Review: The Prisoner of Heaven - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Let's start this blog post with a lie and say that it's not very often that there is a book I'm actually so excited about I will rush out to buy it the moment I hear about it.

There. I said it would be a falsehood. If I'm honest, there have been at least three instances this year where I've got all screamy-fan-girl about a recently published novel. What does surprise me, though (considering that I am the same individual who camped outside her local Waterstones to in order be the first person to buy The Prisoner of Azkaban, indeed, doing so before said business had made any provision for such pre-teen nut-cases) is that I don't spend my spare time loitering on the websites of my favourite authors, hitting refresh every 15 minutes*. Instead, these days, I'm content to let the ether (or, you know, Twitter) waft towards me the news that a long anticipated novel is about to be released.

The reason for this is probably disappointment. No matter how blindingly awesome a book might be, if you've hyped yourself up to the point of squatting in a bookshop's doorway about it, there is a good chance that the final product may not quite live up to your highest of hopes. These days I try to preserve my enjoyment of things by taking things at a slightly steadier pace. And, despite this, The Prisoner of Heaven still disappointed me.

For those of you who don't know Ruiz Zafón's work, The Prisoner of Heaven is the third in a loose cycle of novels set in Barcelona and revolving around a place called The Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The first two are The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game. In it's actuality, The Prisoner of Heaven is more or less a direct sequel to The Shadow of the Wind; the narrator is the same, one Daniel Sempere, and the events of the novel concern the past of his best friend, Fermín Romero de Torres, as well as revealing some of the mystery surrounding David Martín, the cursed narrator of The Angel's Game. Although the spiel is that these books can be read in 'any order', I would advise the curious to read at least one of the earlier books before attempting this one - especially as even the blurb of The Prisoner... advises the reader to 'find out what happens next'.

And that, really, is the main weakness of The Prisoner. The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game were just too bloody good: stand alone novels that drew on each other's themes, intertwined with each other in the cleverest, most elegant of ways. They really can be read in any order, or separately, with no reference to each other at all. The Prisoner... for all it's worth, is not complete in its own right. Unlike in the two earlier novels, the story arc does not complete itself, questions - vital questions - are left unresolved and I get the worrying feeling it's just going to be springboard into the next book in the sequence. 

All that said, it's still a cracking good read. The mystery set up and explored is done well, suspense is maintained and Ruiz Zafón gives his usual display of artful storytelling and truly decent human characters without ever flinching from showing us horror, or veering into sentimentality. As far as a novel goes, it's marvellous. Written by any other writer, I would probably be gushing praise and enthusiasm for the style, the plot and the sequel.It lacks, however, the depth and scope of its two prequels, lacks something of their mystery or grandeur. Ruiz Zafón's style seems diminished too: perhaps in search of slicker, harder prose, he has abandoned some of the imagery that pervaded the first too novels, abandoned, too, the intricate, torturous subplots. Some people might consider this a bonus; I just wondered if he had found a different translator**. 

Actually, because of the 'tighter' language, the lack of lyricism, I found it difficult to believe that the Daniel Sempere of this novel was quite the same Daniel Sempere of The Shadow of the Wind. Of course, he is older here, has a wife and son, and he is less naive, also - aware of the political darkness surrounding him, aware of the immanent bankruptcy of Sempere & Sons - but his increased worldliness, in my opinion actually undermines the darkness and horror shown in other chapters, as well as his own sympathy as a character. It saddens me also that, while the dangerous and redemptive power of story was still a major theme in this book, he pulled off nothing quite so engaging as the characters of Julián Carax or David Martín.

So, in conclusion, my advice would be to read it and enjoy it because it's still probably one of the better books of 2012, but as to one of the better Ruiz Zafón books? I'm not so sure.

*okay, not that often...
** He hasn't. All three novels are translated by Lucia Graves.

Fun and games with Sir Francis Varney

Bugger, this blog's been a bit neglected, hasn't it? Well, that will change. Can't say when it will change, but it will, at some point. But in the interim, let's have a bit of badly typed silliness.

