Ragnarok, by A.S. Byatt

Ragnarok by A.S. Byatt is the latest in the Canongate myths series, which has had myths re-imagined by contemporary authors such as Jeanette Winterson, Philip Pullman and Margaret Atwood (whose retelling of the Odyssey as The Penelopiad is highly recommended). As you can probably tell from the title, Byatt has chosen the Norse myths, from creation through to Ragnarök - the end of the world. It is much more a literal retelling of the myth than the freewheeling interpretations other books in the series make. She does however include a framing device of a young girl, called only the thin child, living in World War Two Britain. We read the myth through her eyes, a device that is only moderately successful.

Much of Ragnarok is Byatt’s version of the Norse myths. Instead of following modern conventions of character, she writes them in a style more akin to their original forms. The gods are archetypal, and their behaviour is symbolic of the world around us, rather than a psychological portrayal. The prose is, as expected, beautifully written. The imagery she conjures up of Ginnungagap (the void before creation), of Jörmungandr (the serpent who circles the world), and the final awful silence after Ragnarök, is vivid and engaging. I’ve read a reasonable amount of classical epic poetry, so I wasn’t unfamiliar with this form of storytelling. I wonder though whether some readers will struggle to engage.

Byatt intends the thin child to be our window into this mythical world, and uses her to make two thematic links between our world and myth, which I’ll get onto in a bit. I don’t think this device really works. Partly this is because the thin child herself is a passive interpreter, and is as characterless as the archetypal gods. Rather than giving us insight to the Norse myths, I found her an interruption to the narrative flow of myth, and felt the explanatory role she played in interpreting the stories she is reading was unnecessary.

Byatt was herself a young girl during World War Two, and the child is a thinly veiled self portrayal; apparently Byatt even read the Norse myths at this age. In this child’s mind the destruction of Midgard and the wartime threat of impending doom become inextricably linked. Humans, like the gods of Asgard, are trapped in never-ending cycles of violence. The people who originally told these myths may have disappeared, but the truths the myths portray are as valid as ever.

The child is also a device to explore our modern natural world; as she walks to school, or plays, we are told of the plants and birds she sees - an ode to the British countryside. Over the course of the novel, as the myths move from creation to the destruction of the world, Byatt slowly draws a parallel to the state of our environment. The countryside Byatt describes is disappearing, and the same thing is happening all over the world. The world as we know it is in peril because of human behaviour. The Norse gods continue their drinking, brawling and general cavorting while they wait for Ragnarök. As do we.

Of the two thematic points I think the second is more effective. It is more subtly handled. I wondered if I was reading too much in it until I neared the end of the novel and decided it was intended. Weirdly the book contains what is clearly an afterword (not that it is labelled as one) in which Byatt explicitly explains her intentions in writing in mythic style, and her themes. The fact that it was felt necessary, I think, shows what is problematic about this book. I enjoyed it, but at times I felt I enjoyed it at an intellectual level, rather than being drawn into the story. Whenever I felt the story was getting underway, the thin child popped up to explain the myth, or a purely thematic passage appeared. It is a small book, but I felt it would have benefited from less being attempted; the combination of her themes, the myths themselves and the secondary story in wartime Britain is just a bit much being crammed in.

Byatt is a compelling writer - both Possession and The Children’s Book are fantastic novels. While Ragnarok has its faults it is an interesting addition to the Myths Series. Her depiction of the mythic world is beautiful. She captures both the joy of life and creation, and the cruelty in the stories, and Ragnarök itself is vivid, yet unsentimental.

The wolves tore the throats out of the horses and turned to the drivers of the chariots, sun-woman, night-mother, moon-boy and the boy in the bright chariot of day. Somewhere in the middle air, as the chariots rolled in their fall, the wolves tore apart sun and moon, day and night, drank their blood and swallowed them.

It isn’t a book for everyone, but I did like it. Just, perhaps not as much as I would have liked.

Persuasion, by Jane Austen

Jane Austen is one of the most loved, but also misunderstood, novelists. Her wonderful romances, more widely known to many now through television, have earned her a reputation as a girl meets rich guy, girl marries rich guy writer. This ignores the fact that many of her ideas were quite revolutionary for the time. For those who are interested I highly recommend Claire Tomalin’s biography of Austen; it is a fascinating account of Austen’s family and society, and the difficulties she faced as a female writer. It changed how I viewed her novels; it made me love them that little bit more, especially this, the most revolutionary of all her novels - Persuasion.

