Review: The Book of Dust, La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

One of the reasons I don't use a formal rating system on this blog is that assigning something a certain number of stars always seems to result in injustice. For example, if a book by my favourite writer isn't quite as sublimely brilliant as I know they're capable of producing, I might give it four stars, even three if I'm feeling vindictive. However, were I to read the same novel by an unknown, it would have breezed its way to an effortless five based on my surprise by all the skill and qualities which familiarity would otherwise cause me to take for granted.

As a reader, a writer's work cannot be separated from their oeuvre, nor indeed from what they have meant to you at various points in your own life. Therefore, when I encounter a book that, taken solely on its own merits, is a perfectly adequate piece of middle grade fiction trying to pass itself off as an adult novel, I would probably be likely to give it three stars. Unless, of course, it was written by Philip Pullman, when I would feel a remarkable degree disgust, anger and personal betrayal.

Look. I loved His Dark Materials. I read them relentlessly as a child, they being one of the few things that did not talk down to me in terms of content, character, or events. I've written before about the state of middle grade and YA fiction for avid and intelligent readers of fantasy when I was that age, and Pullman was a huge part of me making the transition from Diana Wynne Jones and Susan Cooper to Robert Holdstock and Angela Carter. I cannot overlook this when I say that La Belle Sauvage is such a dreadful disappointment.

You see, it wants to be The River at Green Knowe when it grows up, an ambition which perhaps misses the point that The River at Green Knowe is a children's book. 

Moral messages that were subtle and carefully handled in the original trilogy are here presented with all the nuance of a cosh to the back of your head - we get it Phil, the church are the bad guys - the wonder and strangeness of Lyra's world is replaced by a series of frankly generic folkloric cameos, and our deeply abrasive, awkward, believable protagonist is replaced with... Malcolm.

I'm not even going to start talking about Malcolm. 

But on top of this dumbing down of style and content, there was the insistence that this was one for grownups. Perhaps the very same grownups who had grown up reading His Dark Materials, and it was this that really stuck the knife in because, put simply, La Belle Sauvage does not function if viewed as an adult novel.

It has long been a conviction of mine that the difference between adult, YA, and children's fiction is not so much a matter of content, as one of structure, pacing, and focus. Just as children's fiction - good children's fiction - is not merely adult fic with the 'inappropriate' content taken out and all the nastiness coddled up, adult fiction - or at least, good adult fiction - is not just a children's story with a bit of sex, swearing, and an absolutely gratuitous implied rape thrown in to it.

The two modes serve different needs, tells a story differently, talk to their readers in a whole different language, and this is why you never really outgrow good children's fiction - because its qualities remain. Historically, Pullman knew this. His Dark Materials is frequently devastating, lyrical, powerful - they are children's books, unashamedly, and in the very best senses of the words.  

La Belle Sauvage isn't even a very good children's book.

Ultimately, if this hadn't been something I was reading for bookclub, I wouldn't have finished it. I don't want my childhood heroes to diminish this much in my eyes. And, if that weren't enough?

[Spoilers for His Dark Materials, and La Belle Sauvage below]

Review: Ross Poldark, Winston Graham

Alright, I only read this one because there were a lot of screen-grabs of a rather dashing fellow in hitstorical costume littering up my Twitter feed about a year ago, and I was interested to see what all the fuss was about. Also, it was very cheap in a charity shop.

So, okay. Anyway. I wasn't impressed.

 Ross Poldark is a novel that needs to fall out of love with its main character and decide exactly what it's trying to do. It gives the impression of trying to be one of those wonderfully sprawling 18th/19th C novels that charts the fortune of a region and family over the years and it did kinda grab that mood from time to time. It's just, having grabbed it, itwould veer into rather po-faced social commentary which was just starting to hot up into something interesting when we'd careen the other direction, ending up in what can only be described as a sentimental romance. You'd just begin to get invested in that when you'd  find yourself in the middle of the misadventures of a drunken yokel, something which was probably intended as comic relief, but - in light of the aforementioned social commentary - felt a little more like punching down.

If you managed to keep your balance, you begin to suspect all this white knuckle motion is to stop you taking a real measure of Ross, who is not so much unlikeable as irrelevant. While some of the other characters really sparkled off the page - Demelza may be a manic pixie, but she's a charming one, and George Warleggen hovered in the background with insalubrious intent - Ross himself thunked about the novel without any real sense complexity. We were fed facts about him but they felt like very deliberate cues for our emotional response rather than actual character depth: he's 'likeable but troubled' because he reads a lot and drinks too much; he's a 'real man, but a good one' because he… sleeps with sex workers and doesn't much enjoy it?

