And Then She Vanished: Joseph Bridgeman Book 1 by Nick Jones
Or, as I know it, The Unexpected Gift Of Joseph Bridgeman [first book in Downstream series by Nick Jones]
I downloaded this novel several years ago and came across it just before Christmas while idly scrolling through the library on my Kindle. Having nothing better to do, I thought I'd give it a go. It's a time-travel story, and reading it had a peculiar time-travel aspect to it: I was absolutely certain that I'd never read it before, but the further I read the more I started doubting myself and thinking I had read it before after all. I held these two contradictory thoughts in my head simultaneously throughout the read, but it wasn't a simple case of thinking 'Oh, yes, I remember that bit, I've definitely read it before' - for example, I kind of 'remembered' the gist of the denouement a few chapters before it happened, but I couldn't recall any of the details, and nothing in the early part of the book had jogged my memory about the ending. Even while I was reading about events that made me feel I had read them before, I was still pretty certain I hadn't.
I can only conclude that either I had read it before but had forgotten it, or I am going slightly bonkers, or I had at some point in the future time-travelled back to the past and read it so that, in effect, this current reading was my first reading but it was being affected by a previous reading that hadn't happened yet.....
Yes, time-travel stories always get a tad silly, don't they? I mean, why doesn't Dr Who just travel back to a point before all the bad things happened and stop the initial event? But, you have to suspend your disbelief - or just don't read time-travel stories.
This particular one, the first in a series, seems to have changed it's title since I first downloaded it, as, when I looked on Amazon today, And Then She Vanished was all I could find. This is a pity as The Unexpected Gift Of Joseph Bridgeman is a much better title, in my opinion. In fact, it was the title which attracted me to the book in the first place. And Then She Vanished would definitely not have caught my eye in the same way.
Anyway, it is the tale of Joseph Bridgeman, a young American man who tells his own story. As a teenager, his much younger sister vanished in a fairground and was never recovered. She is assumed to have been abducted and killed. This led to further tragedy in the life of the Bridgeman family and, when the novel opens, Joseph is a mess - broke, increasingly dependent on alcohol, seriously depressed. He is persuaded to have therapy but when his therapist, Alexia Finch, teaches him some self-hypnosis skills to help him sleep, he discovers he can time-travel, and he decides to go back in time to save his sister. Of course, it isn't as simple as that.
Joseph's narrative voice is cynical, wry, occasionally irritating but generally engaging. The plot does a fair bit of twisting and turning. Characterisation is pretty good. The story is quite compelling. Notice my qualifiers - this is not a bad book. In fact it is quite good, of its kind. But it's not a book that will change your life or leave you in a quiet state of thoughtful re-evaluation of all you thought you knew. It's well-written but not brilliantly-written. It's one of those books than is better than 'so-so', but not as good as 'bloody fantastic'. If you enjoy it, you have the opportunity to read more in the series. However, though I enjoyed reading it, I didn't feel any particular urge to read the next book. Maybe one day.
*** better than 'so-so' but not as good as 'bloody fantastic'
'The Ordeal of the Haunted Room' (short story in Chronicles of St Mary's series) and 'Santa Grint' (short story in Time Police series) by Jodi Taylor
In their constant attempt to extract every penny from successful novel-series, these days publishers often expect their popular writers to write short stories based in the world of their popular fantasy series and featuring the same characters. Hence, Ben Aaronovitch's numerous spin-off short stories from his Rivers Of London series. In Aaronovitch's case, he also produces graphic novel stories as well as short tales, and while they are all very good they do often add information to the central story which can really annoy readers who just want to read the novels.
Nevertheless, you can see the appeal of such short stories. Readers of series often feel almost 'addicted' to the novels and are very willing to pay over-the-odds for a short story to tide them over until the next novel comes out. A short story might be sold for what seems like a small amount of money but, if you compare it with the price of a full book in terms of cost per word I suspect they actually cost more than the full novels. But they have a guaranteed readership of fans and don't require as much time and effort on the part of the writer.
