All for one and one for… sort of.

Publisher: Pushkin Press
Pages: 402
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-782-27123-9
First Published: 1977
Date Reviewed: 21st September 2015
Rating: 3.5/5

Original language: French
Original title: Fortune de France (Fortune Of France)
Translated by: T Jefferson Kline

Pierre was born in a time of war. Some time before his birth, his father, Jean de Siorac, made a pact with Jean de Sauveterre; whilst the Siorac family grew in number, de Sauveterre stayed with them, sharing leadership duties. The war is as much about land and rulings as it is about religion: as Calvin states his ideas reform begins to sweep across France and the people of Mespech begin to join them.

The Brethren is historical fiction, the start of a series that suggests the rest will be epic. A fairly long story, it focuses on Pierre’s childhood and the background of the family. Heralded a modern Dumas, though not quite the same, Merle looks at those who were both at odds with and in favour of the crown.

This book requires a fair amount of attention, composed as it is of battles both factual and not so, other pieces of information, and a number of characters. You’re forgiven for confusing people on occasion – Merle tends to include descriptions with his references and dialogues (for example Colondre’s lack of speech, Coligny’s battle experience). Though technically repetitive it never seems so as it’s helpful. The story is very well set in its era with the benefits of hindsight the author can include. The women are occasionally allowed to be involved in battle (to an extent) and Jean de Siorac’s understanding of health and hygiene is ahead of its time. (As far as the latter is concerned, it’s interesting to note the way what we would now consider common sense is discussed as an unhealthy obsession. Needless to say, however, the good hygiene pays off!)

This book sports action but it’s mostly related third-hand as I’ll be discussing shortly. The story therefore deals more with the domestic side of the sixteenth century – Pierre’s upbringing, the effect of reform on a divided household, childbirth and wet-nursing, and relations between masters and their servants. The family at Mespech have a good relationship with their tenants – they don’t offer in the way of money but there is a relative equality and no one goes hungry. This element, the relationship between the well-off and not so, is perhaps the strongest element of the book.

And there is humour. Some of it must be seen in its historical context to work, for example the woman who always talks of being ‘forced’ into having intercourse, who is always the brunt of laughter because everyone knows she went willingly, enjoyed herself over the course of fifteen times, and uses the notion of being forced to mitigate the problems that would accompany infidelity. Such comedy wouldn’t work nowadays, would be awful. Whether or not Merle’s humour here is comfortable enough for the reader is something else, of course.

The characters are okay – the men developed, a pun that’s intended because the women, as much as they can talk and banter with the men and as much as they don’t have to stay in the kitchen, are somewhat reduced to body parts – again, explained in a moment. Due to the way the story is narrated by a child rather than any of the adults there is not quite enough development for you to feel particularly strongly but then this is the start of a series.

Amongst all the goodness, then, are a fair few problems. The first is the way so much of the book is non-fictional. Historical fiction often deals with fact but Merle has included information as though he were writing a text book, whole swaths of historical information which is often background context rather than anything that affects the characters directly. This means the book is semi-non-fictional and begs the question of how smaller the page count could have been without it.

Merle is absolutely obsessed with breasts. Almost every time a woman is mentioned, so too are her breasts as well as, often, her size. (Most older women are very large, most young very thin.) The female characters are mostly servants of the household but one would not be remiss in believing they’re also there to serve lusts. There are two scenes wherein all heads turn, all gazes fix, upon the firm buxom wet-nurse who takes out her beautiful white breasts during dinner to suckle the lucky little babe the men wish they could replace. Talk of heads enveloped by chests almost forms a theme. Doubtless the male characters would not gawk so much if Merle wasn’t forcing them to do so.

There’s distance between narrator and reader. Where Pierre narrates what happens to his father, third-hand, there is distance and the story is perhaps not as interesting as it could’ve been if, say, these adventures had happened to Pierre himself. This looks set to change in book two, but for this, book one, it’s very much the case.

Finally, exclusive to the English translation, is the language. Merle wrote his story in a sort of sixteenth century French which may sound hard going and potentially off-putting but that’s the way it is. The translator has written the English version in modern English, a little on the Victorian side; what you’re getting is one person’s interpretation more so than you would usually. The lack of comparable sixteenth century English may entice some readers but those wanting to read Merle may find the English drier and less thrilling than the French.

