Silly Season

I did a similar meme last year, but the answers to this one at bookgirl’s nightstand were so much fun I thought I’d take part. If you want to play, just finish these sentences with book titles that you’ve read in the past year and post up the results.

In school I was: 8th Grade Super Zero

People might be surprised I’m: The Windup Girl

I will never be: Wench

My fantasy job is: Boneshaker

At the end of a long day I need: The Still Point

I hate it when: Devils Kiss (I know, I had to change the punctuation on this one – sorry)

Wish I had: Toads and Diamonds

My family reunions are: Too Close to Home

At a party you’d find me with: Boys Without Names

I’ve never been to: Guernica

A happy day includes: A Wish After Midnight

Motto I live by: The Rules for Hearts

On my bucket list: The Happy Island

In my next life, I want to be: Sovereign

I would get that regal wave down.

This meme kind of made me smile for silly reasons. I like how mysterious and knowing using book titles to answer these questions makes me sound. Maybe I'll start doing that in real life :) I hope lots of you find it fun to do too.

The Hopkins Manuscript - RC Sherriff

Persephone readers, you have a new convert. Over the past few weeks I’ve been snatching hours with ‘The Hopkins Manuscript’ by RC Sherriff, one of the books Thomas from My Porch sent me for last year’s Persephone Christmas swap. If all the books Persephone publish are as good as this my bank balance is sunk, as each book is ten pounds (worth it, but ruinous).

The book opens with a preface from a member of The Royal Society of Abyssinia explaining that it was once hoped that ‘The Hopkins Manuscript’ * would reveal how the white man came to be extinct, but unfortunately when examined it was decided that the self-important preoccupations of the author made it almost useless for scientists and historians. However, the reader is told that the manuscript, named after the Englishman who wrote it, provides a detailed personal account of the days just before and following the event known as The Cataclysm.

‘The Hopkins Manuscript’ is a blend of social satire and old fashioned sci-fi that is awkwardly charming and funny, but occasionally alludes to the deep, dark lake of melancholy the narrator constantly hovers above. Edgar Hopkins, the author of the manuscript and the first person narrator of the rest of the book, is a middle aged bachelor, who breeds champion chickens and likes to talk at length about his passion for poultry. He is a man obsessed with niggles, who inflates the importance of the smallest insult or honour to incredible proportions. He is rather petty and although he sometimes realises how ridiculous his behaviour is after the fact, he always finds some way to justify his thoughts to himself. He will probably remind readers of the phrase ‘a bit of a stuffed shirt’ and is a harmless character, though sometimes his thoughts tip over into small, spiteful ideas that have a little too much righteous conviction behind them.

Scientists have discovered that the moon is about to crash into the Earth. As a member of The Lunar Society, Edgar is one of the privileged few who learns of the approaching crisis in advance, at an emergency meeting. His first thoughts on hearing the announcement are of relief, relief that the meeting has not been called to discuss a financially risky new telescope that Edgar has funded. The conflict between Edgar’s continued interest in inconsequential, personal details and the real issue of the fast approaching disaster, which will make everything he worries about irrelevant, is the source of much of the books humour. Sherriff is in part writing a dystopian allegory, where he uses a sci-fi storyline to poke fun at British people who persisted in being concerned with keeping old traditions and class systems in place when a second world war was beginning to look inevitable. When the ridiculous Edgar insists that the local poultry show must go on, or continues to hold onto ideas about the separation of the classes, even though the moon will soon hit the Earth, readers can see how trivial Sherrif considered the standards British people held onto as war approached.

However, Sherriff, who fought in the First World War, still believes in the importance of the British stiff upper lip. Judging from ‘The Hopkins Manuscript’ it seems he thought that this quality of stoicism was to be found in the more traditional, isolated villages like Beadle, where Edgar lives, rather than in large, modern cities like London. In the novel, once the general population is made aware that the moon is heading for the Earth people worry, scoff and waste their time, but eventually the inhabitants of Beadle begin working productively on defence shelters and organise amusements designed to keep moral up during the last week before the crash. Class barriers begin to blur, if not to totally disappear and Edgar, a man of some property, relaxes with the village men.

When Edgar visits London to see his aunt and uncle for the last time he finds it a much less productive city. London’s inhabitants do not seem to be keeping useful and cheerful to Edgar, instead they are either violently disruptive, or engaged in pompously demonstrating how brave they are. Edgar finds himself taken to the theatre, which he indicates he finds an extremely strange thing to do in troubled time. The play induces an initial kind of hysteria in the whole audience, but the mood quickly turns gloomy. Edgar cuts his visit short, which prompts his uncle to tell him they had planned a whole weekend of doing exactly what they had always done when he visited, an idea which Edgar finds oppressive. This is Sherriff showing the distinction between a harmful response to disaster (nostalgia and a rigid adherence to the rules of the past) and what he considered a healthy response to crisis (hard work and survival by adaptation).

Such a negative reaction to modern, city life and a tendency to sometimes idealise the traditional, rural life seems surprising from Sherriff. He was involved in The First World War, a conflict which prepared the way for radical social changes in Britain and he seems to use ‘The Hopkins Manuscript’ to show that the world needs to discard old standards that restricted the world. It would seem logical for him to identify strongly with modernity, but he gives the most disordered, hopeless appearance in the days before and after the crash to more modern cities or towns. There are lots of possible reasons for Sherriff making London such a depressing location and I’m not sure which one I favour. Edgar is an extremely changeable, idealistic, maybe even unreliable narrator and perhaps his reaction to London is intended to be over the top, his way of emphasising just how superior Beadle’s (and his) response is to The Cataclysm. Maybe Sherriff was conflicted about modernism, aware that change was necessary, but sure that a retreat into a purer version of tradition would work better than a move forward to a new set of values. Possibly his idealisation of hard work and organised fun stems from his class politics, as much as it does from his observations of what worked on the home front during the First World War. His idea that work and group activities would keep the majority of the population from despair, seems to correspond with industrialist theories that a working man kept employed in any task (no matter the pay, or the monotony of the task) would be happier than a man with more individual leisure on his hands. If you’ve read the book please, please chip in with any ideas if you’d like to.

‘The Hopkins Manuscript’ makes me want to don tweed and tramp the dales, swishing a heavy stick and bellowing ‘Delightful.’ at sparrows and squirrels. The book’s tone will be familiar to readers who have and forgiving. Sherrif makes his narrator unknowingly poke fun at himself, but then balances the laughs that come at his main character’s expense with fond reminders of the man’s humanity and justifiable fears. It’s just the kind of humour I like and I think it highlights why some modern authors who try to emulate old fashioned comedies of hubris fall flat for me. They take the pratfalls too far and fail to be kind to their characters. They’re snide and moralistic rather than intelligent and a little indulgent. Edgar may be rather insufferable, changeable and at times terrible smug, but Sherriff makes sure the reader can also see him as a common human being who reacts to disaster by clinging on to hope and when hope seems to be gone attempting to comport himself with dignity, even if he is not always successful. While I would never say that having lived through The Cataclysm excuses his class prejudice (in fact it makes it worse that he hangs onto such prejudice in the face of an apocalypse) The Cataclysm does allow readers to see different, more complimentary aspects of his personality and wonder again at the ability for human nature to be so contradictory. He forms strong friendships with people who respect him, something that seems impossible at the beginning of the novel, when readers first meet Edgar the poultry bore. He periodically reveals the darkness that creeps up on an average person when they know something bad is coming and these moments of flat, despair or creeping horror are all the more powerful because they arrive in the middle of a very funny book.