The thing is, I love my 19th Century vampire fiction so imagine my glee when I received, for my birthday, a copy of the original, the prototype, the penny-dreadful doorstop bloody mess of a vampire novel 'Varney, The Vampyre'. Adore it already! It even has a totally superfluous 'y' in the title! The problem though is the problem I always have - no matter how you dress it up, no matter how ambiguous the ending, Sir Francis is going to lose, isn't he? He will not, alas, get the girl, the house, the treasure that even I've figured out is probably concealed there, and the good guys will win the day because that is what good guys do, especially in 19th Century vampire fiction (except, maybe, in Polidori's 'The Vampyre'.) I, of course, will still be rooting for Sir Francis because championing a lost cause is what I do best.

In fact, I always seem to end up rooting for team vamp. It's not just because they are sexy beasts because tbh, most of them aren't, no. The reason is so much more simple: all too often, the good guys in vampire fiction are just painfully fucking stupid. Part of the problem seems to stem from the fact that the author has to convince us that a group of otherwise rational people have, reluctantly, accepted the existence of vampires as a fact, and have subsequently decided to turn vampire hunter. There are many ways of doing this, but all are based upon the presenting enough evidence to establish said existence beyond all reasonable doubt - the trouble comes with knowing when to stop. Von Klatka, for example, is not only blatantly a vampire from page one, but he is also desperately, sarcastically open about that very fact - when the good guys finally rumble him, I doubt even the original, non-genre savvy audience could entirely suppress a, "well, duh."

'Varney', to my delight, does not trouble itself overmuch with that accumulation of evidence - everyone knows it's a vampire, and that the vamp is Varney from the word go, yet avoiding the most obvious pratfall does not excuse our goodies from monumental levels of idiocy. Therefore, for your delight and delectation, I present a modernisation of Volume One, Chapter 13 - the confrontation between heroic numb-skull Henry Bannerworth and sarcastic vampire Francis Varney - also known as:

A brief word from our sponsors (ie, me)

Recently, Martin Amis provided the universe with this bizarre little quotation:

"When we say that we love a writer's work, we are always stretching the truth: what we really mean is that we love about half of it."

Indeed, he adds:

"I stubbornly suspect that only the cultist, or the academic, is capable of swallowing an author whole. Writers are peculiar, readers are particular: it is just the way we are."

As both a cultist and an academic, the Alysdragon's response is predictable, and began with a little bit of firebreathing, followed by a small scale character assassination*. She would now like to give this statement:

Mr Amis is clearly suffering from a misapprehension regarding the meaning of the word, 'love'. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines love as "an intense feeling of deep affection", or "a great interest or pleasure in something", definitions which seem to run counter Mr Amis' rather unforgiving attitude. Shakespeare, both a more reliable source and a recipient of Mr Amis' vitriol, declares that, "love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, not bends with the remover to remove." Indeed, he goes so far as to say that it "looks on tempests and is never shaken", a far cry from the idea that we love only half of what we profess. This latter attitude seems as strange to me claiming that, "when I say I love my husband, what I mean is really I can only stand him about half of the time, and for the rest he is both sub-par and uninteresting."

So, to use the word love in it's true sense, let me clarify: to love something - whether that be a place, a writer, a person, or Shakespeare's Comedies, is to feel a sudden and primal urge to mutilate anyone so foolhardy as to criticise that object of affection.

 In conclusion, Mr Amis, be a bit more careful what you say about Jane Austen. Especially if it's Northanger Abbey that you're talking about.

*I shan't go into detail, but the words 'that odious little man' were used with a reasonable degree of frequency.

Some tips on coping with Dyslexia

In this post I will be moving away from my usual fare and giving some advice to any writers out there who, while not dyslexic themselves, consider putting a dyslexic character in their work. Even if you're not a writer, how about giving it a read? Because my advice is this:

Yes, I am dyslexic. What I am not is a fucking imbecile.

Most of us, actually, aren't. Most of us can, in fact, read and write to a level commensurable with non-dyslexic individuals. Bear in mind, please, that recent figures suggest that one in ten people are dyslexic, or suffer from a dyslexic type disability. I suspect someone would have noticed by now if over 10% of the population were functionally illiterate.