Jodi Taylor has become a very successful writer due to the popularity of her Chronicles of St Mary's novels and it's spin-off Time Police series. The short stories she has written are generally very entertaining, often feeling like extra chapters of the episodic sagas themselves. Many are set at Christmas so they have become something of a tradition. Sometimes they provide closure, tying off loose ends. My favourite one of this kind is the one where Max and Matthew go back to visit the horrendously-treated Victorian chimney-sweeps with whom Matt spent his early years, and change their lives for the better.
'The Ordeal Of The Haunted Room' was more of a Sherlock Holmes type story but with added mayhem due to the presence of the terrible trio, Max, Peterson and Markham. I found it amusing, page-turning and with a fairly interesting and unexpected resolution, certainly a perfectly pleasurable and undemanding read. As so often happens, one of the trio is badly hurt (Peterson, this time - broken ankle), Max loses her temper, and Markham saves the day.
'Santa Grint' does the same job for the Time Police series, taking the Time Police's most macho officer, pairing him with his putative and highly unlikely girlfriend Jane, and putting them in the middle of a classic Time Police tale involving time-criminals, rogue scientists, time-bubbles and Luke Parrish's father's virtually all-powerful shady business. Add an endearing and very sticky small boy, and you have an engaging Christmas story, complete with the obligatory humorous verbal exchanges between Commander Hay and her adjutant Farenden.
My husband rarely reads novels. He prefers books on the social sciences. But I have got him interested in Taylor's Chronicles of St Mary's and he is really enjoying them. He sometimes can't wait to get back to them, and it means we can for once discuss a shared reading experience! So this alone is enough to make me recommend her writing to you if you like a good story with a large dose of humour.
**** Great to read before bed
Strangers On A Train by Patricia Highsmith
I have a confession: I've only read three chapters of this novel so far. It did, however, make me re-watch the famous Hitchcock film version, so this review will be about that really! I noticed straight away that the film makes significant changes to Highsmith's story, as the protagonist, Guy Haines, is a tennis player in the film whereas he is an architect in the novel.
I have always felt that it is a pointless activity to compare film versions to their original novels, as the two media are so very different from each other. I will admit that personally, despite being a massive Lord Of The Rings fan as a young person (I read it nine times, I think), I thought the three Peter Jackson films were actually better than the original novels, despite the fact that they missed out several episodes such as the Tom Bombadil stuff and the Scouring Of The Shire. There is no way that the battle scenes could be as dramatic, exhilarating, horrible and moving in words on a page as they were on the big screen. Some films expertly capture the spirit and atmosphere of the books on which they are based. The films based on the Narnia books do this pretty well, I've always thought, particularly The Voyage Of The Dawn-Treader. However, some don't, however true to the 'facts' in the original texts. For instance, I've yet to see an animated version of Watership Down that captures the poignant magic of that wonderful novel, and most film versions of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels have been dreadful (Going Postal made a good stab at it) - yet the recent Night Watch series, based loosely on the Pratchett characters in the City Watch books but taking massive liberties, actually worked very effectively, I thought. I have heard many people complain about the way Lady Sybil is no longer an overweight posh woman in wellies who is verging on middle-age, and instead is suddenly a gorgeous young black woman, or how the dwarf Cheery Littlebottom is suddenly a transgender person of normal height. But despite these significant changes, I thought the series distilled the essence of the novels and, more importantly, was genuinely entertaining and coherent for non-Discworld fans. Films aren't novels, and they aren't made just for the fans of the novels on which they are based.
Obviously, Strangers On A Train isn't a fantasy in the same way that the Narnia books or LOTR are - it is only a fantasy in the way that any crime thriller in the essentially realistic style is. But it is still true that things that work on the page don't always work on screen, and making Guy Haines a tennis player rather than an architect gives Hitchcock the opportunity to create a long, tense sequence in which Haines plays a match which he has to finish quickly so he can reach his nemesis in time to prevent himself being accused of murder. I can see why Hitchcock made this change, though actually I found that tennis sequence one of the weakest in the film. I haven't read enough the novel to know how far the film as a whole differs from Highsmith's story, so I can only give my thoughts here on Hitchcock's movie.
