Unfortunately, the cover of Uncle Paul – the ‘nightmare summer holiday’ tagline and a cherry-picked quote branding the author ‘Britain’s Patricia HighUnfortunately, the cover of Uncle Paul – the ‘nightmare summer holiday’ tagline and a cherry-picked quote branding the author ‘Britain’s Patricia Highsmith’ – oversells the book. I could describe it as an old-fashioned domestic thriller, but even that might be a bit of an overstatement: the emphasis is firmly on the domestic. It’s a curious combination of wry humour (which I enjoyed), gentle suspense and an ending that rings rather hollow and melancholy. It’s all very dated too – which, duh, this is a novel originally published in the 1950s, but I found it unpleasant, especially Meg’s boyfriend Freddy (presented as a charming cad, reads as a bully) and the laid-on-thick ageism towards Mildred (who can’t be more than 40!). I haven’t read anything else by Fremlin – except for one short ghost story – and have a strong feeling this isn’t her best. It’s most effective as a satirical portrait of Brits at the seaside, with little tension to be found....more
The usual dilemma with any kind of classic novel: what to say about this that hasn’t already been said? A Separate Peace is told almost entirely from The usual dilemma with any kind of classic novel: what to say about this that hasn’t already been said? A Separate Peace is told almost entirely from the perspective of a teenage boy at a New England boarding school during the Second World War (there’s also a brief – powerfully evocative – introductory section in which the narrator returns to his old school as an adult). Concentrating on the friendship between the narrator, Gene, and his best friend, Phineas, it’s a story of how these children of privilege navigate the effects of war as well as the paradox in which they are now contained: they will imminently join the fight, so they’re expected to grow up fast, but adults also treat them as paragons of precious innocence, to be indulged and coddled. The writing is so clean and smooth and lucid. It rolls along wonderfully; it’s emotionally resonant. I found it beautiful, and well deserving of its status.
Two favourite passages:
‘... One summer day after another broke with a cool effulgence over us, and there was a breath of widening life in the morning air—something hard to describe—an oxygen intoxicant, a shining northern paganism, some odor, some feeling so hopelessly promising that I would fall back in my bed on guard against it. I forgot whom I hated and who hated me. I wanted to break out crying from stabs of hopeless joy, or intolerable promise, or because these mornings were too full of beauty for me, because I knew of too much hate to be contained in a world like this.’
‘Here the road turned to the left and became dirt. It proceeded along the lower end of the playing fields, and under the pale night glow the playing fields swept away from me in slight frosty undulations which bespoke meanings upon meanings, levels of reality I had never suspected before, a kind of thronging and epic grandeur which my superficial eyes and cluttered mind had been blind to before. They unrolled away impervious to me as though I were a roaming ghost, not only tonight but always, as though I had never played on them a hundred times, as though my feet had never touched them, as though my whole life at Devon had been a dream, or rather that everything at Devon, the playing fields, the gym, the water hole, and all the other buildings and all the people there were intensely real, wildly alive and totally meaningful, and I alone was a dream, a figment which had never really touched anything. I felt that I was not, never had been and never would be a living part of this overpoweringly solid and deeply meaningful world around me.’
We first meet Angel Deverell as an impetuous 15-year-old who has decided to leave school, convinced the book she’s impulsively started writing – her ‘We first meet Angel Deverell as an impetuous 15-year-old who has decided to leave school, convinced the book she’s impulsively started writing – her ‘masterpiece’ – will be a huge success. She’s right, but nothing is as she hopes. Angel’s writing becomes famous because it’s bad, and her books sell because they’re sensational trash. We follow her throughout life as she makes a series of terrible choices: squandering her money, marrying louche wastrel Esmé, buying a now-dilapidated house she had admired as a child. Angel, who is portrayed as entirely humourless, can be read as a pathetic character, but there is also something triumphant about her ability to persist in the face of criticism, indifference and ridicule. Her imagination and lack of self-awareness insulate her from the pain that others might feel in her position. Even her situation at the very end of the book is not as tragic as it might be, and there’s a certain romance to her eventual circumstances. Taylor writes with a compassion that blunts the worst blows....more
‘The Missing Girl’ (1957) is an enigmatic story. So enigmatic that I didn't actually understand the ending at first – I was looking for a more convent‘The Missing Girl’ (1957) is an enigmatic story. So enigmatic that I didn't actually understand the ending at first – I was looking for a more conventional or more horrifying conclusion, just something more solid than what Jackson is willing to provide. A girl at summer camp goes missing, but at every turn, efforts to find her are rendered useless. Nobody can remember what she looked like or whether she was in one of their classes, and the witnesses who might've spotted her give vague and contradictory accounts of her appearance. It's an unsettling, bleak narrative about the horror of being forgotten.
