WILD WOOD by Jan Needle. Reviewed by Dennis Hamley.

The reissue of this marvellous novel must rank as a Literary Event. First published in 1981 by Andre Deutsch with unforgettably brilliant illustrations by Wiiliam Rushton, Wild Wood should have been widely recognised for the classic book it undoubtedly is instead of going out of print early.

Well, to some of us, it always has been a classic and its reissue, revised and even improved, after nearly forty-five years, is an occasion to celebrate.

It’s not a sequel to The Wind in the Willows. It’s not a retelling in any but the vaguest sense. It’s a complete re-imagining, a companion piece, almost a concordance to the original, as Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is to Hamlet. 

Oh, in Wind in the Willows, how disturbed Ratty, Mole and even Mr Badger are by the Wild Wood. It’s a place of evil, fear, intimidation and danger which we as readers, feel tangibly with Mole as he nervously traverses it. Stoats and weasels are threatening, nightmare creatures who disturb dreams. They are, if you’ll excuse the word, oiks. The privileged upper class Riverbankers never think that the wild Wood may contain a viable, relatively comfortable and unthreatening society – unthreatening unless they themselves feel threatened. Well, they do feel threatened. We’re seeing Wind in the Willows from the Wildwooders’ point of view and it’s not hard to realise that this is a novel about class and revolution and a valuable social document about Edwardian society.

The tale is told by Baxter Ferret, an unassuming animal, a sort of wide-eyed Everyman who stands slightly apart from the main action with an engagingly critical semi-detachment. He loves his cars, his machinery, his family and his beer. Old cars and home brewing are among the novel’s main preoccupations and part of the warm, protective, though often cold and hungry world of the Wood. 

Concealed beer jokes abound. For example, the professional agitator who arrives to spark the Wildwooders into revolution is Boddington Stoat, who is ‘peculiarly yellow, a little lacking in body, extremely bitter but one of the best.’ Anyone who has spent time in a Manchester pub will know exactly what Jan Needle is talking about. Baxter’s first ‘gaffer’ on the farm has a petrol wagon, a Throckmorton Squeezer ‘with …six cylinders each big enough to boil Cider in.” Cedric Willoughby, the ancient journalist, drives an ‘Armstrong Hardcastle Mouton Special Eight. 1907 with the whirling poppets…’ Such madly exaggerated machines populate the story. Yes, it’s full of loving detail of a tightly-knit working class society. Yet the Riverbankers are not entirely excoriated. Baxter may dismiss Ratty as a poetic sort of dreamer but there’s a measure of affection there. 

 

However, it’s much more than that. As a satire, Wild Wood is on a par with Animal Farm. Both recount flawed revolutions. Yes, the Wildwooders do take over Toad Hall, rename it Brotherhood Hall, and the egregious Toad - a creation as gross as the Toad Grahame creates, still funny but also a symbol of repression - is driven out. But, unlike Orwell’s revolution, this is one is not entirely successful. Grahame’s narrative cannot be tampered with. The revolutionaries settle for less than domination. Boddington’s fanaticism is tempered as he marries Baxter’s sister Dolly. We know that Mr Toad will return. The revolution peters out rather good-naturedly with a sort of rapprochement between Riverbankers and the Wildwooders, the upper class and the working class. We can look round us nowadays and say ‘If only it had lasted!’ 

 

Funny, profound, superbly written, deeply satisfying: Wild Wood has so many qualities. Perhaps the book didn’t make the impact it should in 1981 because staunch Grahame supporters thought it disrespectful. Far from it. As with all good satires, there is a strong element of homage to the original. The Wind in the Willows is a quintessentially British book. 

Even though it springs from a radically different social and political perspective, so is Wild Wood. Read it, cry with laughter and close it knowing that the two books together have provided you with a conspectus of a whole society in a particular age but still relevant for all of time.

Wild Wood by Jan Needle. Published by Golden Duck 2014. ISBN 978 189926221 2 £9.99

Thanks to Authors Electric for this portrait of Jan Needle. Another excellent blog to visit!

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JINX, THE WIZARD'S APPRENTICE by Sage Blackwood. Reviewed by Penny Dolan.

(Warning. This review contains plot spoilers.)

Looking through a pile of children’s books, I opened up Jinx and was immediately drawn in to the fantasy. Sage Blackwood’s writing has an attractive openness and confidence. Familiar folk tale tropes appear in a nicely simple, matter-of-fact manner that makes them perfectly acceptably to the intended mid-junior fantasy reader.