Eight years before the beginning of this novel Anne Eliot, middle daughter to a baronet, was persuaded to break off an engagement to young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, largely because her family believed him to be beneath her in social standing. It would also have been an imprudent engagement as he did not have the income to support a wife, and no guarantee of ever doing so. He has now returned to the neighbourhood a Captain in the Royal Navy, and rich. Charming and charismatic, he is seen as quite the catch and the local girls all determine to fall in love with him. Anne is now 27, past the prime age for marrying(!). Overlooked and unappreciated by her own family she deeply regrets her refusal. Due to the social conventions of the time, it is impossible for her to communicate this to Captain Wentworth. She can only watch, and hope.

Of course, there is the inevitable happy ending. But in a way, this is what makes the novel so remarkable. Anne is the daughter of a Baronet (a hereditary knighthood, the closest thing to being noble other than being noble). She marries a man who is not even a member of the gentry. While he is rich, he is a self-made man, having earned his fortune and title through his career in the navy. Austen is so often criticised for being stuck in the class system of her day, but to me this heralds the massive social changes of the 19th century - the beginning of the decline of the aristocracy in the face of ambition. Of course Austen had no way of knowing what was to come, but her reflection of society is quite cutting edge.

In a world where to be mistress of a house was the greatest degree of autonomy most women could achieve, the desire of Austen’s heroines to marry for love, not necessity, is a bold choice. Marriage was generally arranged by parents, and in the absence of a large dowry, being very beautiful was the surest way to marry well. Her heroines do not settle for a mediocre marriage; they aim for the best in life and take the gamble. While it works out for them all, Austen understood well the difficulties in being a spinster. She, her sister, and widowed mother were eventually dependent on their brothers to arrange even basic things for them. Is it so bad that in her novels she is living the dream? Persuasion is the ultimate example - Anne is aging, and her father has squandered his money to the extent her dowry is in doubt. Nonetheless she gets a second chance. Her loyalty and good character are enough to bring about her marriage to the man she loves. Austen, in her early forties, ill and near death, writes a happy ending that she and her sister never got. Every time I read Persuasion I find it beautifully poignant.

One of Austen’s greatest qualities as a writer is her wit. She lays bare the hypocrisy of her society, where merit is too often based on wealth, not quality of character. She can be scathing, yet is also very funny. Persuasion is perhaps less humorous when compared to the sparkling Emma, for example, but it finds a gentle sense of humour in Anne’s family - the hypochondriac Mary, or her snobbish father who is so vain as to have filled the house with mirrors, which was an expensive habit for the time. While it lacks the humour of her more grotesque characters, what this novel does have is a lot of heart. Austen was a ferociously intelligent woman, at a time when female intelligence wasn’t appreciated. Persuasion was written at a time when she had received some recognition for her novels, and a small income had given her some independence. It is a more mature, well rounded work - perhaps some of that anger had abated.

Classic novels seem to be a love or loathe thing, those who loathe them finding them wordy or difficult to relate to. While the style of writing is indeed different, the craft behind it is impeccable. Society has changed in the two hundred years since Jane Austen sat at her little table and wrote this novel, but people haven’t. Pompous Sir Elliots, manipulative Mrs Clays, and faithful Annes, still exist. It isn’t a story about marrying a rich man; it is a story about marrying someone who loves and values you. Austen has inspired women with this dream for centuries; no wonder we love her so much.

Bring Up The Bodies, by Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall won Hilary Mantel the Booker Prize for her account of Thomas Cromwell, and the role he played in the ascension of Anne Boleyn to the throne. I absolutely loved the book. Through Cromwell, Mantel found a fresh take on the Tudor era that we all know so well. The book was huge, but encompassed a very specific period of events, and ended, I thought, perfectly, so I was not without trepidation when I heard that it would now be the first in a trilogy. Would she ruin that ending - leaving us with our own knowledge of history to fill in the gaps - by fleshing it out for us? By the time Bring Up The Bodies arrived in its resplendent crimson and gold cover on bookshelves, my appetite had got the better of me. I couldn’t wait to dive back into Mantel’s version of Tudor England. It didn’t disappoint.

