffers similar treatment. While Alia is an independent character, with her own interests and story she quickly fades at the end of the story. She is not considered important enough for Boling to explore her feelings about the bombing in any detail, she is only important as the woman who makes soap that reminds Miguel of better times. Although readers find out that she agrees to move in to the Ansotegui house at the end of the novel her individual narrative is silenced. By the end of the novel she lacks agency and I don’t mean because she comes to rely on others more, due to her loneliness and her lack of financial independence, as her businesses are affected by the bombing. I mean she becomes someone others talk about, think about and create rather than someone who is responsible for showing her character to the reader. Even though in earlier parts of the book she is drawn as an ‘exotic’ beautiful, blind woman, which is stereotypical, she still retains an individuality and the feeling of a full character, with genuine feelings that she vocalises. By the end of the book she has disappeared.

Boling has a habit of being rather heavy handed in exposing his morality. ‘Guernica’ begins with an introductory letter from the author that states Boling’s intention is to ‘create characters who were good and noble people coping with traumatic circumstances in inspirational ways.’ I’m not a fan of introductory letters for authors, especially when they set out how the author wants readers to feel about their characters. It should be obvious how the author feels about their characters in their writing and there should always be room for a reader to disagree. There are a few weighty moments in the novel where Boling hopes to make a profound point, for example at the end of the novel Picasso talks to a young German soldier who inquires about his mural:

‘ ‘Pardon me,’ he said, holding the card out. ‘You did this, didn’t you?’

Picasso put down his cup delicately onto its saucer, turned to the picture and then to the officer, and responded, ‘No. You did.’ ’

To me these posed sentences sound false, the kind of ‘particularly fine’ line that an author should strike out. The same can be said of much of the historical research that Boling unloads into the early part of the novel. He has obviously done extensive research into the social history of Guernica and Basque culture, but unfortunately his eagerness to explain the contextual setting of the story results in obvious info dumps. His research does not read easily, as a natural diversion from the story, instead it sticks out as a teaching diversion:

‘But in the txingas event, Justo was unmatched. The ‘farmer’s walk’ tested strength and endurance as the competitor carried 110lb weights in each hand up and back along a measured course until they dropped…
...he then easily hoisted them and unleashed a proud irrintzi, the traditional mountain cry, rising in pitch to a shriek with quickening ululations.’

There are many of these heavy handed explanatory details towards the beginning of the novel and before long become wearing. This is why I nearly gave up on ‘Guernica’ after about fifty pages.

I feel that ‘Guernica’ suffers from the same problems as many historical novels currently being produced. The writing is not fully polished, the research fights with the story and the novel is inspired more by a passionate interest in the subject than a passionate interest in writing. I’m getting tired of seeing historical fiction reach into exciting new areas, only to find that the story doesn’t do justice to the subject matter.

Other Reviews
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Growing Better

I thought I'd drop by to show you that my irises are starting to flower. Just one more to grow a flower and one blub I think might be a really late bloomer and then they can come in from the garage, to the slightly warmer house. That makes three alive plants at the moment, which seems like a good omen for my chances at successfully growing strawberries this summer.

I'm taking my final sick day today. My cold is gone enough that I can get out of bed before lunch and I decided it's important to go back for one day before I start Mother's Day celebrations and go to a pub quiz this weekend. It's not really fair to enjoy myself at the weekend when I've spent all week off work...I guess :)

I 've been reading blogs but I haven't posted much, because apart from sleeping the first day away I've been so busy doing all those little indoor things you never have time for during the working week. I've also spent lots of time reading. All that extra time for books has to be the best thing about a cold (apart from the comfort food). 'Guernica' was finished up on Tuesday, I managed 'Boy Meets Boy' in a day without having to rush and now I'm not sure whether to start something new or to watch more of 24 season five. Box set marathons - another perk of being full of cold. I think this time 24 might win.