The Brethren has a lot going for it but also a fair amount that’s not in its favour. It is quite fascinating, the modernity of the characters is capable of winning you over, and most importantly it will make you want to continue to book two; but it is best noted that it’s far from flawless and has the ability to disappoint in places.

I received this book for review from the publisher.

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Taking on a rich lout.

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pages: 416
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-544-40991-0
First Published: 1st September 2015
Date Reviewed: 15th September 2015
Rating: 3/5

1914: Constance and her sisters were riding their buggy when a car hit them. The owner, the manager of a silk factory, is unwilling to pay the damages and soon the girls find themselves being harassed by his group of thugs. The law courts and detectives aren’t interested and there’s little the police can do until a threat is put into action.

Girl Waits With Gun is an historical novel loosely based on true characters. Constance Kopp and her sisters are people history has forgotten. Presumably the beginning of a series, the book focuses on the sisters’ lives before Constance became a deputy.

Though there is of course a lot of almost forced helplessness, warranted for the time, the book goes a long way in showing the way women could on occasion take control of their destinies. Constance, Norma, and Fleurette are quite fearless and whilst Fleurette is flighty, Norma’s seriousness and Constance’s common sense add up to a good team. That it’s based on truth only makes it better. The social elements are well shown – the frustration of not being listened to compounded by a villain who won’t give up. Stewart talks you through the process of the courts and all the things that wouldn’t happen today.

Great is the application of humour. There are some very funny scenes, particularly near the start, that beg to be highlighted. The domestic/social issue Stewart has added, the fate of unwed mothers, holds much promise and is a good feature, as is the way she moves the sisters from the emotional and social isolation their mother’s worries left them living in to a more open environment. (In this respect, aside from Constance’s later role as deputy sheriff, Fleurette is served best, her extroversion suddenly given full reign and her desires to be the centre of attention taking to the stage, almost literally.) The sisters have been written very well; they read as real as they obviously were and interesting enough that you’ll likely want to do some research.

The book is evidently the introduction for a series; there is a lot of information in it. This means all the ground work is set and in all likelihood the next books will be thrilling, but it also means that Girl Waits With Gun is missing the necessary grip it needed in order to keep the suspense up and the plot moving forward at a steady pace. The thrill, the mystery and suspense that should have accompanied the constant threats of Kaufman’s men is not here; instead we have a general lack of the feeling of danger – staying at home, not being watched over enough – and a pacing that’s frustratingly slow.

A lot of the problem is that Stewart has focused this book on the before – the events before Constance Kopp became a deputy sheriff – and has thus had to create most of the back story. There is a lot of detailing and telling, little showing. There is a lot of repetition, odd grammar choices and anachronisms. Had the book been reduced by half it wouldn’t be so noticeable, nor would the plot meander so much.

If you like learning about the era and about women who broke the mould, you may enjoy Girl Waits With Gun, but know that the title relates more to later events, at least as far as exceptions of action go. It’s a fair story but most will want to wait until book two.

I received this book for review from Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.

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The way it is, if it really is.

Publisher: Peirene Press
Pages: 175
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-908-67024-3
First Published: 2008
Date Reviewed: 9th September 2015
Rating: 4/5

Original language: Norwegian
Original title: Svimlende Muligheter, Ingen Frykt (Staggering Opportunities, No Fear)
Translated by: John Irons

The narrator of our tale is in the attic; presumably she’s locked in. Through the window she can see her sister, Ragna, and Ragna’s husband digging by a tree. It’s always been like this; our narrator struggles to gain recognition, Ragna’s attention and favour.

The Looking-Glass Sisters is a tale of love, worry, mental and physical health and unreliable narrators. A simple plot with a complex background, it studies the affects desire for love and companionship, accompanied with a lack of understanding and knowledge, can have on situations.

From the reader’s point of view, this book is about the narrator’s ability to relate events reliably. The set-up can be linked to the idea of the mad woman in the attic – in fact one of my own thoughts, whilst trying to root around in all the bits and pieces provided, was whether Gabrielsen was evoking Jane Eyre. This may sound odd, especially considering I don’t believe she is, but this is a point I’d like to make – The Looking-Glass Sisters presents an unstable mind and asks you to work out what is happening, what is true and what is false; the crucial element of Gabrielsen’s – the condition of the narrator – is only ever hinted at; the physical is easier to work out but you realise there is some mental instability, too. This means that there is a lot you can state about this book without knowing whether you’re near the truth and what’s so great about this is that it’s not frustrating; your interpretation, what you yourself bring to the table, is of great value. You’ve a guiding hand but in many ways, in most ways, this book will be exactly what you make it. (It’d make an excellent book club choice.)