It seems like I’m always ending my reviews with ‘But there’s so much more to talk about’ and I’ve got to find a neater way to make sure my posts talk about the book’s full content, because there’s lots more I could mention about this book. I’ll be keeping an eye out for any other reviews, talking about other parts of the book. To close I’ll just quickly mention one last thing that really interested me. The occidental parts of the book, where we learn that the white man has died out and the European world has been colonised by Eastern countries are kind of peripheral, but fascinating. I keep trying to puzzle out Sherriff’s feelings about the British Empire and colonialism and right now I’m inclined to think he opposed it. If anyone knows of a piece of lit-crit out there about this aspect of the book I’d be eager to read it.

* I’m sorry there are no quotes from the book by the way, I put it in with a whole bunch of books for the charity shop after I finished it (operation see floor soon proceeds with limited success), without remembering that I’d need it to write a full post – there are some beautiful turns of phrase in this book (one about an owl hooting was my favourite).

Other Reviews

Exit of Humanity
cardigangirlverity

'Monday Comes Again'

This weekend was a lovely one, that got filled with lots of entertainment and nothing strenuous (my definition of strenuous this year is less lift weights, more lift pints, develop hangover).

I:

Saw part of the Staffordshire Hoard for the first time. If you don’t know about the Hoard, then you should read about it and then you should remember that I am a history graduate living in the West Midlands – where there is big, pride making, localist excitement now available for free at an art gallery! There is not that much on display yet (archaeologists are still cleaning and studying), but the condition of what is available for viewing is amazing. Maybe this is just me, but I like that lots of things on display have tags that amount to ‘not really sure what this is yet, um...working on it, check back soon’ because it is like you are right there while the archaeological studying magic takes place. We also took a tour round the other galleries and it’s well worth a visit for the Pre-Raphelite paintings, the nature paintings in the foyer and some very interesting modern war paintings.

Ate at a slobber inducing ‘Italian’ restaurant with a menu that would make Gordon Ramsey twitch (lasagne and burritos and coconut chicken).

Wandered around the big Waterstones – did not buy anything (hurray for saving), was reminded of the sadness of the closer, smaller Waterstones.

Watched ‘Nowhere Boy’ which bowled me over with its enthusiasm and gorgeousness. I’m not even fond of the Beatles, but this film really showed me why people would be hyper, mega awesome fans and made me remember that Paul McCartney was once but a lad.

Reminded myself I had decided to write gushing reaction posts about good films after I see them. Had a little mind sob about Toy Story 3 again, remembered how incredible Inception was (if easily pulled apart – I DON’T CARE).

Thought about reading Inception fanfic. Might have started doing that a leetle bit.

Caught up on Mitchell and Webb. If they aren't friends in real life, please, don't tell me.

Finished my first Persephone book, which means I made progress on my TBR challenge list. ‘The Hopkins Manuscript’ was so much fun! I think lots of you will enjoy it. I will try to explain why, later in the week.

Read more ‘Anna Karenina’ finally. Part Five finished, still too great to explain and I still hate the husband.

Sat in garden and started ‘The Vast Fields of Ordinary’ which is quickly appealing to my dark side, but leaves me worried that the narrator’s going to make me hate him. I’m only 100 pages in so it’s probably best not to prejudge.

Doing nothing big, but finding everything wonderful is sometimes my favourite way to spend the weekend, especially since I’ve felt constantly on the go for months now. How was your weekend?

Boys Without Names - Kashmira Sheth

Eleven year old Gopal loves his small village in India. He has two close friends, enjoys school and spends time quietly writing stories, while sitting on a branch of a nimba tree overlooking a pond. His happy days in the village will soon be over. His family must leave the village quickly; a bumper crop has devalued the price of onions, leaving many farmers like Gopal’s Baba (father) struggling. The family owe a large debt to a moneylender and although they have sold their farm to pay it they are only able to cover the interest. They pay off the original debt many times by paying off the continuing interest, but they still owe money and the moneylender threatens to make Gopal work in his quarries to pay the debt in labour.

Baba convinces his wife and Gopal that they must leave the debt behind and move in with his wife’s brother Jama in Mumbai. The way Gopal talks about his village makes it sounds like a happy community (athough the farming troubles are hitting many people) and his descriptions of nature let the reader see how many positive memories he has made in the village:

‘I won’t be here to eat the fleshy yellow fruit of the nimba. Will they have gorus-chinch in Mumbai? I will miss these trees, leaves, pond, sounds and soil. Tears trickle down my cheeks.

I wish I had a camera like the tourists in Manhattan. I wish I could take pictures of the nimba tree, our home, Mohan and Shiva, and the hills that surround our village. I wish I had colors and brushes; I would paint the forest, the pond and the birds.’ .

A move to Mumbai may save his family, but it might not provide as many happy memories as Gopal’s small village. Maybe it sounds frivolous to consider the family’s happiness when they have to concentrate on surviving, but Kashmira Sheth allows space for Gopal to remember and mourn his village, while recognising the practicalities of his family’s situation:

‘As I eat the last of the gorus-chinch my heart feels the same as my mouth, sour and sweet at the thought of leaving our village. School has just started, and my friends will wonder where I am.’ .

Although Gopal is only eleven, he is required to be a responsible child, because his family need to escape the village and his young siblings need protecting from the painful truth of his family’s near poverty. While he tries his hardest to be supportive and helpful throughout the book, Gopal is sometimes frustrated and wants things that conflict with the practical needs of his family. He doesn’t often act on these wishes, because he is an obedient and empathetic son, but by using his first person narrative to let Gopal explain his disappointments Sheth makes her character more believable than if he was entirely good.

The family leave in the middle of the night, telling Gopal’s sister and brother that they are going on holiday, but when they all arrive at the local train station the train fares have increased and they can’t afford a ticket to Mumbai. They take a train to Thane, a station near to the Dadar where Jama lives, but become separated when Baba takes a bus to find Jama’s house. Gopal and his mother work hard to keep the twins safe while they wait for Baba to return, but eventually they have to gather a little money and strike out to find Jama without him. They arrive, but realise that Baba is lost somewhere.

When I started reading ‘Boys Without Names’ the blurb led me to believe that Gopal would get hauled off to the sweatshop quickly. I should know better than to listen to blurbs. Almost half of the book is about Gopal’s travels with his family, their struggles in Thane and their time in Jama’s house. Although I liked Gopal’s descriptions of his village and it’s easy to feel yourself falling into many of the places he goes during the book, like the sleeping place under the bridge, I felt a bit impatient with the book, as I waited for it to reach the dramatic events the back cover promised. The book did feel a little slow in the early stages, but later I realised that the build up makes the second half of the book richer. As the book moved forward to Gopal’s time in the sweatshop I began to understand that the first half of the book had been spent humanising Gopal, making him more real than children in a sweatshops seem on television appeals. It’s possible to form a connection with Gopal’s character and to empathise with his later problems because Sheth has shown the reader so much about his history, his hopes and his family.