I always have quite a bit of trouble deciding what to read while ill. My tolerance for sweet, but dumb is low so if I pick up a piece of chick-lit, comedy, or romance it has to be really smart to keep me entertained. However I don't want anything too brain wearing because I'm sick (sniff, sniff - milks it). A young adult romance made the cut yesterday, because I knew there was a good chance it'd be intelligent. After I finished that I had a bit of a hunt around the house for exciting historical fiction last night in case I felt like reading today and was overwhelmed by how many books you can hide in truncks, storage boxes and wardrobes. Any possible readerly whim could be accomodated by our book stash at the moment and we could start a lending library for readers who like historical fiction. Overwhelmed! So I could use your help deciding what to read next if you don't mind voting in the comments. Here are the possible selections, taken from the multitudes:

'Wench' - Doleen Pekins-Valdez: Mistresses and female escape

'Remarkable Creatures' - Tracey Chevalier: Female scientists and fossils

'The Still Point' - Amy Sackville: Artic exploration and widowhood

'The Street Philosopher' - Matthew Palmpin: The Crimean War and journalism

'Daphne' - Justine Picarde: Writers and restlessness

Whatever you pick will be my lunch time book on my first day back at work. Yay?

What I did at the Weekend (and other things)

I saw the Stereophonics on Saturday and they were rocking. They played for two hours and did three encore songs, but it was not nearly long enough. I think the only thing that was a bit flat was the quarter of an hour they spent playing songs from the sixth album (songs they did not introduced, but just barrelled through) when they could have been playing their way through the JEEP album. Otherwise very fun and getting seats was a good idea because we were not tall enough for the standing crowd. We danced the last half hour away because the people behind and to the side were more focused on the bar than the band, so we decided we could get up without them being fussed about an obscured view. We think the guys below us were possibly tour following fans and they were up and dancing by the end, which made for a nice atmosphere. I’m really jealous of my friend who will be seeing them play in Wales this summer.

I found a purse full of money before I left for the ‘phonics/hanging out in Nottingham trip (cash that I’d forgotten to bank after putting everyone’s Hairspray tickets on my credit card). Since I wasn’t using my bank card it was like I wasn’t spending real money at all, which made me happy.

I also found a ring I’d forgotten I owned and now I’m obsessed with it. It’s Celtic design, hand beaten silver with small purple glass inserts.

I think have got a cold (off work today, soup time soon) but it is ok because I have seen the Stereophonics and it is two weeks until I go to the Turin Brakes concert. If I get ill now, I’ll probably be ok for a weekend mother’s day celebration too. That is how I think of illness now, it is ok to be ill as long as nothing exciting is happening and you’re not throwing up. Every day life can suck it if I’m really sick.

Currently reading ‘Guernica’, but I might be too grouchy for this book at the moment. It’s sweet and quite funny, but the author is so obvious about inserting his research that I keep getting annoyed. If I wrote my review right now it would mostly be negative raging, but I haven’t got to the bombing yet which I imagine provides the emotional power punch so maybe my view will change.

While I was gone Michelle set up the nomination form for NerdsHeartYA and you can now nominate books for the long list. If you know of any young adult books that fit our criteria please fill out the form. We want our long list to be looooooooooong so we have lots of quality possibilities for the shortlist. To be clear: If you applied to be a bracket judge you can still nominate titles for the long list. We’ll just make sure you don’t judge any of the titles you nominate, if they do make it through to the shortlist.

Thanks so much for your encouraging comments and helpful strategies on my freak out about writing post. There were some insane factors to the creation of that post, a very deep longing to go back and do an English MA, but also a genuine wish to improve so thanks for taking me so seriously.

And finally please see my new jacket of win, bought the weekend before last:

After rereading my Eclipse review I very graphically realise quite how awful my writing style is. Sure I have fire and a decent voice, as I was told by one place that rejected my writing a long time ago, but my grammar is bad and I have serious problems with sentence structure. How do I improve, bearing in mind that there are no real life writers groups around here?

Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer

Oh Ms Meyer I thought we had reached an understanding during parts of ‘Eclipse’ but unfortunately it appears this was an illusion. You were all like ‘forced physical contact is not ok’ and I was all like ‘Hell yeah’, but then you had some kind of meltdown and practically forced poor Bella into a hair shirt, handed her a little, leather whip and sent her all through Forks flagellating herself. So it seems we still cannot be friends (I am probably more sad about that than you are because I do not yet have a millionaire friend).

This is definitely the skeeviest book in the series so far. Edward steps up his campaign to be a patronising father figure rather than a love interest and Jacob encourages me to exchange my team Jake flag by being involved in an extremely abusive kissing scene. Even Charlie makes me angry as he fails to listen to his own daughter’s protests about that forced kissing business. There are a lot of scenes I could pull out and analyse in this book, but I feel this is already going to be long so let’s go to my top five ‘please don’t do that’ themes in ‘Eclipse’:

1.) That forced kissing scene. Not only is that unwanted physical contact, but it uses the language of a sexual attack scene, even though actual rape is not involved. There’s also a later scene where Jake tricks Bella into kissing him. She doesn’t want to, but she has to otherwise he will deliberately get himself killed (which of course sounds insane when you put it like that). Anyway she doesn’t respond during the kissing, but he continues, mistakes a different response for passion and goes at her harder. But then, oh it’s ok because just as it’s hitting a rape related vibe again Bella realises she loves him, she wants him and she starts to respond. Message to teenage boys: If your date doesn’t seem to like what you’re doing, she probably just doesn’t know she likes it yet so keep it up. Message to teenage girls: If you don’t like what your date is doing, you probably just don’t understand how much you like him yet, let him keep trying and you’ll probably warm up to him in the end.

2.) I’ve already spoken about this but the whole idea of a werewolf ‘imprinting’ with a two year old is wrong, even if it’s not romantic for him yet, even if he won’t try anything on until she’s of age. Him hanging around being super nice until she is the right age is grooming. And this idea of ‘why wouldn’t she choose him, he’s always been so nice to her’ is not logical – just because a guy is a nice guy doesn’t mean he automatically gets your romantic love, there are other things involved.

3.) Edward’s possessiveness ramps up in this book. He won’t let Bella out of his sight, Alice guards her for him, she has to ‘escape’ to see Jacob. As bad as this is, the way that Edward and Jacob come to treat Bella as a possession to be owned, to be won by whatever means necessary, nearly tops it. I guess Jacob’s transformation from caring friend to cunning suitor is Meyer’s commentary on the impossibility of friendships between men and women, or what happens when sex gets in the way of friendship (I don’t know that, I cannot channel her thoughts, but based on her the previous books I’d say it’s an educated guess).

4.) Jacob’s behaviour gets interrogated, but Edward’s rarely does, because Bella loves him. So Bella hates Jacob for trying to force himself on her, but when Edward later replicates this behaviour Bella is at the most a bit annoyed, because she wants Edward (generally). However at that very specific moment she doesn’t want him to try to sleep with her, she has to push off his advances and yet there’s no repeat of the anger she feels when Jacob tries to maul her. Message: If your boyfriend tries to touch you when you’re not totally willing it’s not as big a deal as if someone else tries to do the same thing. Bella feels annoyed by Edward’s excessively controlling behaviour in this book, but she responds to it with a kind of grumpy affection, not with outright anger. It’s a very controlling approach to making sure that the reader definitely wants Bella to end up with Edward (my view of Jake has definitely been affected by Meyer’s attempts, although I still like him).

5.) The idea that men and women cannot be friends and that women who have male friendships outside of their romantic relationships are leading men on is ever present. There’s also a horrible strain of ‘I know you have a boyfriend, but I love you and I know I am best for you, so I will not stop trying until you realise it as well, even if you ask me too.’ Also ‘I am a nice guy and for that I deserve sex’.