Rising up from his origins as a common London boy, Cromwell is now an established, powerful figure at court. He is the man Henry VIII trusts to get things done, and not without good reason. The only thing Cromwell cannot do is magic up the son Henry is so desperate for. Having rid him of one wife, it falls to Cromwell to rid him of the second. As we all know, this will end with Anne Boleyn on the executioners block, and Jane Seymour on the throne. It is how Cromwell, the Seymours, and the Boleyns get there that is so thrilling.

As familiar as the history is, the novel is about Cromwell. It is told exclusively from his point of view. Unusually, considering this is the case, Mantel does not use first person (I), but rather the third (he). We sit inside Cromwell’s head, and yet we are kept at ever so slight a distance by this choice of voice. It is the same technique used in Wolf Hall, with one slight difference. In the first book some readers found the unrelenting use of ‘he’ difficult to keep track of. For this novel, where Mantel thinks there may be some confusion as to who ‘he’ is, she specifies ‘he, Cromwell’. It does reduce the confusion that, I admit, I found a little distracting at the beginning of Wolf Hall until I got the hang of it. It also adds something to the text. In a sense his name becomes his own epithet. Cromwell becomes this incredibly solid presence, instead of the slippery figure he could be in Wolf Hall. This Cromwell is a powerful figure; his name invokes fear at court. Henry VIII might need his title to invoke his sense of power - Cromwell needs only his name.

Cromwell is a fantastic character: intelligent and cunning. If you are lucky he is a loyal friend; if not, being on Cromwell’s bad side is a dangerous place to be. He is an admirable character, and perhaps just likeable enough, despite his ruthlessness. Mantel does a fabulous job of fleshing him out as a man. His mind wanders throughout his life, flitting to memories of his childhood, his time in Europe, and the wife and two daughters who died young.

The dead hover throughout this novel, haunting Cromwell. Not without reason is the second group in the list of characters at the front of the book ‘The Dead’. It would be impossible to understand without knowledge, not just of his family, but also of the executed Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas More. A particularly beautiful passage at the beginning of the book, regarding Cromwell’s sometime adversary, Thomas More, was for me the moment I sunk completely into the world of this novel

What could he do but splash to the scaffold, on a day in July when the torrents never stopped, except for a brief hour in the evening and that too late for Thomas More; he died with his hose wet, splashed to the knees, and his feet paddling like a duck’s. He doesn’t exactly miss the man. It’s just that sometimes, he forgets he’s dead. It’s as if they’re deep in conversation, and suddenly the conversation stops, he says something and no answer comes back. As if they’d been walking along and More had dropped into a hole in the road, a pit as deep as a man, slopping with rainwater.

Other deaths haunt this novel. Because it is historical fiction, we know how it ends. Two deaths are important to our understanding, the first being the inevitable death of Henry VIII. The precarious position England would find itself in at his death is bought home by a historical occurrence early in the novel: Henry’s jousting accident in 1536. He was badly injured - it is said it was believed to be fatal at the time - and it is known that within days Anne had miscarried a male child. Mantel makes clear, through Cromwell’s frantic mind, that if the King dies, England would be on the brink of civil war. Henry may be verging on the tyrannical at this point, but an England without Henry is unthinkable. Anne’s failure to produce an heir is now unforgivable.

The second death is that of Cromwell himself. I know when his life ends, I can look up the exact date of his death. I know the means, but I don’t really know the how. Nor does Cromwell. He does know that a world without Henry VIII is not one that will be kind to him. His position at court is dependant on Henry’s goodwill. Mind you, this could be said of almost anybody. Cromwell has the advantage - while Henry is alive, if he is clever enough, ruthless enough, he can stay in Henry’s favour. Therefore he does whatever it takes to keep Henry happy. Perhaps the key lines to the novel are these thoughts as the trial of the men accused of adultery with Anne Boleyn approaches

He needs guilty men. So he has found men who are guilty. Though perhaps not guilty as charged.