‘Journey with a Lady’ (1952) is the weakest link in this three-story collection – a gently funny tale about a petulant 9-year-old boy who meets a woman on the train. At first he's annoyed that her patronising questions are distracting him from his comic book, but the situation changes radically when he discovers she's a criminal on the run. It's effective, but lacks the unnerving power of the other two stories; the amusing tone makes it something of an odd choice to collect alongside them.
‘Nightmare’ (not sure of the original date for this one; first published posthumously in 1997) is just brilliant. Terrifying and unbearably tense. It starts innocently enough, with a secretary, Toni Morgan, being tasked with the personal delivery of a package by her boss. Setting off across New York, she finds herself constantly assailed by advertisements for a competition in which one only has to find and approach 'Miss X' in order to win a series of valuable prizes. The reader notices something is amiss before Toni does, since the list of prizes – holidays, large sums of money, a yacht, a new home in any city in the world – soon becomes so extravagant as to be impossible. And then Toni realises the description of Miss X matches her appearance and outfit exactly.
It's impossible not to put yourself in Toni's shoes (dark blue, with the faintest line of red edging the sole). The feeling that she is under attack amps up until it reaches squirm-inducing, nail-biting levels. And all the while, you're wondering what this mysterious package is, and why Toni must deliver it in person. Like 'The Missing Girl', 'Nightmare' ends with a vagueness that only amplifies its disturbing elements.
The introduction to The October Country is wonderfully evocative (it doesn’t actually apply to everything in the book, but let’s just ignore that):
The introduction to The October Country is wonderfully evocative (it doesn’t actually apply to everything in the book, but let’s just ignore that):
... that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain...
You can see how it was a natural choice for Halloween-adjacent reading! There’s a huge variety of stories within these pages, from creepy tales to lurid horror, plus fantasy, dark comedy and satire. That variety was something I loved about the book, even though I didn't always love the individual stories. The main strength of The October Country is that it keeps surprising you, rarely sticking to the same approach for two stories in a row.
Favourites: ‘Skeleton’, ‘The Small Assassin’, ‘The Scythe’ and ‘Jack-in-the-Box’.
--- ‘The Dwarf’: Aimee is (I think) dating Ralph, who works on the ticket desk at a carnival. Ralph is a cruel man; he mocks a dwarf who comes in every night to look at his lengthened reflection in the funhouse mirrors. Aimee, meanwhile, feels sorry for the dwarf and starts planning to do something kind for him. The ableist descriptions of the dwarf would not fly today, but if you can set that aside the setting and atmosphere are superb.
‘The Next in Line’: On holiday in Mexico, Marie and Joseph learn of a macabre local custom: families must pay a yearly fee for their dead to stay buried, otherwise the corpses will be exhumed and displayed upright in a catacomb. After seeing the parade of skeletons, Marie can’t shake a feeling of dread and impending doom. As with ‘The Dwarf’, this has a strong sense of place and is very eerie. It would fit perfectly in a Shirley Jackson or Daphne du Maurier collection.
‘The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse’: George Garvey is a dull, conventional man; a group of hipster-equivalents take an ironic interest in his banal pronouncements. This has dated badly – I didn’t recognise the majority of the cultural references (I had to look several of them up to check they were real things), so the satirical element was largely lost on me.
‘Skeleton’: Harris is plagued by painful bones; his doctor tells him there's nothing wrong. Frustrated, he seeks the help of a peculiar ‘specialist’. This only leads to more trouble as he becomes distressed by the thought that his body contains a skeleton. I loved this – a few times it’s laugh-out-loud funny (‘BUT A SKELETON!’), yet it also has an intensely disturbing ending. Definitely one of the most memorable stories here.
