BOOK REVIEWS: What I have read since the last review on here

 The Invisible Life Of Addie LaRue by V.E.Schwab

This book is one of those fantasy novels that takes a particular idea and explores what would happen if… 

It is similar in this respect to the wonderful Perfume by Patrick Suskind, which considers the life of a young man who is born with a superhumanly sensitive sense of smell. Another writer whose work does a similar thing is Catherine Webb, an excellent writer who writes science fiction under the name Claire North, including The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August which is about what would happen if someone kept dying and then being reincarnated with all their memories intact [a similar idea to Kate Atkinson’s Time After Time]. Another of Webb’s novels as Claire North is Touch, about what would happen if someone could find themselves inside another person’s mind, taking on their memories and personality, every time they touch someone. Catherine Webb’s novels are, like V.E.Schwab’s, beautifully written and wildly imaginative, and I will probably review them another time [she also writes YA fantasy under the name Kate Griffin].  

Frances Hardinge is another excellent writer who does this sort of thing. For example, in her novel A Face Like Glass, her protagonist Neverfell is the only person in Caverna who can express her true emotions in her face. In A Skinful of Ghosts, Makepeace Felmotte has the ability to see and absorb ghosts. These ‘what would happen if…’ novels have become a genre in their own right in recent decades, and the best of them are superbly written. Hardinge does more than simply imagine ‘What if?’, however – she also explores historical or imaginary worlds…but I’m not here to review her books at this moment.

At the beginning of Schwab’s novel, Adeline LaRue is an eighteenth century child living in a rural village in France who dreams of escape, of a life more interesting and with more possibilities than her actual life contains. Addie is an artist, and she daydreams about a handsome lover, whom she draws. Then – her life’s inevitable dull, restricted pattern drawing ever tighter round her – she foolishly makes a pact with a ‘god’ who talks to her in the form of the handsome young lover she has imagined for years. She says she will eventually give up her soul if she can first have freedom, immortality and eternal youth.

As everyone who has ever read a fairytale knows, you should always word your wishes very carefully as supernatural beings are very tricksy. Addie’s wish is granted and she finds herself an outcast. No one remembers her after she leaves their sight, even only seconds after they’ve been talking to her. Her own friends and family don’t recognize her because they’ve forgotten about her. In the harsh century in which she was born, she finds herself having to resort to theft and trickery to survive. She travels to Paris, the city she dreamed of as a child, and is forced into prostitution just to stay alive. She never gets thinner or becomes ill, though she experiences the pains of starvation and injury. In her first winter on the streets of the French capital, she falls asleep in the snow, ‘dies’ of hyperthermia and is actually picked up by the cart taking corpses away and flung in with the other dead bodies, but she awakens and escapes this horror. However, over time she learns how to live in her peculiar world, even though it is a depressing kind of life.

The novel jumps from chapters which describe her early experiences to chapters which describe her modern-day experiences, as Addie is of course still alive in the 2000s. She falls in love with men who fall for her, but they can’t remember her once she leaves their company so these relationships have to restart again and again. The god of darkness who granted her wish becomes her lover for a time but she continues refusing to give up her soul despite his frequent requests. She learns that she can influence people – artists, composers, writers – even if they don’t remember her.

And then she meets someone who can remember her.

This idea is not original but Schwab is a fine writer who generally knows how much to tell and how much to show. The jumping around within the narrative is easy to follow and actually made the book more interesting, I thought, particularly as Schwab begins to weave in a contemporary story of another character, Henry. I would add, however, that – in the same way that the pleasure of eating lots of Pringles eventually wears off –

reading this beautiful prose does eventually become slightly tedious. This is a long book, and a more varied tone might help to alleviate the occasional patch of monotony. A little more paring down here and there would speed up the pace, though on the other hand the slowness of the narrative does give the reader a taste of Addie’s own experience as she lives on century after century.

This is definitely a literary fantasy novel, and will not appeal to those who require their stories to be fast-paced, eventful and full of action. Things do happen all the time and the reader gets increasing understanding of the challenges of Addie’s essential tragedy, but the writing focuses on emotions more than events, and probably lingers over descriptions more than some readers might like. I personally found it mostly enchanting though there were places I found myself wanting to skip forward. The exploration of what life would actually be like if Addie’s wish was granted is fascinating and makes interesting points about life in general (as well as warning us to word our wishes very carefully indeed).

RATING: **** [Recommended]

 

Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch

This is the most recent of the Rivers of London series which narrate the adventures of charming magical detective, Peter Grant. I have reviewed these books before, but I thought I would write a few words about this latest one as this blog is partly a record of my reading.

I enjoyed this instalment and found some of its ideas very imaginative and exciting, though the police procedural element to the stories is beginning to bore me slightly. The real strength of these novels is Peter himself – he is humorous, clever, resourceful, modest and entirely likeable. Earlier novels in the series had more of a sense of modern London in all its grimy complexity, though we do visit the London Silver Vaults (a setting in Sarah Painter’s Crow Investigations series too) and find out quite a lot about the Spanish Inquisition.