Hang on. What?

I don't know. Worse still, these shorthands weren't really borne out by his actions. Of course, we get the impression his erratic behaviour was caused by depression following Elizabeth chucking him over, but we never really got a decent picture of his affection for her to begin with. They felt like desperate grabs at reader attention and sympathy, trying to get us to forget that Ross repeatedly behaves like a dick-without-a-cause.

Yet, for all its flaws, I did enjoy reading it (once I got past the disorientation of the wildly uneven tone). No, nothing about it convinces, and yes, it is a bit jarring and directionless, but it isn't actually terrible. The writing is unobtrusive, and there is enough interest to be found in each of the plot strands to keep you reading - if not actually hooked.

On balance, though, I'm probably not going to bother with the sequels.

What I've been reading: The Polish Boxer, MaddAddam, The Sign of the Four

It's been so long since I've read any Literary fiction that I wasn't sure how to respond to The Polish Boxer. What's more, it's one of those books that defies an easy categorisation of form. A collection of short stories that not quite fictional, but are by no means purely autobiographical. Also, this isn't really a short stories collection - it's more a kind-of novel told through a series of interludes.

Except it isn't. The Spanish version of The Polish Boxer might be that, but the English on is distinct, both in content and organisation. It is in fact a short story collection compiled thematically by a handful of translators. Any 'unity' the volume appears to have is an act of editing that questions the very notion of authorship. Also (as I just mentioned), it's translated, which always makes things more interesting, especially if there are a handful of translators at work.

So, what the heck is Eduardo Halfon's The Polish Boxer?

Well, it's certainly worth your time. Ten stories that talk about belonging, prejudice, privilege and difference. They are stories about outsider status, about how dangerous that can be, about the lies we tell ourselves to make it bearable, to construct a narrative we can understand. They are about kinship, they are about, ultimately, the failure to connect.

These are not kind stories. Some of the darkest parts of the 20th, and indeed 21st, centuries are insistent in them  - we are dealing with Jewish and Roma protagonists, after all.

The prose is sparse but elegant, and I assume that's how it goes in the original. I did get annoyed at the narrator's tendency to undermine that elegance, his insistence on 'authenticity' at the expense of poetry, an image being given and then rejected in the following sentence. Once or twice it was effective, but its repetition, twinned with a reluctance to show enthusiasm, imbued the narrative voice with a desperation not be mocked. I found this irritating. It felt almost that the narrator was desperate to be seen, to show us the strings, tell us how the magic trick is done. Nowhere was this more obvious than in 'Distant', nowhere was it more avoided - thematically and stylistically - than 'The Pirouette'. Perhaps this was intentional.

To finish, I have seen a couple of other reviews that claim it's impossible to see the seams in the translation, that, despite having four translators who worked on separate stories, the work has a certain tone that remains equal throughout. I would dispute this. I can feel a different hand at work in different parts of The Polish Boxer. That in itself is not a problem - the problem is that I preferred some of them to others.

Another writer who seems to be intent on showing us the strings is Margaret Atwood in MaddAddam. This makes me very sad. I love Margaret Atwood.

It isn't that MaddAddam is a bad book, per se, it's that it is an unnecessary one. Oryx and Crake is perhaps the most terrifying dystopia I've ever encountered. It's sheer bleakness recommends it, especially as Jimmy reflects on how long it would take society, any kind of society, to rebuild itself given mankind's comprehensive destruction of the world's natural resources. The Year of the Flood, as sequels go, was not needed. Still, it gave further insight into a well constructed near-future, and it told of two women's journeys in faith and in love in moving, intelligent terms.  

MaddAddam? I don't know what function this book serves. Sure, it's more hopeful (marginally) and it ties up a lot of loose ends, but the loose ends are what made the first two novels so powerful. By existing, MaddAddam undermines itself.

That said, there are some lovely bits. The reflection on the function of story, the corruption and the coming-of-age of the Crakers is Atwood at her best (this is the middle chunk of the novel) and Toby's attempts to reconcile the faith she reaches at the end of The Year of the Flood with the practicalities of life is very well handled - although somewhat rehashing old ground. I was least convinced by her exploration of the MaddAddam of the title, and less than taken with her characterisation of Adam. So, not a bad book, but something of a disappointment.