‘The Jar’: Visiting a carnival, Charlie becomes obsessed with a ‘thing in a jar’ and insists on buying it. The thing, which is never properly described, seems to inspire similar fascination in all who see it, and soon crowds are gathering at Charlie’s house. The message is deeply dubious; the story itself is pretty good.
‘The Lake’: As a boy, the narrator thinks of a missing friend – a girl he had a crush on – while playing in a lake. Ten years later, he revisits the lake on honeymoon and memories come flooding back. Very short, and I really dislike this type of theme; this was my least favourite in the book.
‘The Emissary’: 10-year-old Martin is too ill to go outdoors, and his dog (named Dog) is his only connection to the outside world, bringing the rich smells of each season to Martin’s room. There's some lovely description in this, though it reads rather more like a scary tale for children than most of the others.
‘Touched with Fire’: Mr Foxe and Mr Shaw seek out people with particularly aggravating personalities. They believe these people have subconscious ‘death wishes’ which will lead to them being killed, unless someone intervenes. I enjoyed some elements of this, but it ends very abruptly and feels like a scene cut from a longer story.
‘The Small Assassin’: At first this appears to be a story about postnatal depression: Alice fails to bond with her newborn son, doesn’t want to name him, and becomes convinced he is actively trying to harm her. But as the strangeness escalates, it begins to seem there really is something strange about the baby, and Alice’s husband and the family’s doctor are drawn into the drama. This was one of my favourites – deliciously melodramatic, with a killer ending. First published in 1946, it’s ahead of its time, with the plot reading like something from an 80s slasher.
‘The Crowd’: After Spallner is in a car accident, he retains strong memories of the people who surrounded him in the immediate aftermath. And whenever he encounters another accident, he sees familiar faces in the crowd. As with several stories in the book, this has nothing particularly surprising to offer plot-wise, but it's well-written and efficient.
‘Jack-in-the-Box’: Edwin lives in a vast, lavish mansion with his widowed mother, who has raised him entirely within its confines. He has always believed the house is a ‘Universe’ and the outside world unimaginably dangerous, replete with the ‘Beasts’ that killed his father. Having reached his teens, he now starts to question these beliefs. Even though the reader immediately understands that Edwin’s perceptions are warped, there’s still a strong fantasy flavour to this story, making it incredibly vivid and effective.
‘The Scythe’: Drew and his impoverished family come across a house where the owner lies dead, having written a note to say whoever finds him may inherit his home and possessions. At first, life seems idyllic; eventually, however, Drew realises there’s something sinister about the ever-growing wheat field on the property. ‘The Scythe’ has one of the strongest concepts in the book, and it's executed beautifully. The result is a truly haunting tale.
‘Uncle Einar’: The title character comes from a supernatural family; they all have powers, most of which can be hidden from the world at large, whereas Einar’s is pretty difficult to conceal – he has wings. We follow him through a period of despondency after he loses the ability to fly at night. While I appreciated how different it was from the other stories, this wasn’t to my taste.
‘The Wind’: To the annoyance of his wife, Thompson is constantly fielding phone calls from his best friend Allin, who’s convinced he’s under attack by the wind. I’d put this in the same category as ‘The Crowd’ – effective, but not especially memorable.
‘The Man Upstairs’: Douglas is disturbed by his grandmother's new lodger, a ‘tall strange man’. He takes to following the man and, while watching him through the different colours of a stained glass window, makes a startling discovery. An entertaining tale which, like ‘Jack-in-the-Box’, effectively recreates the viewpoint of a child. I can’t help thinking the ending would have been more effective if Douglas had turned out to be wrong...
‘There Was an Old Woman’: Tildy is an obstinate elderly woman who refuses to believe in death. She’s tricked by a strange visitor, and the story then turns into something of a madcap comedy as Tildy tries to get her body back. Amusing rather than scary, with a similar vibe to ‘The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse’.
