Shadow Dance – Angela Carter

I’ve really enjoyed paperback-reader Angela Carter month, and am rather hoping she does another one. I’ve been a fan of Carter for a few years now and whilst I’ve read most of the easy stuff there are still a few short stories and novellas I could be better acquainted with, plenty of nonfiction that’s unread, and still ‘The Passion of New Eve’ to get through. After my Dr Hoffmann experience New Eve can stay on the shelf for a while, but I did want to read at least two Carter’s whilst there was plenty of encouraging discussion going on around her work so my Oxfam purchase of ‘Shadow Dance' was very timely.

I was far more impressed with ‘Shadow Dance’ than I expected to be - until now I’ve not been so taken with the early novels, but this book felt perfect. Tense and chilling, it’s a very convincing sort of gothic horror written and set in the 1960’s. Essentially beauty becomes the beast – a pretty girl is badly scarred in a knife attack and returns an, at first silent, but always avenging fury to exact her pound of flesh. Her counterpart is the puckish Honeybuzzard – most likely responsible for her injuries he’s a lord of misrule and chaos. Whatever harm they bring to each other though is as nothing to the harm they bring on others.

The thing about the sixties that I don’t often remember is that it’s a generation of twenty and thirty somethings formed by one war and looking hard at the possibility of another. The narrator (Morris) remembers his mother dying in an air raid whilst having sex with a stranger against the outside of his bedroom door. At least he assumes she died – she’s certainly gone, but no identifiable body is forthcoming. In a world where things like that happen nothing can be terribly certain so Morris develops a dependency on Honeybuzzard who seems to be always certain, and always determined to do precisely what he wants.

Honeybuzzard is the sort of fairy who would spoil the milk and put the hens off laying not so much out of personal spite as sheer perversity – as is Ghislaine (the girl he scars). Both are too damaged and to damaging to fit into any sort of society, so all the way through as the expectation for some sort of cataclysmic dénouement built I was getting closer to the edge of my seat, and it’s the end which really shows Carter’s quality. The climax is satisfyingly dramatic but at the same time its woven in with something far more earthy and real than I expected; it’s a combination which reinforces the sense of not knowing what’s real and what’s prevarication on the narrators part all the way through. I’m still unsure of how complicit Morris really is in Honeybuzzard’s actions – even how much blood he may have got on his own hands.

I don’t feel I’ve got anywhere near doing this book justice, but I really do recommend it, which brings me back to my beginning. I’m never sure about traditional reading groups – I’m clearly not enough of a joiner in to find the idea attractive, and time’s a bit short to read books that don’t entirely grab me. Angela Carter month has really appealed to me though – and I’m looking forward to Persephone reading week for much the same reasons – the chance to read discussions on books I know I might be interested in, a good push to get something off the shelf I’ve meant to read for ages, and plenty of feedback about the books I am reading, all without any particular pressure. Heaven for the slightly disorganised and sometimes despairing (desperate) reader.

And the Winner is...

Simon at Stuck-In-A-Book is getting 'Andrina and other stories' - I'm on my way to the post office now. The loser today is me having left home in a fit of irritation with all technology and my laptop inparticular. It's been left on the naughty step and hopefuly when we're reunited this afternoon we'll be on speaking (and posting) terms again. This is coming to you from the library and should be about Angela Carter complete with lavish illustrations, except that a) can't upload pictures from my laptop to blogger at the moment, b) I left the data stick at home so I can't post from the library either. This is not the way to spend a day off, so I have decided to go shopping instead!

 

Buying into the dream

I saw swallows yesterday, and the Scottish one disappeared for quite a long time to look at pictures of boats on the internet – both sure signs of approaching summer and a combined desire on our parts to head north till we hit the coast. For my part I’d stay on the coast and admire the view, possibly paddle if it wasn’t too cold, but would venture onto the water for an hour or two if offered the chance of a bit of fishing and a beer. My Scottish friend would be gone until forced (possibly by pirates) to come back, but he wouldn’t say no to a freshly caught and cooked mackerel either so we’re both quite excited by the latest River Cottage handbook – Sea Fishing.