The section I enjoyed most was when Peter and his gruff northern superior, Alexander Seawoll, leave the capital to investigate firstly in Manchester and then in Seawoll’s hometown of Glossop. It was fascinating to discover more about Seawoll, and Peter has some intriguing experiences up north. However, I felt he seemed more like a fish out of water in Foxglove Summer, when he left London for an investigation into child abduction on the Welsh borders, than he does in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Much as I love London, it’s always nice to see Peter leaving the familiarity of the city.

Another significant event in this book is that Peter’s twins are born. Peter begins his paternity leave at the end of the story. The story also includes some appearances by Peter’s old friend/nemesis Lesley May. Despite these features, however, it seemed to me like a rather run-of-the-mill episode in Peter’s ongoing story – perfectly entertaining and definitely not one to miss if you’re a fan of the series, but not among the best of them.

Aaronovitch has done something very enterprising with this series – he has published short stories, novellas, and even graphic novels which expand the story outwards. Some of the stories focus on Peter’s teenage niece, Abigail. One novella is even set in Germany and follows Peter’s German equivalent through a murder case. This is all clever and ingenious and imaginative (Aaronovitch wrote for Dr Who), but for those of us who read these books on Kindle, the graphic novels are inaccessible. Personally, I much prefer a straightforward story in words, and I know I’m not alone in this. The upshot of this is that some of his fans feel increasingly cut off from the bigger story of the Peter Grant universe. The novels sometimes contain references to events or characters from the graphic novels.

Nevertheless, the talking foxes are appearing increasingly often in the novels, which is always a good thing. I mean, who doesn’t love a talking fox? 

Rating **** [recommended]

 

Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson

 

Published in 2000, Emotionally Weird is Atkinson’s third stand-alone novel and I have read some mixed reviews of it. Many people seem to find the ending a disappointment, for example. I read it because it had been sitting in my Kindle library for several years, forgotten and forlorn, so I thought it was about time I gave it a go. I have to say here and now that I absolutely loved it. I found it gripping, extremely funny, highly entertaining, and I wasn’t in any way disappointed by the ending.

              The novel is a work of metafiction, but before your heart sinks let me add that it is by far the most enjoyable work of metafiction I’ve read. It is a novel about novels, about writing and reading. If you are expecting a conventional tale written in a conventional way, you will be disappointed, but nevertheless it still has all the fundamental properties of a complete narrative without one of those ‘Oh, look how clever I am’ endings so beloved of (dare I say it?) male writers.

              Atkinson displays her writing talent throughout by including numerous different genres. The main story, narrated by Effie Stuart-Murray, the protagonist, is a deft comic novel, specifically in the subgenre of ‘university novel’. Yes, it is reminiscent of David Lodge and Malcolm Bradbury, and I’m sure this is intentional. Atkinson portrays a vivid and very funny 1970s University of Dundee, with a full cast of sleazy and/or incompetent lecturers, self-centred feministas, and lazy pot-heads. She is funnier than Lodge and Bradbury, in my opinion. She throws in a few mysteries – the elderly and sweet Professor Cousins thinks someone is trying to kill him, there’s a missing dog, a peculiar private eye, a sinister woman who appears to be following Effie. There are also touches of other genres within this comic novel – suicide, unwanted pregnancy, outlandish accidental death, near-drowning, child neglect, dog-napping, loneliness, and a handsome bad boy with no discernible personality.

The city of Dundee probably didn’t thank Atkinson for her portrayal of it as, in the novel, it is always wreathed in heavy rain, snow, sleet or fog.  

Atkinson deliberately breaks many of the conventions writers are urged to adhere to on Masters in Creative Writing courses – characters will think something and be answered verbally by another character as if they have spoken their thoughts aloud, for instance. There is a massive and ever-growing number of characters, but I found all of them so well-drawn that I still remember the vast majority. Lots of unlikely things occur during a very short period of time. Atkinson introduces magic-realism, and intertwines different genres throughout the story, hints that it will go off in a different direction, so it keeps the reader on his/her toes.

She makes excellent comic use of the conventions of literature – for instance, she highlights the artifice of the story by using the conceit of having this central narrative being told by Effie to her mother, Nora, while they are living on an otherwise deserted Scottish island surviving on oatmeal. Nora, an eccentric woman, frequently interrupts the story to add criticism or encouragement, occasionally to give hints about her own story (a melodrama with the full bells and whistles that entails, though she tells the whole story eventually in an unusually pacy manner).  Atkinson gently satirises the way that in many novels characters tell their own autobiography to another character but do so in a very literary way, not at all how real people would tell a verbal story, apparently remembering everything other characters said, every detail of how the narrator thinks and feels, and sometimes dipping into what other characters are doing when the narrator isn’t there to actually witness them, and now and then changing the story to suit Nora’s criticisms. She gives us snippets from books being written by creative writing students (and lecturers) at the university too, to add to the intertextuality.

              Essentially, this book is like one of those embroideries created to display the different kinds of stitches the creator can do. Atkinson is showing off her multifarious writing skills and making affectionate jokes about the act of writing fiction in all its forms. It felt to me like a humorous homage to writing itself, to the notion of The Novel, and I enjoyed it thoroughly from beginning to end. 

Rating ***** [highly recommended]