‘The Cistern’: Not actually about the thing attached to a toilet; might be more accurately titled ‘The Sewer’. Talking to her sister Juliet, Anna invents an underground world where a couple, both of whom were miserable on the ‘surface’, live happily together. It gradually becomes clear that she’s describing a life she wants for herself. For some reason, I can imagine this story working really well as a Junji Ito-style manga.
‘Homecoming’: Revisits ‘the Family’ mentioned in ‘Uncle Einar’, and features an appearance from Einar too. It now seems that they’re all... vampires? The focus here is on Timothy, who doesn’t fit in with the rest and finds the family Halloween party a miserable experience. More compelling than ‘Uncle Einar’, even with its very downbeat ending.
‘The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone’: Dudley Stone was a celebrated writer who retired at 30, leaving his fans bereft and confused. Some years later, one of these fans tracks him down, and hears the story of Dudley's ‘death’. With its tongue-in-cheek view of the writer's life vs. ‘real’ living, this is a good way to close the book.
I began The Other Place and Other Stories with low expectations. I'd read a few lukewarm reviews, and the introduction doesn't do a huge amount to insI began The Other Place and Other Stories with low expectations. I'd read a few lukewarm reviews, and the introduction doesn't do a huge amount to inspire confidence by mentioning that short stories were Priestley's least favourite literary form. Yet this turned out to be an excellent collection with some truly outstanding stories, memorable for both their content and execution. The best of them combine the innovative strangeness of Robert Aickman's work with the relationship and character insights of Daphne du Maurier.
There is something about these stories that makes them feel magical in themselves, quite apart from their subject matter – a sense that they're simultaneously old-fashioned and ahead of their time. I think this quality might be something I associate with the publisher, Valancourt, in general.
The narrator of 'The Other Place' meets a Canadian, Lindfield, and is intrigued by the man's reason for being in a tiny English village: 'I thought it might be a place I've been trying to find'. Lindfield tells his story – the story of how a stay in the supremely depressing town of Blackley led him to meet Sir Alaric Foden, who in turn introduced him to the magical kingdom of 'the Other Place'. While it wasn't my personal favourite, I can see why 'The Other Place' was chosen to open and name the book. The concept is wonderful; the contrast between Blackley and the Other Place makes Lindfield's despair all too understandable; the characterisation is as strong as the symbolism.
'The Grey Ones' sees a man named Patson visiting a psychiatrist, to whom he must (under duress?) 'explain himself'. He begins talking about his belief in an 'Evil Principle' that seeks to destroy the soul of humanity via its agents, the 'Grey Ones', who appear indistinguishable from normal humans. The resolution is predictable but, still, everything unravels rather too quickly; even though I knew what was going to happen, I'd have liked more dramatic build-up.
In 'Uncle Phil on TV', a bickering family use the insurance money they've acquired from a loathed uncle's death to buy a television set. Their enthusiasm is quickly dampened, however, when a figure who looks just like Uncle Phil keeps turning up in the background of the programmes they watch. Written in the year of the Coronation, as TV was just starting to become popular, this touches on both the excitement and the anxiety aroused by the new medium. The image of Uncle Phil leering at his unfortunate relatives out of the TV set is so deliciously ghoulish! Exactly the sort of thing I relish in a ghost story. I loved this...
... But 'Guest of Honour' was my absolute favourite of them all. On his way to serve as guest of honour at a fancy dinner, Sir Bernard Clipter almost collides with a shabbily dressed man who utters a strange warning. He dismisses the incident, but when he arrives at the event, everything he sees seems strangely altered. I particularly loved the descriptions – the elderly chairman resembles 'a decayed pink bloodhound'; a group of somnambulist waiters 'might have been figures in some ballet or spectacle, so many robot poisoners'. The imagery is stunningly vivid and horrifying. I can't believe this has never been filmed. Another one to add to the list of adaptations I will commission myself if I'm ever rich and famous.
I don't have an awful lot to say about 'Look After the Strange Girl'; the most interesting thing about it is the opening, in which the reader must deal with the same disorientation as the narrator, who has found himself somewhere (or when) he did not intend to be. It's a good idea that doesn't go anywhere.