My idea of a successful fishing trip has hitherto had more to do with getting back to land before the beer takes effect than focusing on an actual number of fish caught. Fortunately these sort of adventures normally take place with my father who gets impatient if nothing bites – it ensures a shortish but very pleasant time. Now all that might be about to change.

There are so many things I love about the River Cottage handbooks; they look great, they’re nice to handle, they fit in a pocket, they make for excellent reading (as well as being informative), and of course there’s recipe’s. Best of all they offer a window into the sort of AGA powered, Barbour wrapped idyll that seems so desirable when on a two week summer visit to the Shetlands or a cosy winter visit to the Borders. I will own up to the fact that I took the bread handbook with me on one Borders trip as light holiday reading – access to aforementioned AGA was too good a chance to miss. And yes my friends did mock me, but they also ate the bread with every sign of enjoyment.

It’s nice to daydream; wonderful to imagine a life and job which allowed the time for plenty of baking, jam making, foraging and fishing, but if that was all these books had to offer I wouldn’t be especially tempted. After all who wants to be reminded of the lifestyle they don’t have for 48 weeks of the year? What makes the format work so well (apart from engaging writing) is the mix of practical advice about how to do a thing – like fishing – and what to do with the fish later. I probably won’t be catching a squid anytime soon (ever) but I can purchase a squid...

I particularly like the gutting and filleting section (honestly it is safe to sit next to me on a bus, it really is) the pictures, which are photos (always a good thing), take you through each step in a way that makes it all look eminently do-able. It’s certainly encouraging me to be more adventurous next time I’m on the fish market. ‘Sea Fishing’ also has an excellent collection of charts (who doesn’t like a good chart?), my favourite is for sea fish cooking techniques; fish down one side, techniques down another, I’m geeky enough to be considering photo copying it for the wall, so handy. I also like that it’s not to chef-y, or to specialist, it really makes me want to do the whole action woman thing from hook to pot.

So come the summer – dad I hope your reading this – hopefully a fishing moment will arise, in which case I may be slightly prepared for it, but meantime I have a book full of fish based inspiration which I can take to the market with me (which is more than I can say for the otherwise excellent Leith’s Fish Bible).

Pictures hopefully tomorrow - half an hour trying to up load and I'm off to bed.

Andrina and Other Stories

George Mackay Brown – a Give away...

Andrina and other Stories

I keep hearing that short stories are a dying format and that nobody wants to buy them, a viewpoint I’m particularly glad that Birlinn/Polygon aren’t listening to because I’m relying on them for a regular stream of George Mackay Brown shorts. I’ve said it before, and will be saying it again (and again) I think George Mackay Brown is at his best in short story form. So much so that every time I get a new collection I seriously consider re-tackling his novels and having a good hard look at his poetry.

My last foray into Brown was ‘The Masked Fisherman’ which was not perhaps the best collection that I’ve read, but the two just released – 'Andrina and Other Stories'and ‘The Sun’s Net’ (originally published by the Hogarth press and I would give anything apart from the money demanded – which I don’t have – for some of those original editions in their lovely jackets) are impressing me no end.

‘Andrina and Other Stories’ feels like a fairly loose collection – no particularly unifying theme but rather a gathering of all the themes that seem so dear to Brown’s heart, so wherever his tale is set be it Africa or Mongolia he’s still seeing it from an Orkney window. His concerns are time, tide, season, poetry, and faith – the things that shaped his life as an islander and story teller; equally his hero’s are fisherman, farmers, sailors and poets. He has little time for the laird or the minister, manse and hall being the traditional enemy of the crofter, but there is plenty of his (clearly deep and Catholic) faith here as well.

