I’ve a new review up at Shiny New Books!
It’s of Emmeline, The Orphan of the Castle, Charlotte Smith’s first novel, originally published in 1788 and now re-issued in an elegant paperback by Michael Walmer.
It’s a big and absorbing read for a winter evening (or ten). Fun fact: Jane Austen mocked Charlotte Smith but was influenced by her too...
(There’s also an excellent review by Rob Spence here.)
A couple of days ago I watched this fascinating discussion about fantasy between Dr Matthew Sangster and Professor Brian Attebery, chaired by Dr Dimitra Fimi under the auspices of the Glasgow University Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic. (By the looks of it, their YouTube channel has lots of other interesting talks on it.)
I enjoyed it a lot and was particularly taken with the idea of ‘fuzzy sets’ which they talked about as part of the vexed question of how we define fantasy. ‘Fantasy literature’ is a western construct and even within that tradition there are plenty of works which are hard to categorise. Few people would argue with The Lord of the Rings being classified as fantasy, but what about The Master and Margarita, Lolly Willowes, Nights at the Circus or Orlando? (And is it even useful to divide literature like this, unless of course you are a bookshop?)
The idea of fuzzy sets builds on the idea of there not being a binary fantasy/realist divide in fiction, but something of a continuum. You look at relationships and influences of texts upon another – and then you start creating a more interesting picture to explore. An example that they gave was Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy: an influence being Dickens’s fiction. Rather than isolating texts, you open them up.
Anyway, if you have time, then do listen… And last year I wrote about Brian Attebery’s Fantasy: How it Works for Shiny New Books if you are interested...
I have a review up on Shiny New Books: it’s Michael Walmer's reissue of Pipers and a Dancer by Stella Benson. A strange and original novel of 1924, in which Ipsie Wilson voyages out to China to marry the boorish fiancé she hardly knows. Peopled by comic characters, haunted by the losses of the First World War, this novel is well worth your time and I loved it.
Over at Shiny New Books my review of Sylvia Townsend Warner’s splendid biography of T.H. White is now up!
Long-time readers of this blog will know of my love for STW’s writing. I had always wanted to read this biography but the prices of second-hand copies were too high (added now to the extra costs from Brexit of importing books to the EU gripe gripe).
Now Handheld Press has republished the book in a lovely new edition with an introduction by Gill Davies. I couldn’t crowbar much about the introduction into the review (which is already too long really, I can never stop myself), but it makes this edition far, far more valuable than the original. Davies discusses how STW researched and wrote the biography, how her talent for fiction inflected her writing, how she dealt with THW’s very dark side.
Thus it frames book very nicely and reminds us that it is a written and created artefact, the product of years of work and thought. It also, interestingly, centres STW rather than THW; I think it’s true to say that many if not most people who read the book now will read it because of their interest in her work rather than his, an unusual shift.
(Photograph of Sylvia Townsend Warner at Frome Vauchurch, undated; from the Sylvia Townsend Warner website here)
A belated Happy New Year! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and have started 2023 in the nicest ways possible.
For me, one of the highlights of Christmas this year was going to see the Royal Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker in London with my mother and daughter. It was everything you would want a ballet to be: beautiful music, expertly played by the orchestra; lovely sets and costumes, and, most important of all, exquisite dancing. Not that I am an expert, but I actually cried a bit while watching it, and more than once too. The audience was filled with little girls in sparkly velvet and net dresses and it was one wonderful, happy experience. It’s shown every year and I thoroughly recommend it.
After a frantically busy couple of months, I finally and tardily finished reading Brian Attebery’s absolutely brilliant new book, Fantasy: How it Works, which I reviewed for Shiny New Books. If you don’t have time to wade through my turgid prose, just go out and buy/borrow it. It explains why fantasy isn’t just childish escapism, and analyses lots of books to discuss how it works and what it does. All in a very readable, chatty style.
(And look at that gorgeous cover!)
For the rest of the holidays, I enjoyed lounging about reading both in the UK and here in Belgium. In fact, I have rearranged a corner of the sitting-room for maximal reading and lounging pleasure. It’s also easier for me to write there, for I have been writing (just not here).
I spent September to the endish of December following the Golden Egg Academy 12-week Write Your Successful Children’s Novel course. It was brilliant and if you are thinking of writing for children, I highly recommend it. There are no entry requirements, and week by week you learn how you actually put a book together, what to think about, what to develop and how to structure it. It is really practical, and handily it’s distance learning so you can do it at your own pace. Pretty much every week there is a Zoom or FaceBook meeting with the course leader, Imogen Cooper, who is just the nicest person as well as hugely experienced, and you can ask questions and get advice. At the end you can send in your first 2000 words plus a synopsis for one of the Golden Egg editors to evaluate. I have to say that the feedback was very helpful and perceptive.
After another busy few weeks at work I am keen to get back to work on my book. One of the elements I hadn’t been sure about was having a dual narrative, and the editor suggested that sticking to one viewpoint would be better. My book’s other massive weakness, caused by my tendency to plot as I go along rather than before I start, is that there is too much going on and not enough focus on the main theme. So it’s time to prune and plan (at least a bit) before getting back down to writing. The feedback has really enthused me to carry on. I hope to have a reasonable first draft ready by the end of the summer, so that I can re-apply for the 12-month course on developing your children’s novel.