After Baba disappears Gopal considers himself the new head of the family and decides he needs to find a job, while Jama and his Aai (mother) tell him to concentrate on school. He meets an older boy, who says he can get Gopal a job at his uncle’s factory, but he tricks Gopal drugs him and sells him to a sweatshop factory owner. Gopal wakes up with five other young boys in a hot, tin shack and is ordered to make beaded frames by a cruel man he names Scar.

This second half of the book is similarly slow and detailed. The moment of drama mentioned on the back cover is brief. Gopal’s new life in the sweatshop involves a lot of sitting around, adapting and planning. The boys are locked in every night. They are wary of Gopal and they don’t reveal their names, or histories to him, so he gives them all nicknames: Dimple Chin – the youngest one; Gray Cloud, or GC - the bully; Rocking Boy – a quiet boy who rocks while he works and Night Chatterer – a boy with fringed eyelashes, who mutters in his sleep. The last boy, who Gopal nicknames Thick Fingers is set up as a small boss who keeps the others in line. They receive very little food, are not encouraged to talk and take lots of beatings. Yet in this unconducive atmosphere the boys begin to form a friendship, thanks in part to Gopal’s ability to tell interesting khanis (stories) and they decide to stand up to the system of their small sweat shop. The friendships that grow tentatively between the boys were my favourite part of this book, as the boys who have been in the sweatshop for years close down easily and sometimes betray Gopal’s trust. Gopal has to adjust his expectations of friendship to avoid discouraging them from opening up. At the same time he can’t help trying to lead them in the direction of forming alliances so that they can band together and escape, or if they can’t escape, help keep each other safe.

In this part of the book some ideas turn up that an adult reader familiar with fantasy will recognise. The power of names and the importance of the story teller are subtly introduced to Sheth’s readers and when I say subtly I mean it. There’s no didactic discussion between characters about the power of names and stories, but it’s made clear that the boys hang on to their names and life stories as their last intangible possessions. I really like what GAL Novelty has to say about the story telling aspect of this novel so please pop over and read her enthusiastic review.

I’ve read a few books marketed to younger readers since I started blogging (what American readers call middle grade fiction and UK parents might give to kids in their last years of primary school/ just off to secondary school). ‘Boys Without Names’ is probably the first one that I’ve come across which felt maybe too young for me at times. I’m not sure what I put that down to. Maybe it’s my adult baggage getting in the way. Having read a few books about people involved in violent situations where the descriptions of violence and deprivation are graphic, the treatment the boys receive in ‘Boys Without Names’ seemed less violent. Looking back objectively at individual instances of punishment and living conditions in the book the hard reality of the sweatshop really isn’t glossed over. The boys are hit with tubing, forced to stand grasping their ankles for an hour:

‘Rocking Boy bends down, passes his arms between his legs, and grabs his ankles with his hands. It must be the way to become murga, so that is what I do too. My back is already sore from leaning over and working, but now it hurts even more. Scar raises the tube and it comes down on Rocking Boy’s back, satak!

He flinches and his lips quiver, but Rocking Boy doesn’t whimper.

Satak, it comes down again. I cry out in pain.’ .

They’re fed badly and the ladder to their room is removed at night so they can’t go to the bathroom. So if I thought the book’s depiction of sweatshop life felt tame it’s likely that I’ve become used to higher levels of pain, shame and sadness reading adult books and watching adult films and to an extent that’s dulled the impact of books that don’t spell out the nastiness of conditions in blood and bodily fluids like ‘Boys Without Names’. To be honest that worries me.
The ending to ‘Boys Without Names’ feels a little abrupt and I wanted more information about what happens to the other boys, but Kashmira Sheth has spent her whole novel building Gopal’s life slowly and carefully. He’s really the focus of the book, so it seems right (if a bit frustrating) that the book should follow him home. The result of her efforts is a book that children (and probably adults who aren’t jaded like me) will sit quietly with until they’ve seen Gopal and his friends out of harm’s way.

Other Reviews

GAL Novelty
Generation Zii
Reading Junky
Campbele

Sovereign - C J Sansom

'Sovereign’ is the third book in C J Sansom’s Tudor mystery series. I hadn’t read the previous two books in the series, which immediately set my ‘does not compute’ series radar tingling. However, with a decent grasp of which wife comes after which in Henry VIII’s tale of domestic horrors and some helpful prompting from Sansom I found it easy to follow this book without having read the rest of the series.

I always find explaining mystery plots that come with a lot of historical back story a bit complicated, especially when the recurring characters motivations have roots in previous books. I’ll try to keep it simple and sketch it out briefly, but that might mean leaving quite a bit out. Please bare with.

Matthew finds himself summoned by Archbishop Cranmer and ordered to help with petitions that will be presented to the King, when his Northern Progress passes through York. Once Matthew has agreed to go to York, Cranmer explains that he needs Matthew to look after a political prisoner. This will once again see Matthew dangerously enmeshed with political intrigue, not a thrilling prospect as he has apparently had bad luck dealing in politics in earlier books.

Once in York, Matthew becomes caught up in the horrible death of a glazier and gains custody of a mysterious box. When opened the box turns out to contain papers relating to old legends about Richard III and King Henry VIII. Before he can examine the papers Matthew is knocked out and the papers are stolen. False leads, secrets, attempts on Matthew’s life and a parallel mystery relating to the prisoner and poison all follow. Conspiracies galore, all bloody, earthy, fourteenth century fun for about four hundred and fifty pages.

Sansom is fantastic at drawing readers into the detailed Tudor world she has imagined. The cruel nature of the men Matthew must support is visceral, but not cartoonish. The friendship between Matthew and Barrack feels like it is built on deep history. Matthew’s relations with other people grow from little, but become convincing, emotional relationships. Sansom’s mystery plotting is also thorough and she places red herrings all over her book, so that when the solution to various mysteries is finally revealed the ending isn’t exactly a shock, but it’s much more surprising than it really ought to be (and that’s a good thing.) There’s little to fault in those four hundred and fifty pages. Perhaps Sansom is a little obvious when she uses a device to teach readers about things they will need to know to understand the book, for example when a character says ‘ ‘By the way, you will hear many strange words here. Perhaps the most important thing you should know is that a street is called a gate, while a gate is called a bar.’ ' but that’s about it.

Unfortunately ‘Sovereign' continues for another two hundred pages and these pages are full of problems for me. The main secret, which has to do with the king, is the kind of secret that is actually out there for all to see. It is just disguised as a despicable rumour, for which there is no evidence. So everyone in general society knows about the secrets described in the box and the rumours about the king, but no one can actually prove they’re true. It’s a personal preference, but I’m not a fan of books built around secrets that aren’t all that secret.

When Matthew finds the evidence proving the non-secret is true, he sees it as earth shattering news. It could bring down the throne! This is in Henry VIII’s England, which C J Sansom has described as a place of tyranny. Evidence against the Crown would not help anyone; any conspirators would probably be easily killed once they had revealed the evidence and the evidence would be burnt. The people might rise up in revolt if they ever heard about the evidence, but looking at all the things Henry did throughout the course of his reign compared to how many English revolts he had to put down I would guess the King would convince them this conspiracy was just another case of treachery. Case closed, no need for many of the character’s heroic doings. Maybe I’m quibbling about realism, but plots should make sense in the context of their own world and this part of Sansom’s book failed to convince me.