It’s hard to write about short stories, especially when some are only a few pages long; what can you say without giving too much away? I find this especially hard with a writer whose prose is as lean and succinct as Brown’s tends to be. He really doesn’t waste words, though he does make up some absolute corkers – at a slight tangent he doesn’t use much dialect either, odd bits and pieces nestled amongst the text but that’s it. Still, two from this collection really stood out for me – The Lost Boy; a Christmas eve miracle that I find as heart warming as it is brief, and The Feast at Paplay which enlarges on an event in the Orkneyinga saga (a major influence for Brown) it deals with the murder of Earl Magnus, later Saint Magnus, by his cousin Earl Hakon. Having killed his kinsman Hakon arrives at his aunt’s house for a feast meant to celebrate a peace between the two men. Thora is forced to treat her nephew as a son and to beg for her own son’s body to bury. These are the bare bones as laid out in the saga which Brown builds on, but oh how he builds; a pig is to be killed for the feast, but its death also doubles for the death of Magnus:

“John set the bewildered piglet on its feet in the yard. He took a knife out of his belt and pushed the blade into the pink throat. The beast squealed. It ran and staggered, and the blood welled out of it. It stood still then shook its head in a sad puzzled way. Blood spattered on the paving stones.”

There’s a stylistic echo of the sagas in that as well, but mostly I just find it a deeply affecting telling of death.

Anyway if you don’t want to just take my word for it and feel you want to read for yourself I’ve acquired a copy to give away. If you’re interested leave a comment (and if commenting on blogger proves difficult an email will do just fine – details are in the profile box) Always assuming that more than one person shows an interest (actually hoping that at least one person shows an interest because I’m very enthusiastic about this book and want to share it) then I will pick a name out of a hat next Wednesday and post on Thursday...

Apologies for the lack of a proper picture, blogger's just not having it tonight.

And finally my Vintage moment arrives

I had planned a very luxurious (if sadly limited) spending moment when I was in London a couple of weeks ago but Waterstone’s let me down – they didn’t have the book I most wanted in all the world on that day, I couldn’t find more than two books on the three for two offers, and after that nothing would do, then it was time to catch the train.

Not prepared to remain thwarted in my book acquiring ambitions for long I spent some quality time on amazon and today all my books turned up, actually to be specific they turned up yesterday but spent the night languishing in the post office collection room until 7am this morning when I was waiting outside to pick them up. The post man in a coy mood left a note to say I had ‘a’ parcel, so picture my excitement when I found they meant four parcels held together by elastic bands, also picture me trying to fit all of these in a quite small bag whilst rushing for the bus and then hauling these things all the way to work where they had to stay locked up until lunch time before I could have a good look at the booty.

The best part of all of this was an unexpected package from Oxford University Press. I love the OUP for many reasons not the least of which is that I’ve got on their mailing list. Now I have no problem with soliciting a publisher for book favours; it gives me a terrific feeling of getting away with something when they send me a book (which I’m not given how long it takes to read, and then comment, but I like the feeling and don’t want to analyse it too much), but it really is like Christmas (only better) when something unexpected turns up. OUP books are beginning to warrant their own little corner – I think Oscar Wilde short stories, ‘Tarzan of the Apes’, and ‘The Private Memoires and Confessions of a Justified Sinner’ sit especially well together.

My amazon spree is responsible for John Cheever’s ‘The Wapshot Scandal’, Compton Mackenzie’s ‘The Monarch of the Glen’ (which sounds a lot funnier than the tv version) Isherwood’s ‘A Single Man’ (slim volume which makes it look very tempting) and A S Byatt’s ‘The Children’s Book’ (not slim, not sure when I’ll read it, but wanted it since last year and very glad they stuck with the same super attractive cover design) and Muriel Spark’s ‘Symposium’ (I can’t have enough Spark).