The protagonist of 'The Statues' finds himself in a similar state to Lindfield of 'The Other Place'. Repeatedly, he glimpses impossibly vast statues throughout London. They are not visible to others, and disappear every time; Walter Voley comes to believe he is seeing fragments of a far-future version of the city, but his inability to reach it causes a fall into depression.
'The Leadington Incident' has a similar premise to 'Guest of Honour', and perhaps suffers for that because it pales in comparison to the earlier story. George Cobthorn, a pompous Cabinet minister, encounters a stranger on his journey to an important meeting. A seemingly throwaway remark turns out to be a terrible portent which changes the way Cobthorn sees everything.
I found 'Mr. Strenberry's Tale' another of the weakest in terms of plot, although it does contain some startling, memorable visuals (all the more striking considering the story was written earlier than the rest, in 1929). A man stops at a pub in heavy rain. The titular Mr. Strenberry is a regular, scorned by locals for his tall tales. The two get talking, and the narrator gets to hear Strenberry's odd and vivid story for himself.
'Night Sequence' opens with an argument between a couple, Luke and Betty, who have just driven their car into a ditch and blame each other. The pair take refuge in a nearby house, where they meet the charismatic Sir Edward and his beautiful niece Julia. Having been unhappy together for some time, Luke and Betty find themselves strongly drawn to their hosts. There is an echo here of Lindfield and Mavis in 'The Other Place'; Priestley seems to be unusually good at depicting this specific dynamic, the companionship between two people who each have a desperate longing for someone else. Richer and more indulgent than the others, it's both compellingly weird and emotionally engaging.
The opening chapter of Hangsaman is a confidence trick. (Also something that could be said of the book as a whole.) I wondered, at first, whether it wThe opening chapter of Hangsaman is a confidence trick. (Also something that could be said of the book as a whole.) I wondered, at first, whether it was really for me. It seems to be offering a portrait of a middle-class American family in typical 1950s suburbia. The protagonist is their 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, and the lengthy scene depicts the Waites preparing for a garden party. While beautifully written, it contains little to intrigue other than Natalie's internal flights of fancy, the fictional worlds she places herself in even as she participates in the everyday routines of family life. And then, in the last few pages of the chapter, Natalie appears to experience a shocking trauma (described, like so many things in the story, indirectly). I was wrongfooted and irretrievably hooked.
When Natalie goes away to college, she welcomes the promise of reinvention. 'It was, precisely, a new start.' It doesn't quite unfold as she hopes: Natalie struggles to make friends; the people she does connect with – a strange, delusional girl who knocks on her door at night, the alcoholic young wife of a professor, two girls who are trying to seduce said professor – present their own problems. Natalie can always retreat to 'her own sweet dear home of a mind, where she was safe, protected, priceless'. Yet of course this is also a trap.
Jackson is, of course, known for her horror fiction; in Hangsaman, the biggest thing Natalie has to fear is overthinking. Which doesn't make it any less frightening. The climax is an ambiguous affair in which I found it difficult to distinguish Natalie's imagination from her reality, and I suppose that's the point. It is a mirror to the ending of the first chapter, both scenes taking place in a forest clearing, both demonstrating Jackson's skill in portraying Natalie's fractured identity. Uncertainty and precarity haunt this novel. I don't think it is meant to be fully understood.