But still I read this book and I enjoyed it, despite seeing, understanding and accepting the awful messages Meyer is pushing. I feel I have to try to work out why I keep reading these books despite being able to see all the wrongness in them. It’s not enough anymore for me to say it’s because they’re fast paced fluff and I don’t think that’s all that appeals to the thousands of other readers who get the badness of the series, but still rip through them. We all find different things that resonate with us and here are a couple of my deeper down reasons that I’ve puzzled out so far:

1.) The ending where Bella thinks everything is her fault and everyone is like ‘no it’s totally not’ but she won’t listen to them makes me sad. Bella’s total lack of confidence and the way she blames herself for everything is probably the truest part of Meyer’s novels, as it shows just how insecure a perfectly normal, pretty, intelligent girl can be made by society and upbringing. Although I find her more annoyingly obtuse as the series continues I feel myself relating to her as we see the real extent of her paranoia about herself and her relationship. I can see that the way she views herself isn’t right and I can find this refusal to accept herself as she is annoying, but I can’t hate her for what boils down to a simple lack of confidence. As Meyer never clarifies, I assume this odd view of her self worth was created by the way the world treated her before she got to Forks and her mother’s own approach to relationships (I think there’s always something in the background there about Renee and men, especially in this book where she can’t take a day to fly to her daughter’s graduation because Phil has injured himself and is ‘entirely dependent’ on her – leave him a crutch and some food and fly back straight after the ceremony). With everyone making a big deal about how many women just aren’t that confident no matter what advantages they have Bella seems like a character these women could easily identify with (while also being really fed up with the part of themselves that makes them identify with her).

There are quite a few reviews that mention not liking Bella because she is so spectacularly unconfident and I’ve levelled that kind of hate at her before. But as the series progresses I find my response to her changing. It’s not her fault she’s so spectacularly unconfident when she arrives in Forks, feelings like that do not just originate in a healthy young mind without some cause (although Meyer never really clarifies who has caused her to feel this way). Sure there’s an excessive amount of Bella love going on in Forks, but that makes no difference to how she sees herself, because she can’t readjust her self image. Before she can properly readjust to being the desired girl she meets all these vampires who are straight off a catwalk, which would plunge any girl with a bad metal image of herself into gloomy times. She’s just a totally damaged girl and it’s not like they’re rare in our society.

I’m not saying this to let Meyer off the hook for her representation of teenage girls. She could have chosen to make Bella more confident, she could have allowed Bella to grow in confidence throughout the series, but instead she sticks with unconfident, paranoid, rather obtuse Bella. My dislike is now reserved for the author, not the character.

2.) While I won’t totally dismiss the idea that the appeal of the series is that it provides young women with a safe space to explore sex, I will significantly roll my eyes in its direction. I think the reason why the idea of the no bighting abstinence angle of Twilight as a safety net for nervous teenage girls, has gained so much support is because it makes people feel better to reinforce the preconception that girls are totally terrified of exploring sex, even in fiction. While I think all teenage girls feel a bit afraid about their first time I don’t think they experience the same kind of feelings about reading about sex for the first time. The entire world of fiction is a safe space for exploring sex, because characters aren’t going to leap out of books and start passionately pressing up against you. Whether a novel contains lots of sexual scenes, or lots of tortured eye loving they provide the chance for a more distanced exploration of sex than girls will find in a teenage boys bedroom.

Critics who support the argument that the books appeal is the lack of penetrative sex, with the presence of sexual tension, tend to talk about sex as if only the final stage of penetration is ‘the real sex’ and foreplay (which is what those angsty looks in ‘Eclipse’ represent) is the way women timidly approach ‘real sex’. For me foreplay is part of sex, not some separate action that comes before ‘the real sex’. That’s why as an adult I’m still attracted to Edward and Bella’s (kind of) physical relationship because it is quite sexual (in a representative way of course). The steamy eye looks represent foreplay, just as in other vampire books biting represents penetration. Their relationship incorporates representative forms of a different part of sex, not a lesser form of the sexual experience, used to substitute for ‘the real sex’. On an erotic level Twilight is never going to quite beat vampire tales like Anne Rice’s books which feature actual sex scenes and vampirey representation, but it’s easily as hot and heavy as something like ‘Dracula’, just in a different way.