The other books in the pile arrived late last week courtesy of Bloomsbury and Birlinn respectively, I’ll be talking about them soon, and will also have details of my very first book give away (also courtesy of Birlinn) so shall stop now before I get ahead of myself. The other contents of my post box today were an invitation from the city’s most exclusive jeweller (a mystery why I’m on their list) and a flyer from the socialist trade union party. It’s a combination that appeals to me almost as much as Tarzan and the justified sinner.

Shetland Diaries

I’ve had two killer whale experiences in my life – the first was with my dad in his boat and was both close and really quite scary. The whales were about 20 yards away and eyeing me up like I was a seal. Second time around I had spent a week driving around Shetland with a friend reassuring him all the time that it was quite likely that we would see them but... finally we did see them, in his last hour before catching the ferry south we were walking through town to get a coffee when we picked up on a ripple of excitement near the harbour wall. Killer whales swimming through town, not more than 100 yards from where we were standing. Impressive and altogether less intimidating when you’re standing on land.

I’m very fond of Otters too, enjoy a good encounter with a Puffin, and could (indeed have) watched Gannets dive for hours. Simon King’s ‘Shetland Diaries’ – Otters, Orcas, Puffins and wonderful people is right up my street. In fact so promising did it sound that I was worried that it couldn’t possibly deliver all I hoped. Not least because publication has coincided with my annual bout of homesickness for Shetland (funnily enough I never feel so homesick in the winter) intensified this year because I didn’t manage a trip back last summer (which to add insult to injury was the best Shetland’s had for decades). I am going this summer though and only hope it doesn’t rain the whole time.

Now Simon King seems like an affable sort of chap when he’s on screen; happy, bouncy, smiley and desperately enthusiastic. I can report he’s the same on the page, and in some ways it would be easy to heartily dislike the man for having what looks like such a cracking good time all the time, It’s something which made me approach the book with a certain amount of caution. Still I wanted something different after my Angela Carter efforts so off I went.

I’m really pleased that I liked the book; King’s a much better writer than I expected him to be even with the jolly hockey sticks feel to some of the prose. This really does feel like a personal diary albeit one meant for publication, it mixes work, family life, and some socialising and philosophy with very finely judged balance. The work is interesting, I wasn’t so interested in the family stuff, but that’s just me, and it did contribute to a sense of story. I think he really does manage to create a sense of what Shetland can be like – definitely at its best, but not unrealistically so, if you want to know what it’s like at its worst I’m afraid you probably have to go and try it out to see how it fits. He certainly captures all the things I miss most about being part of a community in a fairly unique and special place.

When he talks about the wildlife the mix of passion and knowledge is truly infectious and certainly illuminating to the lay person, but more than anything this feels like a long thank you to Shetland. Plenty of people (and I’ll fess up now, this unexpectedly included my dad and step mum – page 56 – 57 if you’re interested) get very nice mentions, but he’s also careful to avoid any serious local controversy. The big debate in Shetland last year, and ongoing, is a massive wind farm which if it goes ahead would run down the spine of the Islands and for better or worse, depending on your point of view, will change things significantly. It’s the sort of thing I thought might come up but didn’t; that’s the sort of diplomacy which makes island life work.

Out and About

It has been a long, long, week and although I’m glad it’s over I wouldn’t have minded a slightly longer weekend – after a final marathon slog through today I get to look forward to being back for 8am on Monday morning, still that gives me a whole day to ignore housework in favour of reading. I’d better make the most of it.

The highlight of the week was Thursday off, which was also the blondes birthday so we set out for a day of our favourite sport; book hunting. We had heard there was a decent book shop out Northampton way, but when we got there it was to discover that it closed a couple of years ago (damn you internet and your faulty information). In fact Northampton turned out to be a bit of a wash out all round so we headed to Market Harborough. It’s one of those terribly middle class market towns which encourage book groups and consequently has well appointed charity shops. It also has the twin glories that are Christine’s Book Cabin, and Gilberts (it also has an all female fishmongers which I still find vaguely confounding – it feels like there should be a story in it somehow)

Christine’s book cabin is down a side street round a corner and through a car park until you find yourself in a shed full of books. There’s county stuff, nautical stuff, really seriously collectable, and correspondingly expensive, children’s stuff and then bits and bobs of the kind of thing Persephone reprint. It’s an experience.