And no, dyslexia is not being used as a catch all term for what we used to call 'slow' children - that contradicts my initial statement about how dyslexic people are not bloody idiots.  Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty, meaning it impacts upon certain aspects of an individual's performance. It is assessed by a series of tests which resemble the common IQ test and take in all areas of ability; spatial reasoning, numerical reasoning, alpha-numeric problem solving, verbal reasoning, reading accuracy, that sort of thing. The results from these tests are then stratified, locating any areas of specific underperformance in relation to the individual's overall ability. If a certain pattern of underperformance is noted, the individual is diagnosed with the relevant learning difficulty.

Clear? It locates specific areas where there is weakness compared with the individual's average.


"Well, of course," you say, straw man as you are, oh hypothetical reader, "I'm not saying that dyslexic people can't be good at certain areas of conventional academia, but you've said it yourself, they have specific areas of underperformance. They aren't readers."

I'll admit, some dyslexics are not readers, but then so are some people who have no relation to the disability; some people just don't like reading very much. It may even be true that there are some cliche dyslexics out in the world, people who after many arduous attempts at school, learned functional reading very late, and, after having left school with a palpable sigh of relief, have never troubled themselves with a book again - despite being very creative and possibly extremely good at things like drama, and dance. Some may even still be functionally illiterate. I would hazard, however, that these people are the minority.

Because, once again, these views overlook the complexity of the thing, of reading itself, in fact. Reading utilises many skills, and among these are areas affected by dyslexia: the ability to process, store and retrieve information, or sequencing, that kind of thing. But these are only part of what one needs in order to read, so, rather than sinking under inertia, people with dyslexia do as people with disabilities have done since the dawn of time: they have developed coping strategies, heightening the surrounding areas of ability effectively to 'mask' the disability. This is why many people are not diagnosed with dyslexia until later life when greater demands are made from the weaker aspects of their abilities and their accustomed coping strategies cease to provide a 'level the playing field'.*  Suddenly struggling, the dyslexic adult will seek to know why.

The biggest irony of learning difficulties is that the dip in ability need not actually bring the individual below the average skill set of someone without that disability; it is merely a drop in IQ relevant to that individual. Someone with mild-to-medium dyslexia and an IQ in the average range may reveal a noticeable handicap, but one easily overlooked. Someone with the same level of the condition and an IQ in the 110-120 range could drift through life totally undiagnosed because even their weaker areas perform slightly better than the average while and their most severe lapses are masked by coping strategies.

But this is not to understate the frustration, the sheer bloody irritation, the occasional weeping despair that having a learning difficulty can bring to an otherwise bright child. Understanding a text perfectly, but, when called upon to read it aloud, stumbling over familiar words, stringing sentences together in an awkward fashion. Knowing how a word is spelled, getting it right week after week on a series of idiot spelling tests, but still, when faced with it in the conditions of actually writing something facing a total bloody mind blank and writing something a four year old would know was incorrect.

It hurts, that; and what hurts more is then being called lazy, careless, or inattentive for getting it wrong, even though you had been beating your brain against the right answer, while your brain has refused to co-operate.

And what hurts even more is going through education like that, getting more than decent grades, going to University, studying English to a post graduate level, trawling through all those god-awful PDF files and academic books that are laid out in a way intended to give dyslexic people migraines**, and passing anyway because you care and are good at your subject and you love books too much to give a damn that sometimes it's really hard work. What hurts is doing all that and then having to read some writer - or listen to some random, ill-informed person - telling you that dyslexic people aren't academic, that dyslexic people can't read.

So, before you think about creating a dyslexic character, or just saying something that bloody thoughtless, remember: Albert Einstein was dyslexic and so is the almost disgustingly well-read Stephen Fry.***

We're not stupid, we're not lazy, and, this dyslexic at least, is really quite pissed off.

*as the assessor from the Dean of Student's office put it to me.
** visual distortion being another symptom, one exacerbated by certain layouts, contrast levels and fonts.
*** For more examples, see: http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/about-dyslexia/famous-dyslexics.html
 

(For more information on dyslexia, see http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/. Don't get me started on dyspraxia or we'll be here all day. Must dash, novels to write, books to read.)

Semiotics has no 'off' switch:

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the original 'Thomas the Tank Engine' books, but I will assume that the number is fairly low. Below, I shall detail one of the dangers attendant upon being an ex-Lit student.