I have to say up front that I love Alfred Hitchcock's films. Yes, he had his flaws. I love a bit of melodrama but it does occasionally become irritating in his films. They haven't dated particularly well, but Hitchcock had such a distinctive and original style that they are definitely still worth watching, just as Patricia Highsmith's books themselves are generally considered to be still worth reading. My favourite Hitchcock films are The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, very closely followed by Marnie and The Birds (also based on a terrific story by a wonderful writer, in this case Daphne Du Maurier, though it is changed significantly). I don't like Psycho and have never been able to watch the whole thing, though I can see why it's so justly admired. Strangers On A Train is one of those wonderful later black-and-white movies that are stuffed full of Hitchcockian set-pieces. Farley Grainger as Haines and Robert Walker as a very creepy Bruno are both excellent. The cinematography has lots of those typically-Hitchcockian moments that teeter precariously between brilliantly original and comically ridiculous, just managing to stay on the right side of the line. The use of light and darkness is brilliant, whether it is the shadows outside Guy's house when Bruno appears behind the park gates at night or the moonlight rippling over the night-time lake near the fairground where Guy Haines's first wife is strangled by Bruno. There are some distinctive Hitchcockian moments such as the murder of Miriam being seen reflected in the lenses of her fallen glasses. Hitchcock builds the suspense through delaying tactics such as the tennis match and Bruno's accidental dropping of the incriminating gold lighter down a grating and having to retrieve it. This is effective but is also slightly contrived, which I personally can live with, but I can understood those who can't.
The climax of the action, at the fairground carousel, is justifiably famous, if rather implausible, and probably coloured my long-held dislike of up-and-down-horses (I almost certainly saw the film as a child but had forgotten the details). The way that Hitchcock ramps up the tension while also showing a deeply unrealistic fight between the protagonist and antagonist, and police officers who seem astonishingly incompetent, and also slipping in moments of humour to break and therefore extend the tension is magnificent. Hitchcock moves effortlessly from mood to mood, style to style, cliche to cliche. A woman in the crowd screams 'My little boy!' and has to be held back as she tries to reach the out-of-control roundabout, and then the scene cuts to the little boy laughing with pure excitement and glee as he clings to the back of a wildly careering painted horse. Next moment, the same little sub-plot transforms into horror as the boy is pushed off the horse by the fighting men and ends up clinging to the side of the spinning carousel, about to be flung to his doom, but then Haines scoops him up and places him safely in a carriage before continuing with his fight with Bruno! The horses' hooves rising and falling, making us think that any moment they will trample over one of the two fighting men as they roll around on the spinning floor, are iconic. This tension is both undercut and increased by the shots of a little old fairground employee crawling desperately beneath the out-of-control ride in an attempt to reach the controls and turn it off. And of course when he does so, the carousel collapses spectacularly, presumably causing many injuries, and killing Bruno, but not before he tries unsuccessfully one final time to frame Guy.
And as Guy walks off with the carny who recognised Bruno was the killer, the man asks him who Bruno was and Haines replies 'A very clever man'. I have no idea yet whether Bruno actually is clever or whether Highsmith's novel contains these words, or even whether Guy survives in her original novel, but I intend to read on and find out. I'm guessing the novel doesn't have the fairground scenes, and I'm suspecting that in the novel Guy does carry out his part of the tacit bargain he made with Bruno on the train. But I might be wrong.