Last, but not least, The Sign of the Four! A book that threw me because I got the distinct impression I had read it before now but couldn't remember doing so, or indeed, a damned thing that happened. This doesn't happen to me and it distracted me the whole time I was reading it. On completion, I discovered that, yeah, I've read it before. I must have been very tired, feverish or drunk when I did so, though. Or perhaps it just isn't the best Sherlock story out there.

Still, it has everything you want from Mr Holmes (Deductions! Honour among thieves! Providential conclusions! Cocaine!) and a few things that you sort of expect but don't really want (racism! phrenology! cultural imperialism!) As it is, if you haven't already read it, it's pretty much what you'd expect. Not as good as some of the others, but it has the redeeming feature of the best closing line of anything, ever.

Anne Rice: On falling in love with one's characters and 'the iron bar' factor

I have very recently come into possession of the majority of Anne Rice's 'The Vampire Chronicles'. So now I've got them all, and I've been reading them. Well, okay, not Blood and Gold or Mnenoch the Devil because the person who gave them to me didn't have those ones. Never mind, eh? Not like I've missed anything controversial or direction changing about the series then.

Now, I've always enjoyed Anne Rice, but, before I begin I will admit to a couple of pet peeves. There's the small matter of continuity – exactly how her vampirism works, as well as the physical characteristics and ages of her changeless vampires are somewhat open to discussion. Is Armand auburn, or is he strawberry blond? And, curly? Did his hair always curl? And is this blog really the place for insanely geeky speculations about relative strengths and telepathic abilities of her vampires?

I can answer that last one: No. So, Alys, stop it. Now.

Then there are the more significant concerns: her pervasive tendency to preach, whether her ideology of the moment is materialism, secularism or Catholicism; the absolute, conspicuous consumption of all her main characters as a way of burning through their obscene, nay, limitless wealth; her occasional, and irritating lapses of voice; the minor, subsidiary and unconvincing roles of her female characters; her bizarre, and frankly patronising, conception of age (especially annoying in the historical circumstances;) her total, I mean absolute inability to to write a convincing English gentleman, and her insistence upon narrating an entire book from such a vantage point.

The fact is, Anne Rice is a flawed writer, but I would argue that, in some measure, it is her flaws which make her lovable; I want to assure you of that before you come to the conclusion that I'm having some manner of apoplexy. So, while in several matters or style, taste and skill Anne Rice is far from perfect, she is still a remarkably compelling writer. And, for the record, I loved Merrick and think David Talbot is wonderful – he's not English by any stretch of the imagination, but he's none the worse for it.

So, for a quick review: although I found The Vampire Armand dragged in places, I've never had that much time for him as a character anyway, it was amusing enough. Pandora was a refreshing and thought provoking look at one of her much underused minor figures. Yes, Merrick stumbled in places, and Blackwood Farm in others, but both were well rounded, enjoyable reads – and to be honest, meeting some new faces was rather pleasant after so long with the same old crowd. Throughout all of these books there is a commitment to character and world development in the aftermath of the events of Mnenoch the Devil; events of which, I'll admit, I have only the foggiest understanding.

Which brings us to Blood Canticle. Which brings us, if I'm honest, to my biggest misgiving about the entire Vampire Chronicles series, a misgiving standing – as he so repeatedly tells us – 6 foot tall with his blond hair, blue eyes¹ clad in understated designer clobber or else in velvet, leather and lace. Yes, dear old Lestat; Lestat, the Brat Prince who breaks down the fourth wall with all the subtlety of a bulldozer. Lestat, the demon turned anti-hero turned rock-star turned demi-God turned Saint turned... no, hang on, I'm a bit lost. Er...

Let's start again. Without Lestat, there would be no Vampire Chronicles; okay, we might have Louis moping into eternity with his irritating but compelling melancholy, because his Lestat is not our Lestat. Without Lestat, it is arguable that the world – and certainly Rice's fictional universe – would be a duller place. I have no problem with Lestat. I even have no problem with Lestat being snatched up into the ether and going on some strange, metaphysical journey, meeting Saint Veronica, meeting Chris and converting back to Catholicism. I don't mind that Lestat wants to be good; on some level, Lestat has always wanted to be good. At times, I might argue, he even succeeds.