Because of all this I have mainly been reading children’s novels, especially recently published ones. Here are some of them, in short!
The Poisoned Pie Mystery, by Nicki Thornton
A boy to whom accidents just keep on happening, a talking cat who is also a master detective and a lot of cake… This is a brisk and chirpy novel for children of about 9+. The author does something quite daring with the parents, which I did not see coming.
The Hounds of the Mórrigan, by Pat O’Shea
An older work but a wonderful immersion into Irish mythology, as Pidge and Brigit journey through a magical landscape in search of a drop of the Mórrigan’s blood. Truly magical, the many joys of this book include the characterisation of the children, who act and speak like real children, and the creatures they encounter.
Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi
In a mythical sort-of version of Nigeria called Orïsha, the maji are people who used to have magical powers but lost them suddenly twelve years ago. Now they are oppressed and enslaved by the majority kosídan and their cruel king, but maybe there is a way for teenaged Zélie and her friends to restore magic and end the tyranny. This is the first YA novel I have ever read and my was it bloodthirsty! But the story is compelling and I loved the setting.
The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place, by Julie Berry
I don’t think this book is very well known outside the US? But it should be. An exciting opportunity is delivered to the students of St Etheldreda’s School for Young Ladies in nineteenth-century Ely, when their horrid headmistress and her brother both drop dead: poisoned. Rather than informing the authorities, the girls decide to continue as usual and enjoy their freedom, pretending that the two victims are still alive. Of course, this becomes increasingly farcical and meanwhile the murderer is still lurking about. A bouncy entertaining read and the American author gets pretty much everything British spot on and believe me that is high praise.
Once again I have been ignoring this blog… Increasingly, I wonder what it’s for, maybe it will just peter out…
My latest excuse is that my free time is being hoovered up by the Golden Egg Academy’s 12-week course Write Your Successful Children’s Novel. An embarrassingly long time ago now I actually completed a children’s book which was, in retrospect, objectively terrible on pretty much every level. But I did finish it, which is something! Anyway, I sent it to a few agents and unsurprisingly none expressed the tiniest amount of interest.
I didn’t give up, and started writing another book which I think has more promise – at least this one has some dramatic tension, for a start. However, I kept changing my mind about fundamental aspects of it and starting again and faffing. Eventually I conceded that I really didn’t have much idea what I was doing and if I wanted ever to produce something a child might want to read, I would have to pull myself together, inject some discipline and get some help.
The Golden Egg Academy was set up by Imogen Cooper, who used to be Editorial Director at Chicken House. She felt frustrated that she received many interesting submissions which had promise but needed much more work and guidance than a publisher could give. In particular, there were talented writers who did not understand the craft of writing, or how writing for children differs from writing for adults. The Academy offers courses and workshops for picture book writers as well as novel writers, of different lengths and for writers at different stage of their writing process. It is unusual in that it is specifically for children’s books and the team is made up of industry professionals rather than writers or academics.
I am really enjoying the course I’m following. There’s one module per week, with videos, slides and tasks, and at the moment we are grappling with my great bugbear, structure. (One of my great bugbears, should I say.) Although there are live Zoom and FaceBook sessions (yes I have finally joined FaceBook but only for this course!), plus feedback on the beginning of your novel, you can do most of it at your own pace and the materials remain accessible for the duration of the universe. This is a terrific bonus if you have a job, a family or other demands on your time. There’s also a FaceBook group for everyone on the course where we can talk shop, which is fun. Everyone is lovely and friendly. I mean, if my novel would just write itself now I would be in heaven.
So for now I am going to go back to my post-it notes and my 32,000 flabby words. I will also try and write a bit more here, and I have two books to review for Shiny New Books which both look exciting. But you’ll have to wait for those...
Being an idiot I have completely forgotten to mention that I’ve a book review up over at Shiny New Books.
It’s of Dreaming of Rose: A Biographer’s Journey, by Sarah LeFanu, reissued by Handheld Press.
This is the journal Sarah LeFanu kept while researching her biography of Rose Macaulay, and it’s absolutely fascinating. I wolfed it down in about two sittings. Highly recommended! (Also: read the review!)
I’ve written about Marina Warner’s new biography of her parents, Inventory of a Life Mislaid: An Unreliable Memoir, for Shiny New Books, and you can read it here.
If you can’t be bothered to click through: it’s a fascinating and charming study not just of Esmond and Ilia Warner, but of vanished post-war cultures in Europe and the Middle East. Highly recommended!
I managed to tear myself away from the current series of Line of Duty (increasingly ridiculous but still addictive) in order to review A Virtual Image, an absolutely splendid novel from 1971 re-issued by Michael Walmer Books.
Read about it here, at Shiny New Books.
(There are a lot of direct quotes, it was hard to restrain myself, Rosalind Brackenbury's prose is so gorgeous.)
And then go and read the book yourself...
There are some books that are a little bit special, that may not be very popular but really speak to you. The King of Elfland’s Daughter, by Lord Dunsany, is one of them. It’s an extraordinarily beautiful fantasy novel, first published in 1924 and now reissued by Gollancz with the introduction by Neil Gaiman from their 1999 edition of the book.
I originally wrote about it here in 2015 but I’ve revised (and, I hope, improved) the piece for Shiny New Books – you can read it here.