Above is the bumph from the back of the book, tells you enough to catch your attention, but doesn't give away much of the plot. It's by Jeanette Winterson, what else do you need to know, it's bound to be good.
Jeanette Winterson breathes more magic into this slim volume about the machinations going on behind the arrests of the women accused of witchcraft from Pendle in 1612. Much more magic than I have encountered in any other books based on the Lancashire Witches.
I also love the way she portrays Thomas Potts, as a jumped up jobsworth who sees witchcraft and popery everywhere he looks.
Another well crafted book from the pen of Jeanette Winterson
Oliver bought this book while he was on his way back from his trip around Europe. Now I've finished it, and we've talked about it. We both agree that is a very depressing book.
I'm sorry, I didn't really like it for that reason, and the fact that the internal monologue passages are far too long for my liking, perhaps if the subject was less depressing I could have enjoyed it, but then it wouldn't be 1984. I am glad however Orwell's bleak outlook of the future has not happened.
I much prefer Animal Farm.
http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141187761,00.html?strSrchSql=1984/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_George_Orwell
Before I write anything else about this book I have to say one thing. If you pick it up and dive straight into the first chapter it may not make any sense at all to the reader. Prior to the first chapter there is a African folktale, if you don't read it, the book may take a while to figure out.
Alternate chapters are told by Laura Byrd and the inhabitants of "the City". The inhabitants of the "City" soon discover that they have something in common. As I have put, if you don't read the folk tale first, the concept of the book could escape you.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. The final pages of the book leave the reader wondering what will happen "next".
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400095957
Well, this isn't a book for those put off by lengthy tomes. Saying that, it has only taken me a week to read the 838 pages. It is a very fast moving text, and could put off the reader reading for light entertainment purposes only.
I loved the way the characters narrate their parts of the novel, internally as well as externally, giving you their insights to the situation. At first I will admit I was a little confused, but once I realised how the book was meant to be read I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The incipient possesion of the characters was very well done, and the fact that Dory seems to have a strange personanlity to start off with all adds to the fun. I found myself laughing quite a lot at the antics. Some of the situations are farcial, but what else can you expect when one of the characters is suspected of being fathered by the deranged ghost of an evil 500 year old court jester. Although Darkmans himself is mentioned, by name, (as Darkmans,) a couple of times.
Some parts of the text are like a bad dream the reader has the priveledge of being in, but not suffering.
I liked this book a lot, and even looked up other books by the same author when I went to the bookshop.
I don't think I am alone in having liked the book, however some haven't liked it. http://booklit.com/blog/2007/10/03/nicola-barker-darkmans/ is a blog from someone who hasn't enjoyed it, but each to their own.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/may/05/featuresreviews.guardianreview3 The Guardian review is much more positive.
The brief bumph here is unbiased as it is from the Man Booker prize website.
http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/books/309
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fiction/article1767199.ece Is an article from the Times, and when I read it, I must say, having read Alan Garner's The Owl Service, yes, the texts does have echoes of it.
http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth14 for more about the author.
I like Deborah Moggach's writing, her themes vary, but every book I have read of hers has been "un-put-downable". This one is no different.
It is set in the midst of the first world war, but the war is just "background" really.
Ralph and his mother run a lodging house in London, they are aided by Winnie, a country girl who has come to London to find work. In 1916 Mr Clay, Ralph's father is killed in action. The story picks up from there, until this point they are only just managing to make ends meet.
Eithne Clay is an alluring wife and mother whose husband is away fighting in the trenches. She runs a shabby boarding house in Southwark where her lodgers, like herself, lead lives of barely respectable desperation. The War casts a long shadow over ordinary lives; times are hard while men are away being slaughtered. Food is short and old certainties are breaking up around them. Eithne's adolescent son Ralph tries to be the man of the house, while the homely young maid, Winnie, barely manages to keep it all together.
The along come Neville Turk, the butcher, a handsome bull of a man, who falls for Eithne and throws her life into turmoil. He woos her with choice cuts, and soon the erotic voltage of their affair wakes up the house like the newly installed electricity. Ralph's jealousy of this interloper grows out of control, while Winnie's strange liaison with Alwyne Flyte, the blind lodger, has startling consequences. Meanwhile, in this house of whispers and secrets, the butcher has plans of his own, which lead to a tragic and dramatic climax. This sensual, tantalising and very often funny novel by a great storyteller throws an uncanny light on the tragicomedy of life on the home front.
To be honest the blurb could make you think that this novel is a bit slushy, or "lightweight", but it isn't. The characters are well developed, as you find, omissions are deliberate, which just add to the story. I wasn't expecting the climax of the novel at all, and it was certainly fitting. I won't tell you what it was, as that will spoil it for you if you decide to read this novel.
Have finished reading this book now. It had me totally hooked.The two narrators are searching for something they can't quite remember, their lives that they had before. Henry Day's almost obsessive search for his life before is misunderstood by his wife. Aniday's search, and the fact he doesn't age causes him to mix up people.It is worth going to the library and borrowing this. I knew little about the changeling myth, other than the fact Faeries were said to steal babies and young children, and leave one of their own in it's place. This takes that idea , and explores what could happen.
"The Stolen Child is a truly remarkable work, ringing unique changes on the ancient legend of the changeling, the child kidnapped into Faery, with a soulless double left in its place. Keith Donohue's poignant take ion the myth, rooting it in our time, and retelling it from alternating viewpoints of the two changelings, makes for one of the most touching and absorbing fantasies I have read for years." [Peter Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn]
This book started a little slowly for me, but eventually it got going. The story is told by Nicholas Van Tassel, and starts at the turn of the 20th century. At first he does win a little of the reader's sympathy, but as the story progresses, I couldn't help but think he was rather pompous, in fact, several times in the story he does say that he thinks people might find him pompous. The story is about his obsession with his wife, how he courted her, married her despite her telling him she could never love him. The story focuses on their courtship, then more expansively, on the events leading to the breakdown of their marriage.
I didn't enjoy it as much as "The Last Time They Met" as I couldn't help thinking Nicholas caused his own problems by his obsessions. (That and the moral code of the time.)
The family gets spilt up, and the novel folows the life of the father, and three of the sons, through several years. The fourth son quits the country, and there is little of his history in the novel. Tiege, Tomas and Finbar Foley all feature equally, and there is a very touching end to the father's story. The son's travel to America, Canada and Europe.
The novel contrasts the plight of the ordinary Irish with the better off, but it doesn't labour this point, as it is secondary to the novel.
The potato famine is fetaured in the novel, but no actual years are named at any point.
With short chapters, and following the father and sons lives, it is a novel that keeps your interest throughout.