I decided to read the novel because I loved the film version of The Talented Mr Ripley, another of Highsmith's novels, and I've read and enjoyed several of her short stories, so I decided I should read at least one of her well-known novels. By many accounts, Highsmith was a rather unlikeable woman as she got older - rather reclusive, racist, anti-feminist, snobbish - but critics seem to agree that she was a writer worth reading. So, I began with this rather intellectual motivation, to broaden my reading of 'proper literature', which led to my revisiting a highly-enjoyable Hitchcock film, which in turn led me back to the novel. Novels have the advantage of giving you a lot more detail than a film - you can go inside the thoughts of the characters, discover their backstories and motivations more fully, and have better explanations of complex plot devices.
I did discover something from watching Hitchcock's film, however, beyond spotting the maestro's famous cameo appearance (getting on a train while carrying what looks like a double-bass). There is a moment in Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy where Peter says 'Criss- cross' in a meaningful voice, and I've always wondered what this alludes to. It turns out it's what Bruno says several times to Guy in the film, and we also see railway lines criss-crossing several times. Wonder if that's in the book?
UPDATE 24 January: I have now read the book. It is significantly different from the film, and Patricia Highsmith has a way of describing psychopathy and the effects of guilt that is quite distinctive. Her writing is detailed and literary, but I never felt close to the characters while reading. It was quite compelling, however, and I'm glad I read it.
***** [film version]
***** [novel]
The Enchanted Castle, The House of Arden and The Magic City by Edith Nesbit
Yes, these are all very old-fashioned books. The author's voice is very much in evidence, but it is always delightfully perceptive, kindly and humorous, rather than authoritarian, patronising or intrusive. There are attitudes towards servants and women and foreigners and social class that might cause modern readers to wince occasionally, but in fact Nesbit was very progressive for her time. Women are often presented as the truly sensible, brave and clever sex, for example.
I love Edith Nesbit's children's stories, particularly the fantasies. I think she had an original, exceptional imagination, a lovely sense of humour, a real understanding of aspects of children's behaviour and the way they see the world, and a genuine fondness for her child-protagonists. If you can adjust your mind to the world in which she was writing, to the upper-middle-class children her books were aimed at, and if you like well-written children's fantasy, you will thoroughly enjoy these stories. It is hard to recognise these days, but her work was often quite groundbreaking.
Her life was pretty unconventional too. A.S.Byatt's novel The Children's Book is very loosely based on Nesbit and her contemporaries.
***** [excellent]
Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris
David Sedaris's work always works best when you hear him read it out himself. His weird little reedy voice and deadpan delivery renders it hysterically funny. When you read the books, you have to have this voice in your head, or otherwise some of the jokes pass you by. His humour is of a very distinctive kind - sometimes brutal, sometimes whimsical, quite often not easy to detect unless you read the sentences in your head in the way he would say them - sarcastically or ruefully.
I have read most of his published books and would recommend them all. Some have made me quite literally ache with laughter. Some have shocked me with their naked honesty. At times, I find myself disliking him - at others, most of the time in fact, I find myself nodding in agreement with his views and thinking how close to my own thoughts and opinions his are. This is odd as he is a small, now elderly, American gay man, from a large family, who is now very rich, so has very little in common with me.
This latest book is one of his best, in my opinion. It comments on events that still feel current, such as Trump's presidency and Brexit, but it's real strength, as always, is Sedaris's depiction of his siblings and his long-time, long-suffering partner, Hugh. One theme that has stayed in my mind from this collection of humorous essays is his relationship with his problematic father, now very elderly (he dies during the time covered by the book). Sedaris dislikes his father, and it is easy to see why. He isn't particularly saddened by his death. But he reveals more information about the man in this book than in previous ones, and it isn't particularly edifying.
Sedaris's honesty is his real strength. He exaggerates and makes jokes and invents things, but at the heart of his writing is a weirdly potent compulsion to tell the truth, even when it makes him look foolish or unlikeable. You feel as if you know him, after reading his books, in a way that even stand-up comedians who draw on their own experiences don't quite do.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it didn't take long to read. However, it might not be the best Sedaris book to start with as it makes frequent reference to earlier events, and therefore might become confusing for a reader new to his writing. But if you're already a fan, I think you'll love this one.
***** [excellent]
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