Dan Jacobson’s writing is just so readable. While The Price of Diamonds, a comic novel, has little in common with the tales of psychological suspense Dan Jacobson’s writing is just so readable. While The Price of Diamonds, a comic novel, has little in common with the tales of psychological suspense in The Trap and A Dance in the Sun, all share a brisk, elegant style that makes the prose feel timeless. Here, the focus is on Gottlieb and Fink, two Jewish businessmen in the small South African town of Lyndhurst; their bickering relationship resembles that of a married couple who seem miserable together but couldn’t live without each other. When a strange man turns up at their office and hands a parcel of diamonds over to Gottlieb, he sees it as an opportunity to antagonise Fink, who’s obsessed with the Illicit Diamond Buying (IDB) laws. As time passes, Gottlieb finds endless excuses not to tell Fink about the diamonds, and they become more and more of a burden. The ‘price’ turns out to be nothing to do with the diamonds’ value, but rather their effect on Gottlieb’s marriage, peace of mind, and friendship with Fink. I only picked this up because it was written by Jacobson, and it’s very slow-paced. I liked it a lot, though – the characters and setting are vividly drawn and the book is funny without ever being ridiculous....more
I was so confused about the provenance of this edition of Vertigo at first. I had initially assumed it was a new translation, but it's actually (I thiI was so confused about the provenance of this edition of Vertigo at first. I had initially assumed it was a new translation, but it's actually (I think) a reissue to tie in with the launch of Pushkin's Vertigo imprint, dedicated to 'writers of the greatest thrillers and mysteries on earth from countries around the world'. (I really want to cut 'on earth' from that sentence) (and possibly 'countries') Adding to the confusion (which is perhaps very apt for this novel), I was half asleep when I read it. So I can't write anything much in the way of a review, but I did really enjoy this noirish mystery and tale of obsession; it's a quick read with a great ending. I'll certainly read more Boileau-Narcejac. ...more
Two books in one volume - although The Trap is really more of a short story - Jacobson's earliest works, published in 1955 and 1956 respectively, are Two books in one volume - although The Trap is really more of a short story - Jacobson's earliest works, published in 1955 and 1956 respectively, are 'stories of racial confrontation and social injustice on the South African veld'. In The Trap, a strange series of betrayals between two white farmers and their black staff lead to the main character, van Schoor, being cajoled by his rival and tormentor into unleashing latent violence. In A Dance in the Sun, two students become stranded at an otherwise empty guest-house while hitchhiking. There, they are unwillingly drawn into a long-running family drama from which they seem unable to escape; they become complicit in the owner's deeply entrenched racism, and their attempts to help Joseph, a man who works at the house, lead to disaster. The tables are turned on the young men, and their stand against the owner's prejudice is made to seem increasingly weak and ineffective, more a matter of assuaging their own egos and being seen as different from him (more modern, more forward-thinking) than a genuine desire to assist Joseph.
I bought this after reading Damon Galgut's excellent The Good Doctor - looking through reviews of Galgut's novel, I found one from the Guardian which said that, rather than the more obvious influences of Graham Greene and JM Coetzee, The Good Doctor 'is more reminiscent of Dan Jacobson, in his deadly accurate reading of the South African psyche'. Intrigued, I looked into Jacobson's novels only to find that they all appear to be out of print. I found this 1988 edition on eBay, and what a find it proved to be.
I can very easily see how The Good Doctor was influenced by Jacobson's style in these early novels (which isn't to say that Galgut's novel is derivative; the similarity hasn't diminished it in my eyes at all). The books share a prose style that's simple, graceful, yet complex and loaded with meaning, telling a hundred small stories in one. They share a setting, the sun-bleached, semi-wild veld - surely largely unchanged in the 50 years between the books' original publication dates - and a tangibly atmospheric, almost cinematic, way of portraying it. I also realised that Galgut's protagonist, long-serving doctor Frank, must be a deliberate nod to A Dance in the Sun, which features a medical student named... Frank.
These stories felt so fresh that they could have been written now, not 60 years ago. The style is so crisp, so spare and yet so elegant, that it makes Jacobson's prose feel absolutely timeless. I really want to read more of the author's work, particularly his third novel The Price of Diamonds and some of his short stories. ...more
While some of the essays collected in Mythologies are inevitably dated, their basic premise – the idea of cultural phenomena, everything from washing While some of the essays collected in Mythologies are inevitably dated, their basic premise – the idea of cultural phenomena, everything from washing powder and cars to wrestling matches and the face of Greta Garbo, as 'modern myths' – remains both relevant and accessible. Culminating in the longer, linguistics-heavy essay 'Myth Today', the book is intellectually demanding, but it's also playful and even funny at times. A challenging and thought-provoking break from fiction....more
As short and sharp as her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan's second (published a year later) is the story of a young woman's affair witAs short and sharp as her first novel, Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan's second (published a year later) is the story of a young woman's affair with an older man, and her subsequent, inevitable, heartbreak. Bored and indifferent towards her boyfriend, Bertrand, Dominique feels a shift in her affections when she meets his married uncle, Luc. Once again Sagan provides remarkable and painful insights into the emotional landscapes of youth - the progression of Dominique's feelings for Luc is as agonising to watch as it is inescapable.