A couple of nights ago, I was reading my daughter 'Troublesome Engines', which, as stated above, is a Thomas book. I had got to the third story in the book when I suddenly found myself unable to continue reading with a clean conscience, and the rest of that bedtime story was attended by a certain degree of gloss. This is because, from jaded, adult eyes, eyes well schooled literary criticism, 'Troublesome Engines', goes a little like this:

Having redeployed his key worker, Thomas, to the running of the Branch Line, the Fat Controller attempts to economise and distributes Thomas' workload among his existing work force. Other engines are asked to perform non-contractual tasks which are below their skill-level in addition to their usual workload. In the course of these extra duties, Henry is sent to investigate a blockage which turns out to be an elephant, subjecting him to no little personal danger and humiliation. Furthermore, the Fat Controller refuses to modernise his equipment so that the turntable fails to turn one Tender engine (Gordon) meaning he is forced to run along the Main Line backwards - causing danger to himself and to the Fat Controller's customers.

Angry at these repeated breaches of contract (tender engines do not shunt) and the dangerous experiences in the execution thereof, Henry, James and Gordon go on strike. The Fat Controller takes a confrontational attitude towards his workers, refusing to recognise the validity of the complaint (engines on My Railway do as they are told) and instead goes to the only tender engine not on strike, Edward - hereafter called the Scab. The Scab, it appears, is quite happy to take on extra work in order to gratify his boss, but is quickly disheartened when the other engines remind him his work is non-contractual and, presumably, call him a Scab for good measure.

At this, the Fat Controller begins to see that his position is untenable, and hires from among the readily available workforce a naive, arselick of an engine, an enthusiastic young engine named Percy. Then, he calls Thomas back from his new job, and imprisons the three striking engines. The tank engines (and the Scab) are only too happy to break picket lines in order to undertake skilled labour, presumably at no extra wage, in order to show the tender engines that 'Common Tank Engines' can do the task as well the tender engines can.

After a few days of this, the Fat Controller releases Henry, James and Gordon on the proviso that they return to their old jobs and take no more industrial action. They do so and Thomas, Percy and the Scab are sent to 'play' on the Branch line for a few days. Now, Thomas immediately goes for a ride with his girlfriends, but Percy and the Scab 'play' with some trucks. This following section is a minor incident and is not really essential to the plot. However, if one bears in mind that all these trucks – also often called troublesome – are all female, it is not without relevance.

'“Stop! Stop! Stop!” screamed the trucks as they were pushed into their proper sidings, but the two engines laughed and went on shunting till the trucks were tidily arranged.'

 Letting off steam, indeed.

Everything, you see, has returned to normal. Those willing to undertake unskilled labour (Thomas, Percy, the Scab) have been put to work on the Branch line; less skilled labour, perhaps, but with ample opportunity of harassing, even assaulting, the female workforce. It is, after all, a position of power. Meanwhile, a 'compromise' has been struck with the tender engines; their place at the top of the engine hierarchy has been assured – they are asked only to work upon the Main Line – but they are still required to shunt, even though such work is not in their job description and below their skill set.

The moral of the story, therefore, can be read in one of two ways. It is either divide and conquer, or else it is unionise effectively. Either way, the reading stands; had the tender engines forgotten their snobbery and brought the lower status tank engines into their demand for better working conditions, had the tank engines relinquished their power over the trucks and all three grades shown solidarity, the Fat Controller would have been well and truly shafted.

Which, if I'm honest, is no more than he deserves.

'Little, Big' - John Crowley: Dangers of forgetting, pleasures of remembrance:

Sometimes, we forget things. Most of the time, the things that we forget are small enough; I forget to put my mobile in my pocket, or to attend a meeting, or to bring along that vital piece of paper... The world makes its predictable, irritating fuss and then we forget all about it because these things do not truly matter. Other things that we forget have more impact, and the worst of this is that we seldom notice that the memory is gone – one forgets the tiny, silver finger ring given by an elderly relative, the words to a once beloved song, or an afternoon spent picking blackberries as a child. Little by little, as we lose these things, it is as though our very selves are melting into forgetfulness.

But the truth of the matter is, these things are not gone – one will find the finger ring, buried in the jewellery box, catch the strands of a familiar melody or see that break of brambles in the autumn light with the breeze coming from the west and we will recall. Not simply the event that had slipped away, but a whole host of circumstances, emotions, people who we believed had vanished from the world, or, at the very least, our minds.

