I don't know how much expectation played into my reaction to Diane Setterfield's Bellman & Black. I was really looking forward to reading this book, and I'm afraid it was a bit of a letdown.
Billed as a ghost story, it was actually the story of a man who was haunted by death. Will Bellman is a happy fellow with a head for business, but when faced with death, he hallucinates a man at funerals (perhaps he hallucinates; no one else sees the figure). When faced with potentially losing his whole family to illness, Bellman believes he strikes a deal with the figure to create the greatest mourning shop in London. The bereaved can get every last need of Victorian mourning at the shop, which is called Bellman & Black (Will decided the man's name was Black).
Occasional chapters are interspersed with information about rooks, black birds that are seen throughout the story, including the one of the opening scenes, when Will, then 10 years old, kills a young rook with a slingshot.
I found the two parts of the book incongruous and tenuously linked, and I found no particular sense in Will Bellman's obsession with Mr. Black. The details of Victorian mourning practices was interesting, as was the information about rooks, but the whole thing just never jelled for me. I didn't get it.
Ah well. I will just have to wonder, as well, what I would have thought of the story if I had not awaited it with such anticipation and just started it fresh.
Showing posts with label ghost stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ghost stories. Show all posts
Monday, November 25, 2013
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
A book I can't wait to read
Diane Setterfield's latest: Bellman & Black, because I loved The Thirteenth Tale.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Sunday, January 03, 2010
2009 Extras
 | Below are links to reviews that were published in 2009 but I hadn't posted to this blog. |
The Poacher's Son
by Paul Doiron
:-) :-)
The Long Division
by Derek Nikitis
:-)
Johannes Cabal: The Necromancer
by Jonathan L. Howard
:-)
The Brain Trust Program
by Larry McCleary
:-p
Little Bird of Heaven
by Joyce Carol Oates
:-)
Erased
by Jim Krusoe
:-)
The Magicians
by Lev Grossman
:-)
The Angel's Game
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
:-)
Not available online:
"On the Shelf Summer Reads," Woodstock Magazine, Summer 2009
Books reviewed in this article: American Cream by Catherine Tudish, Still as Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor, The Animal Lovers' Bedtime Reader by Anne Greenall, and Weekending in New England by Betsy Wittemann.
Books reviewed in this article: American Cream by Catherine Tudish, Still as Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor, The Animal Lovers' Bedtime Reader by Anne Greenall, and Weekending in New England by Betsy Wittemann.
"On the Shelf," Woodstock Magazine, Fall 2009
Books reviewed for this article: Young Woman and the Sea by Glenn Stout, All That I Have by Castle Freeman Jr., The Lamoille Stories by Bill Schubart, Have the Time of Your Life in Retirement by Dave Brazier, and Hiking the Green Mountains by Lisa Densmore.
Books reviewed for this article: Young Woman and the Sea by Glenn Stout, All That I Have by Castle Freeman Jr., The Lamoille Stories by Bill Schubart, Have the Time of Your Life in Retirement by Dave Brazier, and Hiking the Green Mountains by Lisa Densmore.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Review: Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
Twins. Cemeteries. Ghosts. Lovely and engaging writing. If any of these things sound interesting, you should pick up Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife. It's being published on Tuesday, September 29th.
Elspeth Noblin, aged 44, dies of cancer in London, leaving her downstairs neighbor and lover, Robert, bereft. Elspeth had an identical twin sister, Edie, whom she had not seen since shortly after Edie ran off to America with Elspeth's fiance, Jack Poole.
Edie and Jack themselves have a set of twin daughters, Julia and Valentina. Elspeth leaves her apartment to them in her will, with the stipulations that the girls live there for a year and that Jack and Edie never set foot in it. The twins, as they are often called — they are identical mirror twins and exceptionally close — accept. They are smart but without direction, have already dropped out of college twice, so it seems like a fine idea to leave their native Chicago to move to London for a year.
When they arrive, they do not immediately meet their neighbors in the other two apartments. Martin, who lives upstairs, is a brilliant man with a grown son and a wife who is exasperated with his unchecked obsessive-compulsive disorder. Having added agoraphobia to his list, he naturally does not venture out to greet the girls. Robert lives on the first floor and is both a shy person and daunted at finally meeting Elspeth's nieces. It is weeks before he speaks to them, and then only when they attend his tour at Highgate, a Victorian cemetery next door to their apartment building, where he is a guide.
