With the exception of Boy, Snow, Bird - her best novel to date imo - I've always found Oyeyemi's work light on plot but dense on description. The effeWith the exception of Boy, Snow, Bird - her best novel to date imo - I've always found Oyeyemi's work light on plot but dense on description. The effect is deep absorption in the elements of the moment but sometimes making it difficult to connect with what you are reading now and what has gone before. The idea that something is happening over time - ie, it begins in one state which evolves into something intermediate and finally presents itself as an outcome - is only grasped in this story after something of a struggle with all the different voices that are conjured up to tell it.
What you pick out from this is that Miranda, the daughter of deceased Lily and still extant Luc, and one half of a twin set (Eliot the other) is haunted by the sense that her female progenitors and staking a claim on her life which acts through the rather grim and vast house she lives in in Dover. Eating disorders and conflict between fellow students in school are the stuff of Miranda's life, together with he conflicted emotions about competitive entrance procedures to get to Cambridge. For the first half of the novel this is decidedly unspooky and mainly an account of a troubled young life. It is when she gets to Cambridge and enters into a relation with Ore, who becomes the principal narrator of the second half, that we get to a wonderful tale about soucouyants - female spirits which devour the souls of young innocents - begins to drive the plot towards a climax.
Worth three stars as a review but if you still have to be introduced to Oyeyemi's work I'd say skip this one and go to Boy, Snow, Bird and you'll find a writer who's work is worth tracking for the exceptional novels that probably lie in the years ahead.
Paver follows the brilliant Dark Matter with another story in which the horror grows as much out the icy storms of a mountain wilderness as anything tPaver follows the brilliant Dark Matter with another story in which the horror grows as much out the icy storms of a mountain wilderness as anything to do with the supernatural. The plot is a meticulous account of an expedition mounted in 1935 to conquer the sacred Himalayan peak, Kanchenjunga. It resonates with the jingoistic enthusiasm for the the achievements of the 'Empire', with beating the 'Hun' to the top of the mountain being one of the driving forces.
But there is also sibling rivalry, with the narrator being the younger brother and considerably in the shadow of Christopher - Kits - whose life to date has been a story of conventional popularity and success dating from public school days.
Paver doesn't shrink back from the overt racism of those days - with the British in the expedition constituting the 'Sahibs' who rule over the native porters. The culture of the amateur gentlemen is opposed to the grubby professional is also there, to nurture a seed of inhumanity and contempt, which explains why the dead will come back to haunt us. Very highly recommended....more
Utterly brilliant book. The story-line mixes science fiction, period drama, modern-day anomie with Kantian philosophy and the reaching-out for the unfUtterly brilliant book. The story-line mixes science fiction, period drama, modern-day anomie with Kantian philosophy and the reaching-out for the unfathomed ding-an-sich - the 'thing itself' that exists beyond the confines of human perspectives of space, time, order, cause and effect.
I will not say another word for fear of spoilers. The turning of every page needs to be a mystery as great as the one that lies at the heart of the book - what would the world look like, how would it be experienced, if it were ever possible to turn aside the veil of human cognition, and finally perceive the 'thing itself'. ...more
Brain candy. The volumes of Pan Book of Horror Stories were handed round the playgrounds of schools back in the 1960s in the way kids swap video gamesBrain candy. The volumes of Pan Book of Horror Stories were handed round the playgrounds of schools back in the 1960s in the way kids swap video games today. I picked this up on the stall of some second-hand book shop for a few pennies and tried to get back to the moods that these stories put me in all that time ago....
Never quite happens, but the attempt was worth it. The story that inspired the two film versions of 'The Fly' is here, as is 'Leiningen Versus the Ants' - which was made into a big movie starring Charlton Heston ('The Naked Jungle') in 1954.
The very best story is William Sansom's 'The Vertical Ladder'. A gaggle of pre-teens wander aimlessly across a derelict industrial estate and find a ladder that extends high up a gas tank. A hot, sweaty day, testosterone fuelled head-butting between the males, and the desire to impress a pretty girl leads to a challenge being thrown-out. Forget ghosts and ghouls - this is truly the most horrifying scenario of them all.... ...more
This is a story in the tradition of M.R.James. Gloomy fens, lonely bereft individuals sensitive to the abnormal, a terrible incident buried back in tiThis is a story in the tradition of M.R.James. Gloomy fens, lonely bereft individuals sensitive to the abnormal, a terrible incident buried back in time….
Decades previously, the central character had spent a summer at the isolated house of his Aunt Falcon. They are joined by Leonora – a beautiful child with a viscous disposition. Her spiteful reaction to a birthday gift sets in train all the events that will haunt them for years after.
Very much un-put-downable and just the right length to polish off across an empty weekend. ...more