Then there’s the ending, where Sansom reveals the person who stole the important papers from Matthew’s box. Matthew has always been rather assured of the justice of his actions throughout the book, as you’d expect when a character is a fourteenth century, white man of learning, with some high connections, a little money, and a little reputation. Sansom has created an authentic male character for the time and while I may not always like Matthew, I can understand the world view that shapes his views. Sansom then carefully tempers his assurance, by showing Matthew’s self-consciousness about his physical appearance and by setting up situations that make Matthew see some of his decisions badly affecting other characters:

‘ ‘My parents’ farm is on the wrong side, they owe service to the lord after all. The matter was settled by arbitration by a lawyer.’ He took another deep breath. ‘It was you, sir, the records in Ashford show it. My uncle, who can read, looked at them for my parents.’

I stared at him. ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That work I did –'

‘The lands whose boundaries you settled belonged in part of my parents’ lord. You may have settled it fairly between him and the man who bought the abbey lands, but it has left them penniless.’ ' .

She often makes him lose his self-possession to make it easier for modern readers to relate to him.

Towards the end of the book Matthew takes actions that should cause him considerable doubt, but here Sansom changes him back into a completely self-assured man. Matthew decides to sacrifice someone he likes and thinks has a just cause, because their actions will unseat the head of a nation and disrupt the country. That sounds like authentic reasoning for the time period. However, his argument that one death and a one huge lie is justified if it saves millions of lives is not just a time related argument, it’s an argument related to the gender of the character and the power his gender gives him that’s still used in a modern context. It’s the classic President’s defence from later seasons of 24, the Superman defence from Smallville. Matthew becomes the kind of male character who thinks he should be the controller of fate and destiny, because he knows best and believes that removing the choice from the populace is the only way to keep them from messing up their own lives. It fits with the historical mentality of a fourteenth century man, even (sort of) with the mentality of the individual fourteenth century man Sansom has created, but it’s also a bloody annoying way to conclude a novel.

Again this is a personal feeling, but I’m not a fan of mortal hubris being justified in modern entertainment. I am a big fan of natural development, mixed with a sprinkling of fate, maybe even a bit of deus ex machine as long as that comes from an actual god, not a man. So when Matthew starts censoring evidence (gah and doing other, more violent things) for the good of the world I may have started screaming in my head. He feels terrible about at least one of the things he does, but he’s always sure that what he’s done is necessary. To me, he seems no better than the king he comes to hate.

So...lots of personal feeling in this review! Four hundred and fifty good pages should weigh much more in a readers minds than two hundred too many pages, but I’m sure you all know just how much effect an ending can have on a reading experience. There are two more books in the series on my mum’s bookcase, which I’m sure I’ll relish because Matthew probably won’t make the same kind of decisions in other books. Sansom is good at creating an interesting Tudor world and I look forward to more of that from her earlier books.

Remarkable Creatures - Tracy Chevalier

‘We had not long been installed in Morley cottage before I grew certain that fossils were to be my passion. For I had to find a passion: I was twenty five years old, unlikely ever to marry; and in need of a hobby to fill my days. It is so tedious being a lady sometimes.’

The quote above is made by Miss Elizabeth Philpot, one of the unmarried narrators of ‘Remarkable Creatures’ by Tracy Chevalier. Yes, ‘Remarkable Creatures’ is one of those rare books about single women who stay single. I think from the quote you can tell that unmarried women in the early nineteenth century didn’t claim their single status with happiness like many modern women do, instead they made the best of their situation and if they were lucky came out of life contented by other passions. Chevalier gets deep into the complicated mix of freedom and depression being unmarried brought at that time in her new historical novel.

Elizabeth and her sisters come from a large, middle class, London family. The Philpot women are not excessively beautiful, nor is their family rich. Marriage is an expensive business and only one sister, Frances, can afford to marry. Their brother inherits their London house, then marries and the three remaining sisters, Elizabeth, Louise and Margaret find themselves herded towards a quiet, inexpensive life away from London.

Historical fiction makes it hard for authors to provide kind fates for women who are perpetually single (we do not use the spin- word on this blog) and each sister must find a way to fill her life. The three settle in a small cottage in Lyme Regis, where Louise gardens, Margaret briefly becomes the centre of good society and Elizabeth takes an interest in the fossilised fish that can be found on Lyme’s rocky beaches. While Elizabeth and Louise are, if not continually content to be unmarried, at least able to absorb themselves in their own lives, Margaret is desperate to marry. She almost gets her chance, but her potential suitor is deterred by her sisters irregularities. Chevalier is bound by the constraints of the time period she is writing about and must reflect the cruelty of a restrictive British society towards unmarried women (and although I knew there could be no sex outside of marriage, when I realised unmarried, straight women might never even kiss a man I was pretty depressed). While Chevalier gives Elizabeth freedom and times of contentment, she doesn’t shy from showing little social details that constantly remind Elizabeth of her unmarried, unfinished status:

‘ “Do you like it, ma’am – miss?” Mary persisted.

I flinched. Was it so very obvious that I was not married? Of course it was. For one thing, I had no husband with me, looking after and indulging me. But there was something else about married women I had noticed, their solid smugness about not having to worry about the course of their future.’ .

She also contrasts Elizabeth’s life with Margaret’s, showing how hard an enforced single life was for a woman who desired a husband and a conventional life. I would have liked to see a little more development of Louise, as she tends to get left in the shadows as the calm, gardening sister and with two strongly developed sisters beside her, then later two other complicated female characters, Louise’s character and her feelings about her unmarried state feel incomplete.

Overall though I thought the realisation of the sisters predicament as unmarried women was well done in ‘Remarkable Creatures’. The sniggers, the frustrated dreams, the jealousy feels tragic and conversely the sister’s happy freedoms feel like a reason to fist pump. However, there were times when Chevalier’s portrayal of unmarried women felt repetitive. She often has Elizabeth openly muse on the problems of being an unmarried woman, then swiftly follows that up with a reference to the different freedoms being unmarried brings. Chevalier has done such a wonderful job of showing us how being unmarried affects the sisters that there’s no need for her to make Elizabeth self-consciously tell us about her situation.

Elizabeth’s interest in fossilised fish brings her into the path of Mary Anning. (Look this is what I really should have been talking about, but I got bogged down talking about the unmarried Philpot sisters). Elizabeth Philpot is a new historical character to me, but I read about Mary Anning recently in ‘A Short History of Everything’ by Bill Bryson. She’s the young, working class girl who discovered many significant examples of Ichthyosaur, Plesiosaur and ammonite fossils on her local beaches in Lyme Regis. I’ve always heard Mary Anning’s finds described in ways which imply that she was just lucky to trip across them. Chevalier emphasises Mary’s training in her father’s curie business, where he sold fossils to tourists, her mystical talent for finding fossils, which Mary calls The Eye (with Chevalier the assumption of the mystical always seems so obvious, I never think to question it) and Mary’s growing interest in the origins of the fossils she finds in the cliffs. I also thought all Mary’s discoveries were made when she was a child, but Chevalier shows Mary growing into a perceptive young woman with an awareness of her sexuality, not just an innocent, lucky child who finds ‘monsters’.