Secrets abound among this group. Elspeth never told Robert about her parting from Edie. Edie doesn't confide in Jack. The twins know something happened but can't get anyone to tell them about it.
There is also something strange about Elspeth's flat. There are weird temperature variations, and objects appear to move around by themselves when no one is watching. Could it be Elspeth is not entirely out of the picture?
The supernatural aside, love and identity are a main themes of this story. Julia is the dominant twin, but Valentina resents Julia's bossing. How can Valentina become her own self when Julia won't let her go? Julia, for her part, feels she must protect and care for Valentina, who suffers from asthma and is sickly.
At the same time, each girl feels incomplete without the other, and love is also like that for Robert and Martin, who in their own ways are forced to explore what it is like to be alone.
To what extent should one go to have a separate identity? To what lengths should one go to keep love? I'm not a twin, so I can't say whether the actions either sets of twins take are plausible (which on their surface they don't appear to be). I can say that the non-twin love stories — Robert's and Martin's — speak of love in an idealistic way that is rare in real life.
I don't know if this point should be a cause for criticism, however. Niffenegger's previous and highly successful novel The Time Traveler's Wife was at its heart a love story. It's no surprise that love beyond the normal bounds of existence are at play in Symmetry as well.
Small misgivings aside, I thoroughly enjoyed Her Fearful Symmetry. It is atmospheric — set in and around a London cemetery, how could it not be? Pictures of Highgate grace some pages of the book. They are monochrome and a bit washed out, that is, ghostly. Niffenegger's descriptions of Highgate reveal her knowledge of and affection for the place (she is a volunteer guide herself). London, when the twins venture out into it, is conjured as a bustling and fascinating place. But the apartments of Elspeth and Martin, where much of the action takes place, are almost characters themselves they are so richly imagined.
Although ghosts are reputed to be cold and a ghost story might also be so, Symmetry has great warmth. Audrey Niffenegger draws characters that are sympathetic even when they are being monstrous. Martin is a good example. He is beset by terrible OCD, which makes him nearly impossible to live with. Yet he is terribly charming and it's easy to root for him while being glad his apartment is not real.
What makes this book tick, however, is suspense. Niffenegger skillfully plots her elements, revealing just the right amount to each character. While the reader is in the know about some things, and much of the suspense is created by what the characters will discover and at what point, I found the major plot turns at the end both surprising and satisfying.
So, if you'd like to read an original and imaginative ghost story this Halloween season, you need look no further than Her Fearful Symmetry.
--------------------------
This review was first posted to Blogcritics.org.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Haunting and obsorbing
The Little Stranger
The Little Stranger is a brooding and evocative tale set in Warwickshire, England, in the late 1940's. World War II is over, but privation continues. Narrator Dr. Faraday, the son of simple, working-class folk, is a country physician, tending to all manner of ailments among the local, mostly working-class or poor, residents.
There had always been estates in Warwickshire, although many have fallen on hard times by this point, their owners unable to keep them up. Hundreds Hall is one such house on the edge of financial ruin. Dr. Faraday visited once as a boy, when his mother worked as a nanny at the grand home of the Colonel and Mrs. Ayres.
Thirty years later, the Colonel is long dead. His son Roderick, who was horribly injured during the war, is trying to manage the remaining farm and house with his scars and limp. His sister Caroline had come back to the Hundreds to nurse Roderick and stayed on to help him and their mother. Together they are holding on, with just enough to live on and afford one daytime housekeeper and one live-in maid.
Dr. Faraday is called to the Hundreds one day to tend to the maid, Betty, a girl of just 14. He finds Betty only pretending to be ill. New to the post, she is unhappy in no small part because she feels there is "something bad" in the house. Dr. Farady chides her for such nonsense.
Dr. Faraday offers to treat Roderick's injuries and begins to make regular trips to the Hundreds, and becomes a friend of the Ayres'. When a new family moves into a nearby estate, Mrs. Ayres decides to have a party to welcome them. The house is readied with great anticipation, but the night ends in tragedy.
From this point on, strange things happen at the hall, affecting one family member after another, becoming spookier as time goes on. Betty is convinced the house is haunted, perhaps by the spirit of the first Ayres child, a daughter who died in childhood of diphtheria; Roderick feels their something in the house that he must keep at bay; and Caroline feels the house itself is capable of mischief.