The narrator presents herself – physically disabled (of that there is little argument) and the bane of her sister’s life. She knows she is a burden and wishes it were different, wishes Ragna gave her more time, supported her better. Shown through the text is the unrequited love of the narrator for Ragna; it’s not simply that she wants attention, it’s that she needs love.

This is how the reading goes for a time until the narrator starts to provide snippets of conversations that read as true – and they don’t conform to what she’s said in the past. Suddenly you’re presented with a different concept, that perhaps Ragna does care about the narrator and the narrator is being difficult. Perhaps it’s not that the narrator is unloved, it’s that she creates problems herself.

Again, it’s not so simple. It could be unrequited love, it could be the miscommunication, misunderstanding between two sisters who do love each other, or it could be that the narrator is unreliable due to her mental state. It could be a case of being unable to let go of past misfortunes and arguments instead of moving on. Gabrielsen has a firm hand on the story’s progression, teasing out the details so you have ample time to consider each possibility before moving on to the next. And each time that ‘next’ isn’t just a new possibility, it’s the evolution of the previous – that is to say, there’s a bit of every possibility in the whole and life is always moving forward.

It’s hard to say for certain what happens, what has happened and will happen. It’s hard to say exactly who the characters are, to come to a conclusion as to whether Ragna’s husband is someone she loves, someone whose thumb she resides under, or someone simply who’s frustrated, actually cruel. It’s hard to assign ages to the characters insofar as how they come across (their actual ages are suggested). And it’s hard to place a label on the narrator, to know who she is and what is going on with her – perhaps this is the point. This is her truth and it shouldn’t just be ignored, covered by small smiles and patronisation. Is she even alive at this point? Are there even two sisters?

In picking up this book you have to be prepared for an entire book’s worth of ambiguity – it rules here but the book would not be the same without it. It’s the lack of answers that make this novella what it is, that naturally extends the time you’ll spend thinking about it.

The Looking-Glass Sisters is an extremely slow burner, different, beautifully restrained, and full of ideas and thoughts to ponder over. You’ll want to give it your full attention and perhaps have a pencil handy which you might then offer to the narrator because she has much time to write and little in the way of tools.

I received this book for review from the publisher.

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Hot summers, long titles, and all that life throws at you.

Publisher: Tinder Press (Headline)
Pages: 326
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-472-22168-1
First Published: 30th October 2014
Date Reviewed: 7th September 2015
Rating: 4/5

It’s 1972 and Katie has lived in Elephant Beach on Long Island all her life. It’s nothing special, but it’s home for her and her friends. The prospects aren’t great unless you’ve the money and status to bag a better education, and most people end up at the local college. Getting high is pretty much assumed, cigarettes are smoked by everyone, and everyone’s got secrets.

If I Knew You Were Going To Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go is a book somewhere between a novel and short story collection, that looks at life in a fictional town in the 70s and life at the time for those coming of age.

There is a basic plot running through this book but it’s best viewed as a series of vignettes, indeed if you focus on the idea of a novel having a plot and a main character, you’re going to be disappointed. The stories are mainly set over one summer, with breaks for memories and considerations and reports of the future, and whilst you hear everything from Katie she’s no more important than anyone else. Katie may be the one whose thoughts you know and whose future you’re more invested in by virtue of intimacy, but Chicurel has worked on the whole. It would be fair to say that this book straddles contexts – a book for book’s sake, nostalgia, and a bit of a study.

Not a study as in get your pen and paper and write an essay, more a look at the issues of the time. These are teens still getting to grips with who they are, working through that time between childhood and adulthood and, for many of them, they’re trying to work through the poor hand life has given them, though they don’t always recognise it as such. The drugs keep them living life happy and although the future is discussed, told to us by Katie, everyone is living for the ‘now’. It’s best to. They know they’ve few prospects and that’ll be hard getting out, getting away, though there are possibilities. Many will die young through their various abuses. What all these teens do have, though, is friendship. Lots of it, lots of loyalty. There is a bit of a contrast with the kids from ‘the Dunes’. Chicurel shows us the privileged, the teenagers that turn to hippie living, throwaway boyfriends of less privileged backgrounds and protests for things they don’t have knowledge of, teenagers that were always going to end up as rich as their parents and do.