I wasn't wowed by this like I was by Bonjour Tristesse, perhaps because the tone and mood of both books is so similar, as are some details; elements of Dominique's relationship with Bertrand, and with Luc and his wife Françoise, clearly echo Cécile's with Cyril, her father and Anne. I can see why the two have frequently been published together, and I'd have perhaps preferred to read them one after the other. Still, this was another perfect little gem of a story ideal for a sunny morning. ...more
I can't remember when or how I originally heard about this book, but for some reason, I had long regarded it as a rare curiosity, almost impossible toI can't remember when or how I originally heard about this book, but for some reason, I had long regarded it as a rare curiosity, almost impossible to get hold of. The discovery that it's actually available on Kindle and costs under £4 made it a guaranteed purchase.
The Burnaby Experiments opens with a framing device: the unidentified narrator has been named as 'literary executor' in the will of Marcus Brownlow, whom he knew at school but hasn't had any contact with since. The scene is set as the narrator outlines what he learns of Marcus: that he became secretary-companion to the eccentric, reclusive millionaire John Burnaby; that he wrote a lengthy autobiography, which the executor attempts to publish, to no avail. The story, then, is the executor's edit of Marcus's memoir and Burnaby's papers, rewritten as a novel.
As a boy, Marcus discovers he has the uncanny ability to see the future in his dreams. In his late teens, he is contacted by Burnaby, who has similar abilities. I loved the weirdness of Burnaby's first appearance, in which he takes the form of a boy Marcus knew at school – it's many years later, but this boy is still a child, exactly as Marcus remembers him. Burnaby is counting on the power of this image to evoke Marcus's happy memories of school and boyhood, and only when the pair reach Burnaby's house does he reveal his true, elderly form.
Burnaby promises that, through a series of gruelling 'experiments', the two of them can learn to harness and control their shared power, and even find a way to cheat death. And so Marcus enters his tutelage, living with Burnaby at his County Donegal home ('The Garrison') and telling his family he has found employment as a secretary. Over time, however, Marcus's naive commitment to the experiments turns out to be something of an albatross, and he begins to tire of Burnaby's insistence that he devote his whole life to them at the expense of all else.
I often see those who read a lot of romantic fiction bemoaning the phenomenon of 'instalove', and I thought of this when the story turned to a rather tedious scenario involving Marcus falling for a local girl named Hazel. It serves the plot very neatly that Marcus not only fancies Hazel but falls so head over heels in love – in a couple of days – that he's ready to give up his whole life. And in fact I'm rather inclined to agree with Burnaby that 'if you'd slept with her a few times and lived with her for a month you'd be sick to death of her'. Really, you need to know that the novel is based on Gilbert's relationship with his (much older) mentor, Forrest Reid; it then becomes clear that Marcus's desire for Hazel, and the idea that forsaking her is some great sacrifice, is symbolic of so much more than a youthful crush. (This knowledge also makes some elements, such as Burnaby's obsession with touching Marcus, seem rather more sinister.) Even so, the amount of time Gilbert spends on the Hazel story is frustrating when there are so many more interesting avenues to explore.
The last few chapters make up for that by being phenomenal. Post-Hazel, Marcus intensifies his work on the experiments, redoubling his attempts to contact the 'spirits' of others. Burnaby's health declines, and the two renew their philosophical discussions about the nature of their work, implicitly working towards the 'Last Experiment' Burnaby has dreamed of. After the abrupt end of the Marcus/Burnaby manuscript, the voice of the literary executor returns: he travels to The Garrison to learn more about the deaths of both men. He may not fully understand the meaning of what he discovers there, but the reader does, and the conclusion of the book is sufficiently terrifying (yet subtle and elegantly achieved) to make it comparable to the horror greats.
This is certainly a book that should be better-known, and I'd recommend it to those who enjoy classic horror and the more understated type of ghost story.