Mary and Elizabeth come together as fossil collectors and scientific enthusiasts, but they’re often divided by personal and professional jealousy, as well as class prejudice. Mary is the girl everybody knows about, even if they don’t always acknowledge her importance. Elizabeth has a scientifically interesting collection of fossilised fish but is a nobody. Mary attracts the eye of the rare men that visit Lyme Regis, men who would make more suitable matches for Elizabeth due to their status and age. It’s a complicated friendship that only gets harder as Mary grows up, where Mary’s blossoming looks begin to seem more important to her than Elizabeth’s higher social class. Looking at Chevalier’s previous books it’s clear that she examines history from a class perspective first . While ‘Remarkable Creatures’ is a novel written with a feminist filter, it is also a novel deeply divided by class tension and privilege. Not only is Mary and Elizabeth’s friendship undermined by class prejudice, Mary is excluded from the world of science that she contributes to because of her class. The scientists she help little realise the damage their words can do to her livelihood and must constantly be educated on their effect by Elizabeth, a woman of their own class, who harbours her own class prejudice. Chevalier’s perspective of class presents an exciting, different kind of historical fiction.

I feel like I need to advise caution when you’re reading this post. I’m a big fan of Tracey Chevalier’s books, in fact I’ve only got two left to read (‘The Lady and the Unicorn’ and ‘Falling Angels’ remain). This book was not my favourite Chevalier novel, but that’s like saying it was not my favourite baby animal – my least favourite, cute as heck, baby animal is more exciting to me than about a billion other things in the world. When I was reading ‘Remarkable Creatures’ I could see problems. Chevalier foreshadows like crazy, regularly throwing out overly portentuous lines like ‘There are worse fates’ and ‘It would matter later’ which is, in my opinion, extremely annoying. The self-conscious telling I noted in Elizabeth’s narration sometimes appears when Chevalier wants to explain the religious controversy surrounding the discovery of fossils:

‘This idea was too radical for most to contemplate. Even I who considered myself open-minded, was a little shocked to be thinking it, for it implied that God did not plan out what He would do with all of the animals He created.’

The mentions of the ‘freeing’ effect unmarried starts to sound repetitive after a while.

Although I noticed these bits of irritation, by the end of the book Chevalier had thrown me into her characters lives with such force that I simply didn’t care. To me, her characters seem so open to the reader, so vulnerable and yet so necessarily determined, or maybe their lives seem so passionately lived that by the end of the book their personalities overwhelm any problems the book may have. It doesn’t hurt that Chevalier’s favourite aspects of history fit with my favourite things to read about (religion, class, women’s lives) and she picks stories from different areas of history. I mean women fossil hunting – huzzah! I’m one of the few people that thought that ‘Burning Bright’ was tons of fun. So caution, because my reaction to ‘Remarkable Creatures’ is totally tied up with the emotional experience Chevalier lands on me when she writes.

I have an extra, unread copy of ‘Remarkable Creatures’ (that’s what happens sometimes when your family also likes to shop for books). If anyone wants it just say so in the comments (offer stands wherever you are in the world) and if more than one person would like it I’ll do a random drawing.

Youthful Action (why can I never think of good project names)

Does anyone fancy taking part in a pulled out of thin air project to see Nerds Heart YA to the end of it’s second year? I was hoping to run a contest, but the financial eight ball says ‘No’.

Instead I’m wondering if any of the bloggers out there who never read YA might be interested in dipping their toe into the waters of youth? I’m looking for maybe five (although I’ll take more if I can get them) bloggers who never read YA to choose a young adult book from the Nerds Heart YA shortlist, read it, write about it and perhaps find themselves a very pleasant surprise. Other bloggers like The Booksmugglers and Smart Bitches have occasional posts from readers embarking on romance novels for the first time and I thought it would be a fun idea to adapt their schemes for YA.

If anyone is interested please drop me a note in the comments and we’ll get something sorted out.

Stone in a Landslide - Maria Barbal

Before I talk about Maria Barbal’s ‘Stone in a Landslide’ I want to mention how much I already love the book’s publisher, the recently established Peirene Press. When I first heard about its motto: "Bored watching films? For a fascinating night in: Sink into a two-hour book!" I thought it sounded a little gimmicky, but their emerging, inclusive marketing strategy and fantastic website blew all my doubts away. Like Snowbooks Peirene’s web design and blog are fun, informative and easily accessible. Like Persephone, Peirene engages with its readers views by putting up snippets about each book from bloggers and readers. I’m not just saying that because they gave me a lovely book to review, it is true.

The book begins with the narrator, a Catalonian woman called Conxa remembering her large, poor family, who lived in the Catalan Pyrenees:

‘Anyone could see there were a lot of us at home. Someone had to go. I was the fifth of six children – Mother used to say I was there because God wanted me to be there and you have to take what He sends you. The eldest was Maria who, more than Mother ran the house. Josep was the son and heir and Joan was going into the church. We three youngest were told a hundred times we were more of a burden than a blessing.’ .

Conxa is sent away from home when she is young, because her family can’t afford so many children. Her aunt and uncle are childless and need help running their farm, so Conxa goes to live with them. She isn’t able to see her parents or siblings often and while she is naturally sad at first, she becomes really happy with her aunt and her life fills with love. As the years go by she makes a good friend, finds a husband and begins to build her own family.

Have you ever watched one of those documentaries where people who lived through a major historical event talk about how their everyday lives were, during that time? These people radiate such naturalness as they talk about a time of great historical significance from an intimate perspective. The narrative tone of ‘Stones in a Landslide’ feels like these kind of documentaries, as Conxa simply relates the story of her life in quiet, unflappable prose. Conxa’s story is an ordinary tale of farm work, domesticity and village life, but the simplicity with which Conxa relates the normality of life is what makes the book so involving. The chance to peep into a life’s real flow is irresistible, so by avoiding any clanging sound of artifice or over invention Barbel compels her readers to sit quietly and read, without ever looking up. Conxa’s narrative voice is composed of straightforward, descriptive detail, but it never feels like Barbal makes her reveal specific, or representative details. What emerges in Conxa’s narrative is everything as she naturally remembers seeing it, rather than a story constructed about her life (which sounds like and is a contradiction).

Barbal works skillfully with time and pacing, ensuring that the book doesn’t get bogged down in too many everyday details, even as it reveals a picture of normal life on a farm. The narrative hurries time along, cherry picking events and the timeline it creates of Conxa’s life is highly constructed, excised of any long patches of dullness you might expect to find in an average life (which is part of the contradiction between the natural sounding life story Barbal creates and how she accomplishes the effect she wants). Despite that it feels like a full account of a life, not one snipped up into only the most entertaining vignettes.

Barbel also aids the construction of a natural feeling story and narrative voice by describing common events readers will feel familiar with, such as childhood isolation, marriage and the formation of a family. Her technique is similar (if shorter) to one of the ways other examples of biographical fiction like ‘David Copperfield’ help readers to feel familiar and sympathetic with characters. Barbal smoothes the way for the reader to empathise with Conxa by making her narrator a familiar everywoman that readers can instantly understand. At the same time she makes this story uniquely Conxa’s by providing a picture of the Catalan community she lives in. The strong feelings Barbal associates with the often scattered relationships Conxa is involved in with her aunt, her husband Juame and her best friend also make this a personal story:

‘I had met Delina beforehand and we brought two baskets each. Would we fill them? In the smallest we were carrying the food. Bread and ham. And we would find lots of water.

We left at daybreak and at the beginning we were excited as little girls because we had finally enough time to talk to each other properly. When the going got steep though, we held our tongues to save our breath.’