No, my problem with Lestat is that he and Anne Rice get a little bit too close. Always, he has been given too much emphasis, too much power, too many excuses. Every now and then, his voice slips and we see no longer our alluring, conceited murderer desperate for redemption but a writer who wants us, who needs us to believe that Lestat is really okay. That what he did to Louis, or Claudia, or David, that any of that can be shunted under the carpet; that really, this being is a consummate charmer, a doomed individual worthy of our sympathies, of our love.

I can understand why Rice does this; she loves Lestat. From what I understand of her biography, he is, to an extent, her mirror. When we love someone, we invariably want the world to focus on their good characteristics – their flaws must always be seen as forgivable. When I write, before I get heartily sick of my protagonists and start being really unpleasant to them, I want the same thing: I want them understood, nurtured, I want to hand them over to people who will understand them in all their complexity. And in the intimacy of the first person, the confessional nature of it, this impulse is very hard to ignore.

Rice is lucky, of course. Lestat is very easy to love, if you're into that kind of thing; mouthy, attractive and impulsive, tortured, affectionate, sexual – oh, so very sexual – and dangerous, too. Readers who enjoy her books are generally willing to forgive him – at least, within the scope of the books themselves. All is well; the Brat Prince receives the adulation that he so clearly wants, and which Rice desperately asks. Then... then Mnenoch the Devil, which I haven't read.

After that, a slew of books about other people; Lestat is a minor figure, comatose and tragic, or else moving slowly and plagued by doubts. Taken from the limelight we can feel the equal measures of devotion and scorn which he invokes; and because David loves him, because David has forgiven him, we love him also. Quin falls in love with him on sight, and Lestat behaves with a charity suitable to the capricious and ardent nature we've seen elsewhere. Everywhere, he is shown to inspire love and to make some effort to be worthy of it. That's it – Claudia, Louis and David, that poor girl in Tale of the Body Thief who's name I've forgotten, all those past betrayals brushed under the carpet. The massacre of some thousands of men in Queen of the Damned of no further import. Impulsive, yes. Mislead, yes, easily mislead, but evil? Well, only enjoyably so.

On to Blood Canticle, and, as the effusive blurb informs us, “Lestat really is back with a vengeance”, an expression which will henceforth fill me with as much enthusiasm as a Doctor Who story entitled 'Insert appropriate noun of the Daleks'².

Yes, Lestat is back, and Lestat is pissed off that people aren't taking his redemption seriously. Lestat is back and, however much he might doubt it, something important happened to him, dammit! Lestat is back and Lestat is... whining. He wants us to understand, wants us to see how important and seminal his experiences were and how we've no right to speak about him as a fictional character and complain that his behaviour has become inconsistent, just because he's changed. “How can I be inconsistent,” he asks, “when I'm as badass as ever?”

And this is my complaint: here he is inconsistent, here he is no longer being badassed. Frankly, Lestat is exactly the type of Vampire I'd expect to have some massive, spiritual experience. The image of him soaring up to heaven, plummeting down to Hell, drinking the blood of Christ himself and stumbling back into the modern day with an insanely valuable relic is his style precisely. If he's going to go all 'born again' on us, I wouldn't expect him to do it in any kind of understated, 'good works and clean living' kind of way; after all, in Queen of the Damned he didn't just bring the Vampires out into the light – he pretty much brought about their extinction as a species. What I don't expect him to do is mewl about it; “It's not my fault, it's not fair,” is the kind of thing Armand, might say, although even he'd say it with more dignity.

The whole problem, for me, is summed up in the character of Mona. About a third of the way through the book, she writes a little essay on what it means to have become a vampire, having been a committed Catholic until that point. Written in the style of a first year Lit student, it's main point seems to be that as Vampires can no longer be assessed within the human moral framework, she cannot know until she dies whether they are part of God's plan and can still achieve a form of salvation, and therefore can but try. All well and good – what else would a Christian, even a lip-service Christian, be worrying about after getting turned if not salvation, damnation and one's altered place in the grand scheme of things. Thing is, this is nothing new – this is what Rice was getting at in the first four bloody books. And the sixth. And the seventh. It takes Lestat 200 fucking years, and God knows how many pages, to reach the conclusion that 'maybe there is a God and, if there is, maybe he has a place for me and I'm not damned after all. I can't be sure though, as the only way to find out is through snuffing it, which I can't do. Cue existential despair.'

We get it, Anne Rice, we bloody well get it. It sounded better the first six times.

1Unless they're purple – I forget.

2This article was written, obviously, before Asylum of the Daleks, which, aside from a few minor points, was a marvellous example of storytelling. Well done, Moff. Keep up the good work.