Mantel assumes a certain level of historical knowledge, and plays with it. She plants seeds of ideas throughout the novel, hinting at what we know for these peoples’ future. She stays within the facts of history, but it is her ideas of how it unfolds that make it so gripping. The biggest criticism that can be made of this book is that it is so clearly a second book in the trilogy; it just isn’t quite satisfying enough - I immediately wanted the third book to read, which is hardly the sign of a bad book. It may be familiar ground to that covered in Wolf Hall, but it is such an interesting period of history that there are plenty of ideas for Mantel to explore. I enjoyed every page; the prose, the characters and the Tudor world are all beautifully rendered.

Railsea, by China Miéville

China Miéville is one of my favourite authors, so I’m pleased to finally be reviewing his latest offering: Railsea. Miéville writes what he calls ‘weird fiction’ - not strictly fantasy or sci-fi, but something that blurs the boundaries. He is attempting, within this, to write a book in every genre; so far he has written novels as diverse as a western (Iron Council), a sci-fi planetary romance (Embassytown), and crime fiction (The City & The City). Railsea is his young adult offering. Unsurprisingly, I enjoyed it; it is well written for the youth market, but is also clever enough to satisfy his adult readers.

Railsea takes place in a dystopic future of either our world, or one quite like it. Large bodies of water are nonexistent; instead, the lands people live on are divided by treacherous stretches of earth that may or not be poisonous (as is much of the sky). Crisscrossing these are train tracks, providing trade routes and hunting grounds to the train crews who work on them. Sham Yes ap Soorap finds himself apprenticed to a doctor on the moletrain Medes. They hunt the vicious beasts that live in the poison earth: the most profitable of these being the giant moles, or moldywarpes. While they hunt, Captain Naphi is on the lookout for one particular moldywarpe: Mocker Jack, the giant yellow beast that claimed her arm years ago. While she will stop at nothing to catch him, Sham discovers a quest of his own that will lead him down perilous tracks, perhaps as far as the ends of the earth.

What Miéville does best is world building. Apart from his three Bas-lag novels, all of his works take place within a unique universe. He is an absolute master of invention, and crucially in communicating his ideas in his books. Some of his worlds can take a bit of time to get your head around, but once you have done so they have a completeness and believability to them that is so often lacking in lesser writers’ works. Miéville explains his worlds very well, taking his time to lay the pieces before bringing it all together in your head. I remember reading Embassytown and feeling like I wasn’t quite understanding, then with one particular paragraph everything slotted into place. Talking to my husband later, he had the same feeling at the exact same place in the book. It is a real skill to be able to communicate so clearly his, often very weird, settings.

The book obviously contains a loose homage to Moby Dick, but that is only the start. It is jam packed with tributes to literature: Robinson Crusoe is referenced, and the works of R.L. Stevenson - with Treasure Island in particular coming to mind. It is also unashamedly meta-fictional. Miéville first widens the story to include further characters, such as the Shroake children; he then teases us with snippets of their story while always returning to his central character Sham

At last they pushed on, under a huge night, in the deeps of which upsky predators make sounds. The Shroakes-

-but wait. On reflection, now is not the time for Shroakes. There is at this instant too much occurring or about to occur to Sham ap Soorap

Miéville’s early work is not exactly known for its brevity; this narrative technique helps to keep the plot moving without dropping the Shroakes for long tracts at a time. It’s a clever ploy, and entertainingly written - reeling us in only to drop us again moments later.

One of the things I most admire and enjoy in Miéville’s writing is his language play. He has a knack of twisting words and grammar so they say not what they would normally, but exactly what he wants them to say. He imbues words with meanings of his own, that become important to the plot or ideas in his stories, such as ‘philosophy’ becomes in this book. His vocabulary is extraordinary, although perhaps at times beyond the young adult readers this book is aimed at. One of his quirks is that he has favourite words, and these can vary from novel to novel, but often these words will pop up. This has lead to what I affectionately think of as ‘the chitin game’, after a much used word in Perdido Street Station. Knowing which words in his early works he loves, you look out for them as you read new books. Which leads to scenes like my husband and I announcing ‘chitin’ abruptly into a room where we both had been reading in silence. Other words this can be played with include ‘puissant’, etiolate’, and words that start with ‘un’ but don’t usually.

A stylistic feature of this novel is the decision to use ‘&’ instead of ‘and’. Miéville also often starts his sentences with ‘&’. It is very striking - we are so used to the convention that you don’t begin sentences this way. Writers often deliberately flout convention - it is part of the skill of being a good writer. Just as you get used to it Miéville explains this choice in a short chapter directed at the reader. In which chapter, the antiquated spelling of ‘and’ is explained to have been replaced with ‘&’ because of its connection with the railsea.