Gilbert’s is not even slightly book related but It’s been there for 40 years and I’ve known it since I used to be taken to visit my Gran as a child and I think it’s heaven in shop form so I’m telling you about it anyway. It’s a hardware store/kitchen shop; they have everything you can imagine, and plenty of stuff that I for one would never have thought to imagine. The outside (as you can see) is festooned in wicker baskets, and inside is a tiny temple of Cornish wear, burleigh pottery, Le Creuset, and anything else handy. It’s also ridiculously cheap compared to department stores; in short the sort of shop it seems scarcely credible still exists.

Book wise I managed to find Angela Carter’s ‘Shadow Dance’, Sylvia Townsend Warner’s ‘After the Death of Don Juan’, and Robertson Davies ‘Murther & Walking Spirits' – all despite promising (and honouring my promise) to let the birthday celebrant into the shops first and at the shelves first. I had a great day, and I hope she did too, I also had some exciting post when I got home, but more of that later!

The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman

Well it’s taken me a week and more to do battle with Carter on this one and I’m wondering where to start. Had I any knowledge of Freud, more than a passing acquaintance with Jung, and had I read more than a couple of De Sade short stories many years ago then I might have a better idea of what else I might need to know to really get to grips with this.

I have read Hoffmann, quite a bit of Carter, and many, many, fairy tales and myths all of which rang bells whilst I was reading, but even so I think I’ve got only the haziest idea of what Carter was trying to do with this book. It didn’t help that it felt quite dated/ very much of its time depending on your point of view, and also like relatively young work. I was surprised to find that it came if not quite mid career, then certainly well into it. It’s far more experimental than any other Carter I’m acquainted with, and altogether more explicit as well – the whole book is soaked in blood, sweat, semen, tears and urine. It should perhaps be more shocking, maybe back in 1972 it was, but it’s also somehow cold in a way which makes it really very easy to accept actually quite horrible things, which raises some questions for me about what I’m prepared to entertain in my imagination.

Perhaps it helps that the descriptions are wrapped up not just in words, but also in the most impeccable art historical traditions; Brueghel and Poussin are specifically mentioned but there are whole sequences that feel like reading a Hieronymus Bosch, or walking through a Henri Rousseau forest, and certainly like being part of any surrealist painting you care to think of. There are moments of Cubism and suggestions of Delacroix and the romantics, all I think quite deliberate. The central premise of the book (as far as I can work it out) is that anything that can be imagined can be, that nothing once imagined can be destroyed, and that it’s all powered by our desires.

The action takes place across time; or more precisely in nebulous time, sometimes it’s the present, sometimes the past and sometimes somewhere in-between. It starts in a city at war – Dr Hoffmann is laying siege to reality and things have reached such a state that it’s almost impossible to tell what’s real and what’s not, or even to define what real is. I found it a tough but basically rewarding book, it made me think about it all the way through, and basically I enjoyed the ride, although it was far from comfortable bed time reading and I’m looking for a couple of quick light reads to come next.

Carter was a woman with a remarkable (and slightly intimidating) breadth of knowledge; it’s a huge shame that she died so young. The richness and texture she brings to any story is rare enough but the way she twins it with a blood spattered brutality really gets under my skin. There were certainly moments when I was reading this book that I felt the boundary between page and experience was being broken down – that it would be very easy to be swallowed up by the general sense of anarchy.

I’m very much looking forward to paperback-reader's review of this; I want to know what others make of it, especially anyone with a more formal education in English Lit than I have, so Claire – I’m relying on you for some proper insights!

The Wolf print is one I bought because it put me in mind of  'The Company of Wolves' - thats how much of a geeky fan I am.