A new thought occurred to me, that women had all this drama, all this waiting and hoping and crying over things we’d been told, raised on, warned about, these monumental milestones that ended up lasting only minutes in our lives and were never, ever as wonderful or horrible as you thought they would be.

In a way it can seem like there’s a lot going on here, but it works in context. Suicides, overdoses; what we would now call ‘care in the community’; secret abortions where names must not be exchanged (the quote above is from such a scene); running away for a better life to never find it; PTSD. Everything is handled well and with respect in every way.

The affect of the Vietnamese war on mental health is the thread that continues from start to finish. A couple of the characters are veterans and dealing with scars, physical, mental, emotional. Not only does Chicurel detail these changed lives, she shows well how people back home might try but can’t quite understand what would have happened. The veterans, both young, behave in ways unconsidered and the easiest way to show you how the teens are incapable of understanding is to say that Katie fancies Luke something rotten, dreams about their lives together, but thinks trying to get him to notice her will work. You see that Luke doesn’t care but it’s not because he doesn’t like Katie, it’s because he’s got little left.

And there is a smigin of a theme of identity, of finding one’s place. Katie was adopted and wonders about her birth mother – what she’s doing, if she misses her child. The title of the book relates to this.

There are chances gained in this book, but not too many. To make everything work out in the end for everyone would be to negate the very real circumstances the book is grounded in.

I think it’s worth stating that there is a lot of swearing in this book and a lot of very casual ‘yeah, man’ language. I’m stating this, particularly the swearing, because it should be seen in context. Chicurel isn’t aiming to shock or offend, rather she’s setting the book in its era, in its place.

If I Knew You Were Going To Be This Beautiful, I Never Would Have Let You Go. gives you something to think about. There’s nothing we can change now, of course, but it makes you think about similar circumstances nowadays and how the way things are, the privilege, the support, hasn’t really changed all that much and should have. It may not have an ending as such and it may be but a set of memories, but it’s a good read. As much as it isn’t a happy book, it is full of sunshine and friendship. That others would dismiss the friendship and say that it’s a bad place be damned.

I received this book for review from the publisher.

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J K Rowling would like the moving pictures.

Publisher: N/A (I read Project Gutenberg’s edition)
Pages: N/A
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: N/A
First Published: 1764
Date Reviewed: 1st September 2015
Rating: 3/5

In the Medieval period Manfred, Prince of Otranto, arranges a marriage between his sickly son, Conrad, and the lady Isabella. On the day, Conrad is killed by a giant helmet, leaving Manfred with no heir, and an heir he must have if his line is to continue ruling and the prophecy that Otranto be returned to its rightful owner overruled. But Manfred’s new plan of marrying Isabella himself is to be upset by the arrival of a peasant and a ghost or two.

The Castle Of Otranto is a novella in the style of Shakespeare. It’s prose but high in drama; its value lies mostly in its Shakespearian context.

This is because there’s really not much to The Castle Of Otranto and albeit that this was the first gothic book ever written, it pales in comparison to most others. There are paranormal elements, not scary enough likely even for readers of the time, and these elements are never explained, they just happen and Walpole finishes his tale without explaining the whys and hows. The book is incredibly dramatic, there are info-dumps, and the story is minor. Not all that much happens, at least in the context of what we’d call action today, or even what Austen would call action, and a lot of the dialogue is composed of rambling.

What does work, then, is the imitation of Shakespeare. The Castle Of Otranto is to all intents and purposes a prose version of a Shakespeare play if Shakespeare had written about a man called Manfred who wants to keep his castle. The style is very Elizabethan – the first edition had Walpole pretending he was simply the translator of an old text – and the drama far more akin to Shakespeare than any fainting ladies of the Georgian period. The dialogue is full of thys and forsooths… actually it may not include a forsooth, but that word is a good one to use because I think everyone can imagine the period commonly associated with it.

The value of Walpole’s work lies in theatre – this book would make a great performance on the stage of the Globe. Otherwise, however, there is not much to be taken from it; I’d recommend it only to those with a prior interest who want to study drama and/or 1700s literature. There are veiled references to Henry VIII, there’s silliness, and there are many convenient relationships that have most certainly been planned. This book is contrived; it’s meant to be.

The Castle Of Otranto is fun but wearing. Read it if you love The Bard, pass on it otherwise.

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