Book Review: The Heart in Winter

 By Kevin Barry

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Old-time Western

• Where I bought this book: The Corner Bookstore, New York City 

• Why I bought this book: Kevin Barry is one of Ireland's finest writers  

 *******

  

    Sparse, with tight writing and finely drawn characters, Barry has turned a cliched genre into into a tale worthy of Samuel Beckett.

    Tom Rourke is your basic cowpoke, an Irish immigrant living and drinking in the vast stretches around Butte, Montana, in the 1890s. He drinks too much, likes his dope too much, and tries to avoid working in the mines. Instead, he makes money writing love letters for other lonely men who are seeking mail-order brides.

    But when one of the strange denizens of the town finds a woman, name of Polly Gillespie, to marry him, Tom takes a shine to her. So they run, heading out further west, with a hopeful destination of San Francisco. But Long Anthony Harrington takes exception to his bride being stolen, and sends out a posse to bring her back.

    You see, Tom and Polly had a plan, such as it was

They reckoned up the provisions they had brought. It was enough for a few days. The horse would get them as far as Pocatello if they didn't bake it and from there as unknowns they could move by the rail. He massaged the horse's legs with an expert set to his mouth as if he knew what the fuck he was doing. 

    Such is life in the Old West, and Barry gives it a new shine -- squalid and dangerous, profane and perverse. He describes the couple engaging in debauchery and eating mushrooms on the high plains. There is violence and emptiness. It is dark, with stretches of hope.

They rode on. They rode double. The day was sharp and bright. They were mellow of mood if not entirely at a distance from the sadness natural to both of them, and these they knew were sadness unanswerable. She lay her face to the hollow of his back and closed her eyes a while. She felt his chest swell out and knew it was the fact of her embracing that made him proud.

    There is plainness and a lack of fancy in Barry's writing, which is not to be savored like a fine French wine, but admired and devoured like a shot of whisky and a pint of Guinness. 

Book Review: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

 By Susanna Clarke

• Pub Date: 2004

• Genre: Magical Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books & Coffee, Newport, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I was enchanted with her other work, Piranesi  

 ********

 

   An imaginative, expressive and tantalizing labyrinth of a novel, harmed only by its somewhat excessive length.

    Still, I was enthralled by its writing, its originality, its sense of magic, and the vibes it gives off of being an old, even ancient, work of art.

    Set mostly in early 19th Century England, a time of lords and ladies and excessive privilege amidst the belief of Rule Britannia, it showcases a time when Great Britain ruled the world with its dominance and might -- and was determined to return literal magical powers to the island.

    To do so, the country recruits the two magicians of the title, who have determinedly different ideas about the proper use of magic. Mr Norrell, a bookish and crotchety old man, sees magic as a calling that should be limited to those who venerate it. Indeed, in his reverence for the use and history of magic, he sees himself as its gatekeeper.

    But under pressure from the country's nobility, he agrees to take on a young student, Jonathan Strange, a gentle soul who has some liberal -- and to Mr Norrell, decidedly appalling -- ideas for magic's use and place in society.

    Clarke's narrator is a regal lady, of high repute, who will not be trifled with. She knows all, and will deign to tell you in her own sweet time. She will not be rushed, nor forced to use some of those new fangled words of English. She will shew you what is going on, when and how she chuses to. She writes of mediaeval times, Her words are rare, exquisite and precise.

    She writes of a doctor and his family on a summer tour of Venice, Italy.

They were excessively pleased with the Campo Santa Maria Formosa. They thought the façades of the houses very magnificent -- they could not praise them highly enough. But the sad decay, which building, bridges and church all displayed, seem to charm them even more. They were Englishmen, and, to them, the decline of other nations was the most natural thing in the world. They belonged to a race blessed with so sensitive an appreciation of it own talents (and so doubtful an opinion of any body else's) that they would not have been at all surprised to learn that the Venetians themselves had been entirely ignorant of the merits of their own city -- until the Englishmen had come to tell them it was delightful.

    Oh, and the feuds between the two men are devilish and dramatic. Mini spoiler alert warning:. At one point, one of the duo publishes a three-volume history of magic. The other uses his powers to buy up all the copies and make them disappear.

    The tale itself winds through the Napoleonic Wars, the Battle of Waterloo, and the tale of an ancient king from the North of England returning to claim his domain. Oh, and there are Faeries. Lots of Faeries. Good Faeries, bad Faeries, sneaky Faeries, and many, many more.

    At times, it's a bit overwhelming. The story gets muddled and a tad repetitive. You find yourself wishing she'd wrap it up, as the night continues on into morning, but she will not be rushed. Any resolution seems far off.

    But as with Clarke's novel Piranesi, it is how the story is told that is the true work of art.

Book Review: Learned By Heart

 By Emma Donoghue

• Pub Date: 2023

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Point Books, Covington, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: Donoghue is one of my go-to writers

 ********

 

   Writing a work of historical fiction that closely hews to the truth about the time period and the people involved takes a lot of work and research, as well as imagination and writing skills. Donoghue nails it.

    Using letters from the protagonist, Eliza Raine, along with other explorations of her life, Donoghue puts together a story of young love, frustration, and gender non-conformity in a girls school in early 19th Century England. It's a story of melancholy, misunderstanding, and mischief.

    Eliza is the child of an English father and a mother from India. Her friend Lister is from Yorkshire, and is what was once called a tomboy -- daring, wild, and reluctant to conform to society's expectations and gender stereotypes. Both are orphans who live with male caretakers, and are shipped off to live in the Manor School for young ladies in York.

    There's a sadness in this novel, born of two girls trying to navigate a world that refuses to accept them, and in which they cannot live happily. The structures set for them ignore their wants, needs, and desires. For Eliza, there is the added nuance of race -- her Indian heritage is clear in the color of her skin, and it influences every facet of her young life. 

    She is seen as neither English nor Indian; every time she tries to assert her Englishness, she is rejected as a half-breed, a child of colonialists, a girl that belongs neither here nor there. Lister finds her own rejections sort of thrilling; she can fall back on her supposed high class and the wealth of her family's holding in York.

    We rarely know what is really happening. Some of the characters may be unreliable, or are holding back their reality. Situations change, and as the girls find love in each other, the world around them can be mystifying. 

    One metaphor comes from Mr. Tate, one of of the few male figures at the school, a  teacher and husband of one of the mothers of the dormitory. Despite his talents as a musician and instructor, he finds only sadness in his work, despite the joy he brings to others.

    Donoghue depends heavily on the time and place, the changing mores and structures of the Georgian period in Great Britain. Much in the tale is left to the reader's imagination, but it remains a thrilling and evocative read.