Barbal’s attempt to recreate a truly natural, authentic narrative voice makes ‘Stone in a Landslide’ a confusing book to read from a feminist point of view. The men in Conxa’s life often make decisions for her and even when she is an adult her son decides where she will live. Conxa is accepting of this, as this male control is expected in her world. Her attitude often seems quite passive. The author is trying to authentically recreate a life lived many years before she is writing, so she reproduces the societal norms of the time, but she doesn’t endorse them. Does she comment on their wrongness? I’d argue that by having Conxa mention them she makes it clear that many will not consider the idea of a man in the position of domestic control default and right. Conxa also repeatedly mentions her belief that the women do the real work on the farm:

‘When I thought about the families I knew well, I saw the women as the foundation stone. If I thought about my home, it was my mother who did all the work or organized others to do it. Not to mention Tia. The woman had the children, raised them, harvested, took care of the pigsty, the chicken coop, the rabbits. She did the housework and so many other things: the vegetable garden, the jams, the sausages…What did the man do? Spent the day doing things outside. When a cow had to be sold. When someone had to be hired for the harvest. It wasn’t obvious that the man did more or was more, but everyone said, What is a farm without a man? And I thought, What is a house without a woman? But what everyone had always said weighed on me. I only knew that I wanted a boy.’ .

So, although Conxa never physically stands up to critique the idea that men should not control women’s lives she does challenge these ideas in her mind. However, this idea can feel like a bit of a stretch sometimes and if readers don’t connect with Conxa’s strong spirit they might find her physical passivity hard to justify.

In later life Conxa finds herself caught up in a terrifying situation. Juame is considered a dangerous radical by the government and he is abducted by them, as are Conxa and her children. Conxa and the children survive, but the children eventually desert the farm and Conxa moves to Barcelona with her grown up son, because ‘Even if I had dared to say, Leave me to stay here, I want to die on this land, it wouldn’t have made any difference.’ . Here the book becomes a little sad and nostalgic, although Conxa’s spirit continues. As readers only met her two hundred pages ago, happily living at the farm the charms of her present situation seem apparent and sadness may hit readers strongly.

I would maybe caution that this book is slight. I mean that’s the entire premise of the Pierine Press, but I do think you have to find an emotional connection with Conxa, otherwise you look up two hundred pages later and go ‘Huh that was over fast’. I’m actually not really sure what you’re supposed to do with that comment now I’ve made it – suck it and see I guess. Wow I am really helpful today. I know I was extremely keen on this book (as was my mum) but, as with all reading experiences, keep in mind subjectivity and personal connection play a huge part in book love.

Thanks go to Peirine for providing me with a copy of this book.

Other Reviews

The Book Whisperer
A Common Reader
Book Snob
Amy Reads
Iris on Books
Savidge Reads
Novel Insights
Reading Matters
Desperate Reader

Q & A - Sarwat Chadda

It's a rare moment here at Bookgazing, as I bring you a question and answer session with an author! The reasons why I don't do this often are many and varied (afraid), but I couldn't resist getting in touch with Sarwat Chadda, author of 'Devil's Kiss' to have a bit of further nose into his paranormal adventure series. He has been so nice about giving up a bit of time to answer these questions and I hope you find his answers of interest.

1. I found it really interesting that you made your main character female and gave her a Muslim parent, then made her part of a group that is almost exclusively male and Christian. What made you decide to make Billi a member of the Knights Templar? Did you consider making Billi part of a Muslim group, or a female warrior force, that is out to fight the forces of evil?

The name of the game is tension and how to create it as soon as possible. The standard cliché is the son following in the father’s footsteps, so how much more interesting it would be if we had a daughter taking the role, it is the 21st Century, after all.

By starting with the extremes a dynamic tension was created between Billi and the other knights, between her and her father, and her personal desires and her responsibilities. Devil’s Kiss is a story about these extremes.

With regard to Billi being part of other groups that is something that I explore in depth in Dark Goddess where she encounters the Polenitsy, a group of Russian Amazons. As Devil’s Kiss was centred around a powerful male group, so Dark Goddess centres around an equally powerful female group and Billi’s attraction to it.

If all goes well and there are more books, I would then explore Billi’s Muslim heritage. When I worked on an early draft of Devil’s Kiss there was far more in it regarding Billi’s Islamic upbringing but I realised the story was becoming way too crowded.

2. Billi is such a kickass female warrior. I am still amazed by how well you've realised this girl who is vulnerable and at times very scared, but at the same time so capable and determined. I'm intrigued by the female characters and real life women who might have inspired Billi. Can you tell me who your top fictional women are and why?

Lyra out of Golden Compass and Hester from the Mortal Engines saga are two favourites from contemporary fiction. Both are clear action heroines who have the fate of the world in their hands but remain true children. However my biggest fictional inspirations are from legends and mythology. Athene is perhaps the biggest influence as she’s both her father’s daughter and goddess of war and wisdom. That is definitely how I saw Billi. Historical influences would be Boudicca and the Rani of Jhansi, fabulous warrior queens and combined their duty with a brilliant grasp of warfare.

3. You make Billi face some incredibly hard choices in 'Devil's Kiss'. Is it hard to push the characters you've brought into the world to the limits of their emotions?

It was hard to write but then writing about the depths of any emotions is hard because you don’t want it to be melodramatic. But it had to be hard, true strength is only revealed when the character is confronted by immense emotional and mental hardship. Writing about superheroes who are always on top of their situation would be somewhat boring. Much of Devil’s Kiss is about how Billi, well-trained for sure but otherwise a normal human, has to draw up courage from her very soul to beat the villain and the price she pays.

This is one of the key attributes of children’s fiction is the raw and true nature of a child’s courage. They don’t have the experience, strength and skill to defeat evil. All they have is their courage.

One thing I was careful of was showing the violence. Devil’s Kiss has scenes of extraordinary violence but it’s tempered by the cost, physically and emotionally, of being a warrior. What I didn’t want was the heroes brushing off injuries and set-backs like they didn’t matter. Each character must be pushed to their limits, well beyond when all others would give up. That’s Billi’s truest, best attribute; she never gives up. Only when you give up are you truly defeated.

4. I've seen a reviewer say they found it strange that your characters weren't strongly Christian, even though they were supposed to be fighting for God. I thought you created characters with a strong faith and made Arthur open to other religions for practical and personal reasons (which I loved). The Templars in general just seem to accepted God as a given, because he is such an undeniable presence in their lives (as is evil). Can you explain your intended approach to religion in 'Devil's Kiss'?

You’ve got to remember that the original Templars were betrayed by the Church. The last grandmaster was burnt at the stake for being a heretic, so I think the knights would have a fairly ambiguous attitude towards orthodox religion.

So, despite spending two hundred years fighting Muslims, they were destroyed by fellow Christians. In my alternative history of what happened next I decided that the surviving Templars would have turned their back on the Church and would find their own way to God.

Some of the rumours around them were that they’d adopted heretical beliefs, were secret Muslims, spat on the cross and prayed to a head (Baphomet, later perceived to be a devil). Plus they received tribute from the Islamic cult of Assassins, so it’s safe to assume their relationship with the Muslims was complex and allows for plenty of mischief.

Having lost the Holy Land, the remaining Templars needed a new purpose, hence their war on the Unholy, the Bataille Tenebreuse.