If you look at the heroine of these books Bella is actually quite fearless about sex, she’s the one who is most insistent about sex. I know that Meyer’s intention is to warn women away from an enthusiastic approach to sex, as she constantly has Edward (a male figure of authority) warn Bella that she should be afraid of sex with him and should restrain herself for her soul’s sake, in much the same way that he cautions her to be afraid of vampires. Bella responds with a lack of fear about vampires, in fact she positively embraces vampires and this parallels her attitude to sex which she is eager for. It’s possible that in Bella teenage girls are finding a heroine who reflects their strong interest in experiencing the full range of sexual experiences and their eagerness to take control of their sex lives. While Meyer believes this is bad and so has Edward restrain Bella, she may have inadvertently given girls a heroine who reflects modern girl’s attitudes to sex. There’s still the danger that many are getting caught up in her intended message, that these feelings are wrong and marriage should come first, but teenagers with a greater awareness of media messages have a chance to reconstruct her message and take away something that really applies to their lifestyles.

Long huh? I swear that’s all you’ll hear about the series from me, until I read the final book.

On a related note do you think it’s ok for me to feed my friends vampire love story habit if I give her other vampire romances to get her away from repeat reading Meyer’s books?

New Books - Part One of ...Umm I'd Rather Not Say

So, yes this is the start of my book buying spree – more to come…*skulks semi-guiltily*:

‘The Jewel in the Crown’: This looks sagaish, but well written and India’s heat is about as far away from ‘it might snow again tomorrow’ England as I can get.

‘Reservation Blues’ – Sherman Alexie: Eva’s admiration for Sherman Alexie made me want to read this story about four Native Americans putting together a band.

‘Carpentaria’ – Alexis Wright: Another book Eva featured on her blog. A look at racial conflict in Australia sounds different from anything I’ve previously read and small town relations fits with my need for books about the way people mesh together.

‘The Wilding’ – Maria McCann: Look Maria McCann’s second book is here! I did not even know she was writing one. ‘As Meat Loves Salt’ is just...I mean...you should just read it if you haven’t, it is physical and ugly and full of tragedy – it devastated me and I would read sequels if there were any. ‘The Wilding’ is about sinister secrets within a 17th century family, but I bet that’s not all there is to it.

‘Cyberabad Days’ – Ian Mcdonald: Carl put this short story collection of sci-fi set in India in my path.

‘The Bingo Palace’ – Louise Erdich: ‘The Master Butcher’s Singing Club’ put Louise Erdich in UK book stores and magazines a while ago. That book had the tone of writing I’m currently seeking and I have great hopes that I'll enjoy this one as well.

‘At Swim, Two Boys’ – Jamie O’Neil: I hope the simple title indicates the kind of writing inside. A clean literary style would suit me just right at the moment.

‘Evening is the Whole Day’ – Pretta Samarasan: A totally random purchase, found when browsing Amazon (but bought from The Book Depository). I almost never buy random books online without a recommendation like I would in a book shop, because sometimes it ends badly, but the mood to browse struck me. I think I found some other good titles to explore later.

I almost massively over spent my budget, lots of things came out of the basket. I’m miffed that at least three books I’ve wanted for ages are still only available in hardback. When will ‘Small Wars’ and I be together? I almost buckled and put the new Lorrie Moore novel back in, because of Jeanne’s review, but there are only ten weeks until it’s released in paperback and that halves the price. I love authors and I want them to have money, but I also need to have money, so we reach an impasse over hardbacks.

I know it’s only a temporary high, but you’ve got to love that book buying rush. Has anyone given into the temptation recently?