‘What word better could there be to symbolise the railsea that connects & separates all lands, than “&” itself? Where else does the railsea take us but this place & that one & that one & that one & so on? & what better embodies, in the sweep of the pen, the recurved motion of trains, than “&”?

It is a lovely idea, which after all is what you read Miéville for.

He walks at times a fine line between his cleverness getting in the way of his stories or not. For me he manages to stay on the right side of the line. That’s not to say he isn’t without limitations. Characters can be a little underdrawn in his books. They are sometimes merely vehicles for the ideas he wants to explore, not believable people. This is a fair criticism of Railsea. It is obviously just not what he is interested in as a writer, though I don’t think this prevents his novels from having emotional impact. When it is important he manages to make you feel. I have mentioned he has a degree of vocabulary predictability, and this could also be said for his themes. Miéville is an ardent Marxist and these beliefs are often explicitly expressed in his books, something I find amusing rather than troublesome.

I’m something of a Miéville completist. He is also currently publishing a comic series Dial H for Hero that I’m buying, and enjoying. There is so much I love about his books; their inventive worlds being only the start. Miéville is an excellent writer of the dramatic set piece, huge battles and showdowns which are a joy to read. All of this is present in Railsea, so I was pleased to read it. I think it is also well targeted at its young adult audience, whereas I thought his children’s book Un Lun Dun may not have been. It is not my favourite of Miéville’s works, but he is one of my favourite authors writing today. I can’t wait to read whatever comes next. For those of you whose appetite has been whetted by my review, here is Covehithe , a short story published on The Guardian.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John le Carré

I’ve never been much of a thriller reader. My father is a fan of the genre, but the closest I’ve come to reading the crime and spy novels he likes is a brief John Grisham phase in my teens, around the same time all the hot young things in Hollywood were starring in the movie adaptations. While it wasn’t exactly full of heart-throbs, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was a fabulous movie. Once again I was inspired by celluloid to pick up a book and try one of the masters of the spy genre - John le Carré.

Those of you who have seen the movie will find the plot very similar. A British SIS officer is sent to Czechoslovakia on a top secret mission by the head of his agency, known only as Control. Control has reason to suspect a mole is operating amongst his highest officials, and a Czech general is promising him a name. When events go wrong, and the spy is shot, heads roll within the security service. Months later Control is dead, and rumours of a mole have resurfaced. Once a suspect, the ousted spy George Smiley is the ideal candidate to hunt out which of his former colleagues is spying for the Russians.

Because not only the set up, but also the way the plot plays out, is basically the same, I found it a bit of a shame that I hadn’t read the book first. Still, I enjoyed the book even though I knew what would happen. Unlike a lot of thrillers we are used to these days there is no race to solve the mystery. Instead we follow Smiley through his logical reconstruction of events, and eventual trap, to discover who the mole is, at the same time that Smiley has his (unvoiced) suspicions confirmed. If you are looking for a mystery to solve, this isn’t the book for you. Perhaps this is why I wasn’t bothered by knowing the outcome. Le Carré isn’t interested in red herrings, or tantalising details; he unfolds the mystery in a logical way, and at a calculated pace. It is the world of the spy that is of importance, not the mystery. The book is full of spy speak, which can take a while to get your head around - to be honest I got confused as to the difference between ‘shoemakers’ and ‘lamplighters’, though some, such as ‘pavement artist’ to describe those following a suspect, have a charm (and clarity).

The story is told in third person, following Smiley, as he tries to piece together what is going on. He does this by meeting fellow spies - talking to those who will talk secretly, hunting down those who were ousted after the Czech scandal. I found the way the narrative flowed interesting, as it meant that a lot of the real action in the novel is narrated, in conversation, after the fact. It is curious to me, looking back, that it works. Through Smiley’s conversations we build a thorough picture of that fateful night, who was where, talking to who, whose stories have gaps in them. But we also know the outcome. It could all be very dry, but le Carré brings each scene to life, so the stakes seem real.