Then, from a fairly personal point, there’s enough literature out there promoting the differences between religions (especially Christianity and Islam). I thought it would be more interesting writing about the similarities. I was brought up a Muslim while my wife’s a vicar’s daughter. I really don’t see what the fuss is all about. Since my daughters were the inspiration behind Billi it seemed natural she should share their dual-religious background.

5. The big question, which all your readers are probably anxious to know is will there be more Billi SanGreal books? What are you working on right now?

I’m working on Billi 3# right now. It centres around one of the big Templar legends, what treasures they’d uncovered in Jerusalem. In Devil’s Kiss we find one, the Cursed Mirror. In Dark Goddess Billi mentions the fate of the Holy Grail. There were two more but the plot of Billi 3# is about the most infamous, a real game-changer for the Templars. Getting it published is another matter, it depends on how well the first two do. Meanwhile I’m putting the final touches on a book set in India. The Indian history and mythology is so rich with extraordinary characters and events that really aren’t that well known outside of the country. I’m trying to fix that.

Jodie: I really would like that third book to turn up, so I hope the general reading public will dig out their pennies for the first two. Possibly they might feature in one of my bookish Secret Santa presents this year *shifty eyes - not using present giving to increase likelyhood of getting to read a fab book*.

Thanks again Sarwat for agreeing to answer my questions :)

Links of Awesome

While I wait for a few reviews to get written by the magical review writing fairies it seems like time to have a short ‘links of awesome’ post, because lots of people have been getting on with the business of a being awesome while I’ve been away hoping to get out of Croatia with all my body parts:

Simon at SavidgeReads has announced a new literary prize that he helped to create and will be judging. The Green Carnation is set to celebrate recent releases from gay authors, across all genres. Submissions have come flooding in, but the judges are sworn to secrecy until September 1st when the long list will be announced. I’m more excited about this than the current Booker list (I know it’s probably wonderful, but I can’t get enthused).

Fashion for Nerds talks about women who don’t want children and aren’t going to ‘change their mind’. And then she shows some pretty pictures from The Academy of Sciences.

A totally random find via Google was this review of the racial problems in the second Sherlock Holmes episode: madammiaow . To which I would like to add ‘Why BBC, WHY?!’ So many SH stories available to adapt, how did we end up with this racist, sexist and generally problematic episode? Points for putting a fab female actress in as Watson’s love interest and look Jamie is the detective in this one, but negative points for disconnecting your brains so spectacularly. Also, really stupid plotting (I cannot evaluate, I can only be mean about this episode, because it was stupid and when there are only three episodes in a mini-series it’s unforgiveable for one of them to be so bad).

Sidebar to talk about the end of the Sherlock Holmes series: On a positive note the final episode was mostly good. I felt all warm and cheery inside. I mean there was that horrible moment when Holmes and Lestrade are arguing and Watson says something to the effect of ‘Alright, girls.’ to make them stop. No, clearly, men do not argue in a slightly over the top way. That is something only women do and it is of course shaming to be called a woman! OTHERWISE mostly good – a bonanza of mysteries to solve in an hour and a half (I will even over look that this type of episode structure was recently used on Numbers). An evil villain I did not see coming at all and kept me up a little in fear. Yes, boo to the silly cliffhanger ending, but also yay for more of Watson and Holmes complicated friendship.

Masterpiece plans to bring it to the US on PBS and to Australia as well as Sweden, Norway, Belgium and Denmark - not long to wait then hopefully for those of you outside the UK.

I like when things make me reconsider my response to books, because how do I learn without a big old balance of support and correction. Check out ‘A Critical Review of ‘The Help’ ‘ which is a work in progress site, examining the problematic racial depictions in the book (which I would never have noticed without this site to suggest them ). Also litlove and The Rejectionist offer their views on ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ which makes me reconsider my response to it.

And from The Rejectionist I jumped right into an article about the difficulties of being a female geek. I could have kept clicking links all afternoon from that article.

Finally at Bookslut JC Halman talks about conservative dystopias just at the right time to explain why so many dystopias are against technology.

Ok now I’m off to catch up on my Bloglines subscription, which I’m sure is as always full of smart people being awesome.

The Great Escape

Doesn't it look pretty? And don't we look like we're having so much fun? Well it was pretty and we were having so much fun (we ate icecream and had brandy every day, how could it not be fun?). The sea was so blue, the ferries were pretty decent to get from Split to the islands (although hire a car if you can, makes travelling about a lot easier) and the food was spectacular. That photo of us was taken in the best restaurant ever, on the day we'd already eaten what we thought was the best meal of the holiday somewhere else. Split just kept topping itself for food. And Hvar (top picture) and Brac are beautiful islands. Brac has much more to offer than the guide books make out if you like beachs and food. Plus everything was so cheap and the shopping was a cut above regular tourist shopping (Swarovski, sold at component price in an ancient palace). Just beautiful buildings and history and a national holiday while we were there, which meant parades and band battles and national dancing.

So Croatia absolutely recommended as a holiday destination. Split was fabulous. I can't wait to go back in a few years to try another part of Dalmatia.

Unfortunately our holiday to Croatia also contained some disasterous elements. The main problem revolved around out hostel room, which was um not really a hostel room, but a store cupboard with no windows, one dangling spotlight, someone elses underwear in the room and oh yeah a closed off chimney with a falling off grate in it. There was really not enough room for three beds and as our room backed straight onto the communal area we had to keep the doors closed when we slept, in 28 degree heat (that is hot for us British girls).

But we're big girls and we settled in to tough it out (no loo seat in the ladies - hoho it is all another jolly hostel adventure). Two days in and my friends knee is swollen up from we think a spider bite and she is covered in other, smaller bites - nothing to do with the hostel righ...what is that second friend you have just been bitten in our sealed door hostel room? We are out of here.

At midnight we found a new hotel (oh we love you new hotel with your air conditioning and rainfall shower). The next day we got a refund from the hostel (avoid Hostel Ana), which meant new hotel was not so expensive. But we hadn't moved in time and my friend of the swollen knee had to go to the hospital, something no one ever wants to do on holiday. She was in quite a bit of pain, with a pronounced limp.

Anyway four hours and two hospitals later it turns out she had an allergic reaction to invisible to the naked eye, super evil mosquitos likely found in the hostel room. And now the random starts piling on until we were pretty much hysterical and brandy medicated by the end of our holiday:

Maestro card does not work in cash machine - cash machine proudly bears sign saying Maestro accepted - use credit card - accidentally draw too much money out on credit card - have calming conversation about holiday money not counting as real money

Door handle comes off new hotel room, leaving friend possibly trapped inside (hotel staff already believe us to be crazy since the first thing we did on arriving was shower, then ask them to phone a taxi to the hospital - really glad we shoved the handle back in and didn't have to get them to break down the door)

Hotel key (on giant keyring) goes missing for half an hour - covertly wander to hotel desk to pretend we just need an 'extra' key - am not allowed extra key - keep searching - consider taking doorhandle off and carrying it to Brac on the ferry

Shower at new, wonderful life saving hotel, which was fine the day before - leaks out on to main carpet

Second friend is injured by a pedalo?! Pedlo is surely the safest form of water transport!