The God Box - Alex Sanchez

Hmm. I feel conflicted about ‘The God Box’, which makes it awkward to review. I think this book is important, really important and if I was’ Evil Queen of the World’ this would be on my ‘force people to read’ list, because this book could be of immeasurable value to many. However although the central relationship in the book is strong, it’s not a great piece of fiction, the most urgent passages are those where dialogues are constructed to pass on views about biblical interpretations and it works best as an informational source, rather than a fictional narrative. Yet in a third contradictory twist, I think one of the most important things about this book is that it is a novel. Many people (including me) will find it more accessible than a book on biblical criticism, pick it up and get a rough outline of the important information found in complex non-fiction books. So prepare for some inconclusive rambling about the problems and the wonders of Alex Sanchez’s novel about growing up gay and Christian.

Paul (formerly Pablo) has been going out with Angie since they were little. She’s his best friend, but early in the book we learn he’s been having sex dreams about men. As a committed Christian Paul believes homosexuality is a sin and he asks God to change his feelings. Living in a conservative community, Paul sees nothing to contradict his ideas about homosexuality, in fact his pastor actively preaches against gay people.

Then an attractive Mexican guy called Manuel transfers to Paul’s school. Manuel says he’s openly gay, but he doesn’t see a conflict between his sexuality and his Christian faith. After meeting Manuel Paul begins to examine his religion’s beliefs about homosexuality with the help of Manuel’s highly informed opinions and at the same time he tries to work out how he feels about Manuel. Not everyone in his community wants to analyse the Bible and when Manuel and his friends try to set up a gay straight alliance Manuel becomes the focus for the anger of the conservative Christians.

Manuel is the mouth piece for the research Sanchez’s has gathered on textual interpretations of biblical passages about homosexuality and ‘The God Box’ is essentially a book of dialogues between him and other characters. Someone, often Paul pulls out one of those totally lame, but entrenched ideas you’ll have heard about why being gay is B.A.D and Manuel shoots it down with logic, close reading and further sources. Think of a rhetorical dialogue like Galileo’s ‘Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems’ transposed into smart young adult literature about homosexuality (ok that comparison is a bit odd, but it’s the only dialogue style text I can think of right now):

‘ “What about St. Paul’s letter to the Romans? Doesn’t it clearly state that homosexuality is wrong?”

…

“First of all, neither he nor anyone else in the Bible uses the word ‘homosexuality’, at least not in any accurate translation. The fact that some people are naturally orientated toward the same sex wasn’t even understood till the nineteenth century.”

…

“Yeah, but in Romans One, St Paul talks about guys having sex with guys and women having sex with women. It’s the same thing.”

“No,” Manuel argued back “because the viewpoint is different. St. Paul wrote as a man living in the first century, who also thought that slaves should obey their masters, that women should wear veils to pray, and that the authority of governments was instituted by God. If you think St. Paul was infallible, that means he was right about all those things. Is that what you believe?” '

Discussions like these are what make ‘The God Box’ so valuable. ‘The God Box’ shows Christian guys, concerned about being gay, that there’s no real basis in the Bible for certain Christian’s textual arguments against homosexuality. Hopefully this should help some guys to accept that there is no conflict between their sexuality and faith, allowing them to dismiss the idea that coming out means meeting oncoming hellfire, or a break with their faith. The book will also furnish them with powerful, textual arguments against any Christians that think being gay is sinful. As a non-believer I’ve always taken the view that just because the Bible says something doesn’t make it true, but it’s encouraging to see that just a little in depth reading can help believers reconcile their conviction that the Bible tells the truth with a belief that homosexuality isn’t a sin. The novel also contains ways of applying critical thinking to examine more general reasons people give for avoiding the gay lifestyle, for example that gay relationships are unfulfilling:

‘ “But what if it’s just a phase?” I insisted. “Eric said a lot of teens have same-sex attraction but they grow out of it.”

“If they’ll grow out of it,” Manuel said matter of factly, “then why do they need ex-gay conversion?”

….

“But gay relationships don’t last,” I argued.