Although this is the first of a trilogy, it is actually the fifth book Smiley has appeared in. He is le Carré ’s perfect spy - what he lacks in physical brilliance he makes up for in mental acuity. His last name is somewhat ironic, as he comes across as a rather inexpressive chap. I gather that this is not the only le Carré novel to find Smiley brought in from the outside somehow to investigate, or tidy up after other spies. As a narrative device it clearly works. I do wonder if I would find it so interesting after reading a few similar books. I am however sufficiently intrigued that I can see myself reading a few more of these at some stage in the future.

The Cold War is brought vividly to life, with a nice bit of moral ambiguity on both sides. The SIS might be a world peopled largely with middle aged white men, but the major players all have personalities that leap off the page - from repressed anger, or ruthless ambition, to the feeling of failure. The nit and grit of this book might be a spy story, but it is also a story of how people react to betrayal. The ending is beautifully understated. What the film made quite explicit, the book only implies. It might not end with a bang, but it’s not a whimper either. The pay off, if you have been paying sufficient attention, is a very satisfying conclusion.

A Visit From The Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan

Another book that has been on my to-read list for some time was Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From The Goon Squad. Like everyone else I hadn’t heard of her a little over a year ago, but her profile has rocketed since winning the 2011 Pulitzer with this novel. I didn’t find it a perfect read, but it was enjoyable, and unlike many literary novels these days it was a fairly quick read.

The book sits somewhere between a novel and a collection of short stories. Each chapter is a self contained story, following a diverse cast of interconnected characters, and together they build a thematic story of life in the modern world. Unlike true short stories, most of them need the context of the other stories to impart meaning. It isn’t just that they would lack emotional resonance, more that without the character information you have already built up over the course of the book, a reader would be somewhat lost reading later chapters on their own. While some connections are obvious, Egan weaves her stories together with a lot of detail. After finishing the book I went back to the first chapter and picked up on numerous references to other chapters. I imagine the level of detail in the book would reward rereading.

The book begins with Sasha, in her mid thirties, assistant to Bennie Salazar, a music producer. These two are the characters that probably pop up most often throughout the book. We slide along the time scale of their lives, meeting Bennie as a teenage punk, and as an ageing manager in a near future, trying one last time for success. We also get to know Bennie’s mentor Lou, the teenage girls he seduces, and his dysfunctional family. We have sub-plots involving dictators, mentally ill addicts, and sexual coercion. Yet Egan also finds some real heart and light in sections. The ‘Goon Squad’ of the title is a reference to the way life can beat you up sometimes.

Time’s a goon, right?

Her characters makes mistakes, screw up relationships, pass years in a haze of drugs and eventually realise life is passing them by. Occasionally Egan throws them a bone, and the moments of redemption, the hint of better things to come in their life is what stops this being a funny, but ultimately depressing book, and turns it into something with a soul.

The most memorable chapter is the novel’s most famous, because it sounds so gimmicky: a powerpoint presentation, taking up sixty pages. It is the slide journal of Sasha’s daughter, documenting her parents, her obsessive younger brother and all her family’s foibles. It is a brilliant chapter. Individually it tells a beautiful story of family: of the love that holds people together even when they drive you mad. They are by no means perfect, but in documenting the at times dysfunctional relationship between father and son Egan cuts to the essence of family. To the book as a whole it is also important. Sasha appears in a number of stories, and after tales of misspent youth and unhappy adulthood we need this story to swallow the bitter pill of the rest. Sasha’s family allows us to hope; after all the mess we need to see that lives can get better, that something beautiful is ahead.

I did have one problem with this book: it isn’t anything wrong with Egan’s writing, nor is it unique to her book. Why are so many books full of characters that are selfish and egotistical, especially when they purport to be exploring ‘modern’ life? Does this really reflect the world we live in today? I understand writers want to explore all kinds of characters, but to that end why are they all so unrelentingly narcissistic? Many excellent novels are like this, Jonathon Franzen’s The Corrections being another example. It isn’t just books, it is television as well. Individually they can be fine, but the cumulative effect of this navel-gazing can be a little tiresome. Admittedly the egoism Egan’s characters exhibit works well with the black humour that makes this books enjoyable.

This is a very well constructed book, the structure and characters working together to tell a story that encompasses a wide breadth of human experience. It is not however flawless: some of her futuristic elements felt unoriginal and didn’t really add to the novel. Overall Egan brings humour to what are the painful truths of her character’s lives, revealing all their inadequacies. At times scathingly critical, and at others beautifully poignant, A Visit From The Goon Squad deserves much of the praise and attention it has received.