Flight back delayed - in airport very rude, posh woman in stupid hat tells her daughter she can go and 'see the American' (friend of the swelling up leg is Canadian) as if she is a zoo exhibit - daughter asks me 'What country are you from?' - feel desire to flip off her mother (I know this one doesn't seem like anything, but when it was happening I was very tired and angry and posh people were letting their children bug me)

Second friend leaves awesome, drunkly purchased, glittery hat on plane

Baggage delayed for an hour - begin to believe baggage may have gone on the flight to Oslo

Fire in Dartmouth tunnel necessitates us to make the SatNav avoid M20 - adds two hours to journey - takes us to tiny never heard of country village - stop at T junction - see a goat come out of a garden on a main road

By the time we saw the goat we were still two hours from home and how second friend kept the car on the road I don't know because we were laughing so much.

Certainly a bonding holiday for all concerned and in a few weeks it will be a funny trvaelling story. But, yes I'm hoping to return to Croatia and make some more lovely memories to cover over the craziness.

Bookish Chat: 'The City and the City' - China Melville

I'm back! Sunny holiday pictures tomorrow I promise, but right now I'm here to post up the interesting chat I had with Maree from justaddbooks when we decided to read China Mieville's Arthur C Clarke award winning and Hugo nominated 'The City and the City'. This was a lot of fun and I learned reading books at the same time as other bloggers can be tons of fun (especially when like Maree they use Twitter to drop 'wtf is going on' messages about the craziness of the book).

Maree pulled all our emails together into a recognisable form and ourback-and-forth is here. Warning for spoilers for the book, although I don’t think they’re too bad:

J: 'The City and The City' is a book that combines the crime genre with sci-fi. Did you enjoy the mix and did you think it felt like a natural partnership?

M: Yes; I did. Although on the surface they're not genres you would expect to fuse well, I thought Mieville did an excellent job.

M: I found the book a little hard to get into in the first chapter, but was glad I persisted. How did you find it in the early going?

J: I found the opening chapters easy to get into, but struggled later on. I think because the first few chapters are about easing you into sci-fi, via what at first feels like a setting in our ordinary world. It even felt kind of familiar as a piece of sci-fi, because I've read a couple of books where bits of the crime genre mix with sci-fi.

Once we got into the depths of unseeing and what that means I had to concentrate really hard to keep up with the logic and then at the end I was totally lost for at least a chapter.

M: I could see that. I had to really focus in the early going until I got into the swing of it with the seeing/unseeing. Once I had a handle on that, I was away.

J: Did you feel an emotional connection to any of the characters?

M: Hmmm ... I'm not sure that I did. It's a very cold book in a way. I liked the main character (lol I've forgotten his name) but I'm not sure how much he engaged with me. I felt sorry for the parents of the murdered girl, coming into a world with very different rules to their own, but even then I felt a slight remove. If anything, I felt the most empathy for the member of Breach that the main character interacted with the most. I'm not sure why.

J: No I had a very similar reaction (and what was that main character's name? - Googles...) Oh right Borlu! I kept thinking Blomkvist and then Wallander (but I knew that wasn't right) - kind of think that shows that the main detective was really just your standard detective, interchangeable with many others, although he wasn't a drinker,smoker type - more a heavy thinker, emotionally unattached type. And I think you're right that his not having a family and his relationships with two women not being given much significance contributes to the emotional distance between him and the reader.

I had more of an emotional reaction to Corwi and Dhatt. I wondered how their lives would be changed by this whole event. When we started out wondering if Corwi would turn out to be evil I kept hoping she wouldn't, because she was pretty much the best character.

J: Ok can we address the crazy ending again (obsessed). How 'believable' did you find the solutions to the crime in terms of the world Melville had set up?

M: I was glad that Corwi didn't turn out to be a baddie, too.

In terms of the world Mieville set up - I don't know that he could have ended it any other way. Borlu had basically worked himself into a corner with the case, and with Breach. It's like that's the ending the book was working towards the whole time, but I did get confused with the sudden entrance of big business after no mention of them at all. Like there were conspiracies on top of conspiracies, and then bam! It was almost a deux ex machina. Almost, but I think Mieville handled it well.

Borlu was slightly ... unreal to me? No family to speak of; he's almost a cipher in a way.
What did you think of the splinter groups, or terrorist cells, or ... freedom fighters? I have to admit, I got a little confused with them as well, and it took me a chapter or two to settle into it. Hmmm ... my overriding feeling seems to be of confusion. I wonder if that was intentional on Mieville's part? You certainly have to work for the story.

J: Yep I think you're right, not much else he could have done. He sort of worked it to its logical conclusion and nothing but a 'surprise, this is a stupid twist, but it let's me do something different' moment would have been able to change it.

So much confusion. I must have read that bit with the business involvement five times and I still don't get it totally. Maybe that was his 'surprise - nonsensical twist' moment actually, but he did mostly carry it off well (probably because the evil business goes away and the storyline switches back to a more personal, small scale evil doer). I think the book could have reached the same conclusion without the business involvement if Melville had tweaked some of the details a little bit, but I'd really like that so I could feel smart for understanding everything ;)

In the end I settled on the terrorist groups/freedom fighters being kind of satirical and a comment on our world. Like the crazy Ul Quoma nationalists who wanted to claim everything for Ul Quoma, reminded me of some racist groups. I'm not sure though, because Melville is so adamant that his cities do not symbolise split cities like Berlin, but instead exist in the same world as such cities (and are seperate places, not one split location, but that's another matter). I actually wonder if he's satirising the world he's constructed? Like the views of the more extreme groups, show how ridiculous the unseeing situation of Besz and Ul Quoma is? Thoughts?

And yes they were so hard to understand. You just get your head around unseeing and two seperate cities existing around each other, then you have to accomodate the views of people who see it all differently (the Besz group who sort of wanted breaching to be legal, because they don't believe in seperatism). Agree Melville makes you work hard for what you get. Worth it do you think? Can I just ask if you think there's more Melville in your future?

M: Yeah - I still don't understand the big business thing entirely either. I'm all for clever books that make me think, but I like to be able to understand what I'm reading - lol. I agree - the case could have been resolved without the sudden introduction of big business into the world, which really just muddied the waters even more for me.The nationalists were extreme, and their enterprise (that's not the right word, but I can't think of it) is basically futile. Turning it around on himself? Like ... 'yes I know this construct is ridiculous, but this is what I have to work with so I'm going to play with it a little' ... hmmm ... maybe. Or he's going 'okay, I created these worlds and now I have to make this overlapping cities/seeing/unseeing thing work, and make it believable. OKAY. PAY ATTENTION.' And then somehow he pulls it off.I think, ultimately - ridiculous insertion of big business aside - the payoff of The City & The City was worth it. It's a smart read, and I like books that don't assume the reader is an idiot from the outset. I've read Un Lun Dun by Mieville, which I LOVED and I always recommend to everyone, so he's definitely on my want-to-read list. I'm also very excited for Kraken - his next novel. How about you? More Mieville?

J: I have Kraken, but I'm a bit discouraged now because I've seen some really unhappy reviews from people who really like sci-fi. But it sounds like such a good premise (giant squids, awesome). Also it's huuuuuge. Maybe I'll try it in a couple of months.

I keep hearing such good things about Un Lun Dun and it plays with language right? Love that. Wonder if the library has it.

Thanks Maree for reading along with me. Sci-fi so often blows me away with it's cool crazedness and it was fab to have someone else around to enthuse with and be confused with :)

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