“Oh, really?” Manuel said. “Did you know the first San Francisco gay marriage was between two women who’d been together for fifty-one years? Hel-lo! Half of all straight marriages end in divorce. Like that’s a stellar track record? But are churches outraged at promiscuity and adultery in heteros?” '

The Bible discussions that Manuel and Paul have are not the only element that makes this book so important for young Christians, who are attracted to the same sex. Paul’s personal journey as he struggles to reject and then accept his feelings provide almost a step by step guide to how realising you’re a gay Christian might affect you. Sanchez walks the reader through some things that could happen to a Christian teenager, but would not feature in other coming out stories, for example Paul allows his pastor to advise him on homosexuality and is directed to a service run by Christians who are ‘no longer’ gay. Paul’s experiences sometimes feel generic rather than personalised to his character, as it explores all the stages a gay Christian teenager might go through as they try to change, or accept, themselves, but in being so typical they provide a useful template for other Christians on what they can expect and how to interrogate the situations they might be placed in.

‘The God Box’ is not just a useful source of information for gay teens, others can read it and clearly see the damage repressing gay sexuality causes. Paul keeps his girlfriend from finding a real, romantic partner while he uses her to prove to himself that he’s straight (although this is not malicious it’s still a harmful side effect of Paul feeling pressured to hide his true feelings), he feels alienated from his father and eventually he considers suicide because he can’t make his feelings go away. If anyone doesn’t fully understand why gay Christians can’t just work on not being gay then ‘The God Box’ should encourage them to see why that’s not a realistic idea, even if they can’t agree with its interpretation of the Bible.

However, while I think ‘The God Box’ is an important source of information about a number of subjects, I don’t think it’s a great piece of fiction. While Manuel and Paul are well developed characters, almost none of the other characters are. Paul’s girlfriend Angie, while lovely, is almost too patient and accepting to be true, her best friend Dakota barely has any character traits, except for her activist nature. I could feel the depth of Manuel and Paul’s relationship, probably because it is as much shown by the writing, as it is related by Paul’s direct thoughts. Their growing love is the best rendered fictional plot point, which is good considering they’re the focus of the book. Readers are very much told about Paul and Angie’s relationship, they are told he loves her, told they are great friends and this leaves even their friendship feeling rather lifeless. The whole book tells a bit too much, when it would be more subtle to show what the characters’ relationships are based on, building their personalities and feelings rather than dumping them into the readers lap. At the beginning and end of the book there’s some heavy plot info dumping, which explains many of the relationships and this made it hard for me to connect independently with the characters as I was constantly told how the author wanted me to feel about them. I always think this is a risk writers have to balance with their desire for a clear style that shows their own views about the story and I think Sanchez overbalanced in this book. He’s so eager to explain why being gay and Christian is not only possible, but right (and hurrah for that) that he sacrifices the chance to develop his entire fictional world and secondary aspects of the story, like Paul’s rejection of his Mexican heritage.

If this wasn’t a novel though, would I have read it? It’s not terribly likely as criticism of the Bible is just one of the many areas of non-fiction reading that is constantly pushed to the back of my reading queue. I’m an adult and I can’t get around to reading books like that, despite knowing they’re important so how likely is it that an average non Christian teenager would make that their first reading priority? So if this novel didn’t exist me and the average teenagers (the kind I used to be) would have missed out on all the excellent information and maybe some of those teenagers would have been gay, or homophobic, or unable to combat the arguments of their homophobic contemporaries because they haven’t studied the Bible. While I wish this was a better novel, I’m glad Sanchez wrote a gay Christian voice into fiction as it makes all the information he presents more accessible than it would be in a non-fiction book.

On the back cover of ‘The God Box’ there’s a promotional quote that says ‘The God Box may well be a book that not only changes lives but a book that saves them.’ and I totally agree. There are some emails from readers in the after word that reinforce how relevant a novel about the church and homosexuality is, because of certain groups of Christians who pressure everyone to embrace their version of the Bible and the Christian faith. So hurray for Alex Sanchez and his intelligent, brave challenge to the sanctioned interpretation of the Bible, showing that questioning the Bible creates a stronger faith not a weaker one.

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