I started off really enjoying this collection of stories. They are mostly very short tales, many of which have an ordinary setting but contain some elI started off really enjoying this collection of stories. They are mostly very short tales, many of which have an ordinary setting but contain some element of the fantastical or macabre; others are more explicitly fantasy, but somehow the style is too traditional and matter-of-fact for the book to really feel like it belongs within the fantasy genre. The main problem that it is simply too long, consisting of 50 stories, and after a while they begin to feel very repetitive. The themes frequently repeat themselves and stop being quite so funny, shocking or original. There is also an unpleasantly sexist edge to many of them which, at the beginning, I was able to ignore, but after encountering the same thing repeatedly story after story, it became exhausting and the whole book started to seem offensive. I think the author's work would have been better served by a compilation of perhaps 10-15 of the longer stories. ...more
This short and sparkling novel was famously published when the author was just 18 years old. While the same length as some short stories, Bonjour TrisThis short and sparkling novel was famously published when the author was just 18 years old. While the same length as some short stories, Bonjour Tristesse feels fully-formed and deftly plotted. The narrator, Cécile, is a 17-year-old girl enjoying an extended summer holiday in the south of France with her father. Cécile is pampered, spoilt and somewhat bratty; her father, who she worships, is a louche and charming womaniser. They see themselves as free spirits, although their 'easy' lifestyle is, of course, only enabled by their significant wealth. At the beginning of the book they are staying in a villa along with Daddy's current mistress, Elsa (more than a decade his junior), and doing little other than sunbathing, swimming and socialising. Cécile is also conducting a half-hearted (on her side) romance with a young man, Cyril, who is staying in the same resort. This dreamy equilibrium is disturbed when her father invites a female acquaintance of his own age - Anne, best friend of Cécile's late mother - to join the trip. Anne's presence provokes Cécile's jealousy and uspets the balance of her father's relationship with Elsa, leading our narrator to devise a deadly plan.
The narrative captures the melodrama and insouciance of teenage years so well. I'm tempted to say it's incredible that the author managed this when she was still so young herself, but maybe this is the sort of insight you could only have while still living the experience? In any case, Cécile is an incredibly well-drawn teenager and her characterisation displays a remarkable self-awareness on Sagan's part. I was drawn back into that strange mix of overreacting to the smallest things while at the same time disregarding some of the biggest; Cécile's father's romance with Anne is the end of the world, and Anne's insistence that she should study for exams nothing short of a life-ruining catastrophe, but Cyril's apparent love for her is just a game, one she is not prepared to indulge fully because he likes her too much. Cécile may be selfish and petulant, but her naivety allows for insights the adults sometimes miss. About her father's engagement, for example, 'I had so often seen him happy on account of a woman' - well, indeed! There is also, sometimes, a sense that the novel is written from a future standpoint, that of a mature woman reflecting on her youth. Perhaps this, too, is typical of the character/author's age: when you're 18, the stuff you did when you were 17 seems a million miles away.
With a precocious teenage protagonist, over-privileged rich people swanning around doing whatever they want, and a 26-year-old man 'falling in love' with a girl who isn't even out of school, you'd think I would have absolutely hated this. In fact I thought it was utterly brilliant; I can't find anything critical to say about it at all. I should have read Bonjour Tristesse a long time ago, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who hasn't - it only takes about an hour to get through and it's well worth such a small portion of your time....more
Beautifully written, haunting, short novel about David, an all-American boy struggling to come to terms with his sexuality, who has an affair with theBeautifully written, haunting, short novel about David, an all-American boy struggling to come to terms with his sexuality, who has an affair with the titular Giovanni while living in Paris. I loved the aching, evocative prose and the desperate sadness of the plot - I felt pity for the narrator, although I was almost constantly angry at him and felt terribly sorry for poor Giovanni (and Hella). This is a classic of gay literature, with good reason, but I think the resonance it has is universal. One of the things that really struck me about it was how well it captured that sickening, dizzy excitement you feel upon falling for someone, a feeling so wonderful it is quite horrible - in David's case, this is obviously amplified by the fact that his relationship with Giovanni is 'forbidden'. Their love story is one of the most effective and heartbreaking I have ever read. A truly moving and memorable book....more