Dr. Faraday, exasperated with all the superstition, tries to demonstrate there are rational explanations for everything. He thinks, perhaps, it is a kind of hysteria, started by Betty and spread among the Ayres, although even he has seen things even he cannot explain. In despair, he confides the whole scenario in a fellow physician, who postulates a psychic force of those living there. Is the house haunted? If so, by what? These things are left to the reader to decide as the plot drives toward its conclusion.
The Little Stranger is a very English story (author Sarah Waters is a Londoner). It is dense, Dickensian in its description of most of Dr. Faraday's patients, spellbound by class differences and the Ayres fall in fortune. Waters spends a great deal of time detailing both the grandeur and the decline of Hundreds Hall. One could almost find one's way around it, feel the chill of the shut-up rooms, and hear the echoes of footsteps on the marble floor after so many words devoted to it.
If you're the sort of reader who does not enjoy such detail, this book might well drive you to distraction, as it takes its time getting to the plot points. I have to admit some impatience with it, no doubt because I knew it was a ghost story and couldn't wait for the fireworks to begin. I also got a bit frustrated with Dr. Faraday's denseness about the strange occurrences.
Even so, The Little Stranger is absorbing, it's portrait of post-war rural England fascinating, its characters compelling. Hundreds Hall will draw you in just like it did Dr. Faraday. If you've got some time to devote to it, The Little Stranger may just be your cup of tea.
by Sarah Waters
Publisher: Riverhead
Date: April 2009
Read? :-)
There had always been estates in Warwickshire, although many have fallen on hard times by this point, their owners unable to keep them up. Hundreds Hall is one such house on the edge of financial ruin. Dr. Faraday visited once as a boy, when his mother worked as a nanny at the grand home of the Colonel and Mrs. Ayres.
Thirty years later, the Colonel is long dead. His son Roderick, who was horribly injured during the war, is trying to manage the remaining farm and house with his scars and limp. His sister Caroline had come back to the Hundreds to nurse Roderick and stayed on to help him and their mother. Together they are holding on, with just enough to live on and afford one daytime housekeeper and one live-in maid.
Dr. Faraday is called to the Hundreds one day to tend to the maid, Betty, a girl of just 14. He finds Betty only pretending to be ill. New to the post, she is unhappy in no small part because she feels there is "something bad" in the house. Dr. Farady chides her for such nonsense.
Dr. Faraday offers to treat Roderick's injuries and begins to make regular trips to the Hundreds, and becomes a friend of the Ayres'. When a new family moves into a nearby estate, Mrs. Ayres decides to have a party to welcome them. The house is readied with great anticipation, but the night ends in tragedy.
From this point on, strange things happen at the hall, affecting one family member after another, becoming spookier as time goes on. Betty is convinced the house is haunted, perhaps by the spirit of the first Ayres child, a daughter who died in childhood of diphtheria; Roderick feels their something in the house that he must keep at bay; and Caroline feels the house itself is capable of mischief.
Dr. Faraday, exasperated with all the superstition, tries to demonstrate there are rational explanations for everything. He thinks, perhaps, it is a kind of hysteria, started by Betty and spread among the Ayres, although even he has seen things even he cannot explain. In despair, he confides the whole scenario in a fellow physician, who postulates a psychic force of those living there. Is the house haunted? If so, by what? These things are left to the reader to decide as the plot drives toward its conclusion.
The Little Stranger is a very English story (author Sarah Waters is a Londoner). It is dense, Dickensian in its description of most of Dr. Faraday's patients, spellbound by class differences and the Ayres fall in fortune. Waters spends a great deal of time detailing both the grandeur and the decline of Hundreds Hall. One could almost find one's way around it, feel the chill of the shut-up rooms, and hear the echoes of footsteps on the marble floor after so many words devoted to it.
If you're the sort of reader who does not enjoy such detail, this book might well drive you to distraction, as it takes its time getting to the plot points. I have to admit some impatience with it, no doubt because I knew it was a ghost story and couldn't wait for the fireworks to begin. I also got a bit frustrated with Dr. Faraday's denseness about the strange occurrences.
Even so, The Little Stranger is absorbing, it's portrait of post-war rural England fascinating, its characters compelling. Hundreds Hall will draw you in just like it did Dr. Faraday. If you've got some time to devote to it, The Little Stranger may just be your cup of tea.
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