Even though working with texts is my main occupation, sometimes – as a writer and a reader – I forget things too. It is easy, too easy, to forget how rare good writing is; I don't mean reasonable writing, the 'enjoyable with a few moments of sparkling prose' kind of good, I mean the good that stops you and makes you think and makes you live again. I'm talking about the kind of good that gives the reader that strange, soaring, swooping sensation; the kind of good where one word, one phrase, one expression can be so totally and irrefutably beautiful, that we just have to stop and read it again, aloud, for the benefit of the entire room.

John Crowley writes like that.

Right now, I am re-reading Little, Big. I re-read a lot and I am familiar with all the different ways of doing it. There are the re-reads where you seek new understanding, re-reads where you pick over familiar ground to support arguments and find answers. There are re-reads where one does it merely for pleasure, the joy of seeing again familiar words, of sinking into the prose like hot bathwater, or warmed chocolate. Then there are the re-reads that matter, the ones that are our touchstones for remembering the things we readers and writers forget. A list like that is a personal thing – books that are read many times and lent often, books that are never thrown away: Holdstock, Gaiman, Crowley...

Reading Little, Big again for the sixth (or is it seventh?) time is like drinking Chartreuse for the first time after months where only an empty bottle reminded me of pleasures past. It's too good, too fine an experience to rush; I'll drink it neat, of course I'll drink it neat, but I'll let it singe my tongue a little, I try to work it out sip by tiny sip. Fennel of course, or maybe aniseed. Mint, yes, always mint – is that angelica? Did I notice that last time? And, ah, that fierce, familiar burn and it's time for another sip... Would you like a glass? Come, you must try some. Too good, after all, to be enjoyed alone.

My Gods, John Crowley can write. And there was me, almost forgetting how it was done.

What I've been reading: Preacher: Gone to Texas - Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon

Dragon Rating: Couple of houses alight, over here...

 Yes, okay. Watch me sacrifice the last of my tenuous geek credentials as I admit that, no, I've not read any Preacher before. And, I know I've said in the past that I'm a stories girl, but what first struck me about this was - wow. This artwork is beautiful.

Not beautiful in the "ooh, pretty," kind of way - although with their subject matter it would have been easy to slip into eye-candy mode (brooding, almost anti-hero, trigger happy ex-girlfriend, angels...) but no. Even in the gross bits, this is beautiful; truly, fascinatingly, horribly beautiful. So it was the art kept me fixed, at least for the first arc of the story.

But still, over and above it all, I'm a stories girl. And, apologies to any rabid fans, but the earlier sections just didn't do it for me, first time round. A slow burner, it took a while for it... not to get going, but for it to capture my interest.

Actually, if you're curious, I can tell you the exact moment that I got hooked. It's just into the second story arc: Jesse and Cassidy are standing at the top of the Empire State Building, talking about responsibility. The artwork, again, is lovely - aesthetically pleasing as well as brilliant - and Jesse is being every inch the brooding anti-hero. This is the most high-blown and preachy we've seen him in the whole course of the book as he talks about absolute power, absolute corruption, sin and hellfire. This is a momentous moment, for the reader, as well as the characters when we find out, proud little redneck that he is, our MC is a pretty decent bloke and his sleazy vampire sidekick is really alright, too.

And, because he's a blood good writer, Ennis is not afraid to puncture the mood with a bathetic comment about penises. And, because he's a bloody good artist, Dillon let's us know it's okay to find it funny.


After that, I wasn't just reading for a vague sense of interest as to what happened next, after that, I gave a damn. Because suddenly, I knew I wasn't dealing with a bunch of straw men with superpowers who just happened to be drawn by an excellent artist. No, after that, I was dealing with real people  who - however much they screw up or act like arseholes - have got me on their side.

I admit, there is probably some kind of formula for winning readers like me. It goes along the lines of  'tough guy bullshit, followed by displayed decency, followed by humour.' I might go so far as to say that this kind of formula is being exploited here. But without skill a formula like that is stale and transparent and this... No. I only notice this while writing about it.

Good show, gentlemen, and an excellent beginning. Can't wait to see what happens next....