Death Comes To Pemberley, by P.D. James

There are no lack of Pride and Prejudice spin-offs in the world, none of which I have bothered to read. What sets this one apart is its author: P.D. James, who has written best selling crime novels in a career spanning fifty years. She wasn’t an early starter either: she is the same age as my grandfather - nearly 92. I’ve not read her novels before - crime is not my favourite genre - but a writer of this calibre taking on Jane Austen’s world got my interest.

Set six years after Pride & Prejudice, Elizabeth and Darcy are happily married with two small children (boys - the Darcy estate is safe). Elizabeth has adjusted to being the lady of the house at such a grand estate as Pemberley. Jane and Bingley live nearby, and Mr Bennet is a frequent, and welcome visitor, to their home. Dastardly Wickham and Lydia are most certainly not welcome at Pemberley. Georgiana is yet unmarried, though some suitors may be on the horizon. In short, everything is orderly and respectable. The household is busily engaged in preparations for the annual ball, one of the highlights of the local social scene, when, late at night, a carriage arrives at the house. A murder has been committed, throwing the previously orderly, happy home into uncertainty and chaos.

James invokes a strong sense of era, and her dialogue feels both natural and appropriate to the period. As this is a crime novel it encompasses aspects of Austen’s society we don’t see in her books. The body is examined by the local doctor, with what I assume is cutting edge skill for the time. There is an inquest, and then a trial, where we can see the foundations for the court system we know today. I am sure James has researched thoroughly, and these sections of the book work well. James introduces a young lawyer, Henry Alveston, who voices some rather liberal views in regards to women, mentioning Mary Woolstonecraft. Austen’s world is taken out of the parlour - the nineteenth century has arrived.

Much of the action at Pemberley, and indeed the murder itself, take place in an area of woodland on the estate. It is inhabited by an elderly servant, Thomas Bidwell, and his family, and while not otherwise neglected, it is considered wild in comparison to the rest of Pemberley. This is partly because of a family legacy: Darcy’s great grandfather committed suicide there, an act that has weighed heavily on the family for generations. There are of course ghost stories associated with the woodland. All this adds a gothic element to the book, a genre that Austen herself satirised brilliantly in Northanger Abbey. It works though, partly because James keeps it fairly subtle. The slight shifts in mood as the woods and weather close in when Elizabeth and Darcy find themselves in the woodlands give a lovely sense of the claustrophobia, and volatility, of both their physical surroundings and their situation.

For any potential readers out there, I don’t think this will in any way effect how I perceive the characters when I reread Pride & Prejudice. The style of the novel is too different, while I know they are the same as Austen’s characters, and James does write well, they don’t have the same feel. Nonetheless the book is written with skill and wit. It is a fairly light read, and enjoyable. I did find myself wondering why, other than that she is well established enough, and old enough to do whatever the hell she likes, James chose to write this book. I usually associate unofficial sequels with authors who can’t create their own worlds, not with someone with a proven track record of doing exactly that. While setting it in Austen’s world adds a sense of fun to the novel, much of the plot could be as well served by a story of James’s own creation. The one way the novel felt - at only a few moments to be fair - flat, was in scenes where characters are explaining their actions in Pride & Prejudice. I didn’t understand why Darcy would feel the need to explain to Elizabeth behaviour of six years earlier; especially as this is largely done through expository dialogue, it felt a bit clunky. Also, why would we be interested in James’s interpretation of events? I feel that filling in those gaps ourselves is often part of the joy of reading. Interestingly I listened to an interview online in which she discussed some aspects of Pride & Prejudice that had puzzled her, and that she wanted to explain. It is very deliberate, but I think it would be a stronger book without these sections.

If you are only ever going to read one sequel to a Jane Austen this is probably the one to read. Of course it doesn’t compare to one of the best loved novels of all time, but it does stand on its own two feet as a novel in its own right. James has wisely not written a romance; by writing in a different genre she is able to bring something new to the world of Elizabeth and Darcy. The crime aspect is fittingly ungrisly for the most part, and I thought the gothic aspects worked particularly well. A few quibbles aside, it is an entertaining read.