The novel starts as young Jinx is led, Hansel-like, by his stepfather away from the village and into the Urwald, the dangerous forest that is almost a character in the book. Just as he is about to abandon Jinx to the trolls and werewolves, Simon Magus appears on the path. After some cunning trading, the wizard claims Jinx as his apprentice.

Jinx’s life as a servant in the wizard’s strange cottage.is safer, better-fed and more interesting but it is also full of contradictions. Is the short-tempered, self-centred magician good or evil? What does Simon really want from young Jinx?

Grumpy and bad-tempered, Simon insists the boy is too stupid to instruct in any magic or - at first - allow into his secret workroom. Jinx tries to match what he sees, feels and knows with the evidence around him, including Simon’s mysterious room. Naturally, as time goes on, Jinx becomes curious, especially when he feels that Simon is somehow travelling to other places and receiving visitors in his room, and curiosity always causes trouble.

The book has an interesting range of characters, all strongly depicted and often eccentric. Jinx ends up with two young companions. The heroine is young Elfywn, a girl in a red hood. Suffering from the curse of truthfulness, Elfwyn is trying to find her grandmother so the curse can be removed. The other boy – and often the source of Jinx’s jealousy - is Reven, the self-styled “king’s son” who speaks and acts like a hero learned from a book. Reven has his own secret curse too, one that brings fear to the forest.

There are magical adult characters too. Jinx is partly terrified by Dame Glammer, a lively sharp-tongued witch with her own morality and travelling butter churn. On the other hand, he grows fond of the good wizard, Sophie, who arrives from a land where magic is forbidden, even though her meetings with Simon often end up in wrangling. I feel that many children will half-recognise this pair as two adults who care for each other but who are unable to live together: the couple’s squabbles are very convincing. Finally, the plot includes the most powerful wizard of all - the evil Bonemaster – the enemy that Simon Magus warns Jinx about, even though Jinx gradually discovers the two have a far more complex relationship.

Simon is so busy with his own plans and projects that he does not recognise Jinx’s own supernatural gifts. The first is an ability to see the true feelings of people as swirls of coloured light, as auras that help him know how they are feeling. Jinx imagines everyone has this; he never thinks of it as just his power. However, when Simon casts a power spell on Jinx, he removes this gift. Bereft of this extra sense, Jinx’s faith in Simon’s intentions crumbles.

Jinx still has one secret skill left. Jinx is the Listener, the one able to hear the conversation between the trees, the one who can understand the voice of the vast Urwald, even if the meanings are not always clear.

Eventually, trying to get free of their curses, the three children are imprisoned in the Bonemaster’s towering castle and the wizard decides to use Jinx to lure Simon into his power. When Simon does not come, Jinx becomes convinced his old master is as evil and uncaring as the Bonemaster, and enters his own world of sadness. Were his worst fears right?

Nevertheless, the trio try to get free. While Reven tries to find an escape route, Jinx and Elfwyn search for the Bonemaster’s souce of power. Under the castle, in a hidden cellar, they find rows of bottles. Each contains a small, silently screaming, human figure: the Bonemaster uses these captive deaths as an energy source. Then, within a second chamber, Jinx finds an even greater magical source, an object that makes him feel even more confused about Simon’s possibly wicked intentions. But the way out has been discovered!

Here comes the spoiler. Trying to protect Elfwyn while she climbs down the Ladder of Bones, Jinx falls to his death. His spirit floats above his body, floating over above the whole Urwald. From high up, he witnesses the arrival of Dame Glammer and Simon Magus. Eventually, with his power source gone, the wicked Bonemaster is imprisoned.

The grieving Simon makes sure that Jinx’s body is carried to safety. There by a reversal of the big mysterious spell, Simon returns Jinx to life again. One by one, the major conflicts are resolved, especially between the wizard and his pupil, for as Elfwyn points out, being rude and ill-mannered isn’t the same as being evil.

Personally, although I really enjoyed the early part of the story, I rather feel that the hero’s death and apparent restoration to life after sleeping for three days means that Jinx may not be a book for children who have recently had a sudden death in the family, even if the storyline is echoing the classic hero’s mythical journey structure. Maybe my reaction was because the characters had felt so very believable until that turn in the plot? And maybe top juniors are less sensitive and much tougher than I am?

To conclude, I really liked the brave and compelling young hero at the heart of this novel. I enjoyed the writing, the characters, and the magical world described within these pages, as well as the many twists and turns not yet mentioned. The ending suggests “Jinx” is intended to re-appear in more books so here’s a few good wishes to this particular wizard’s apprentice.

JINX, THE WIZARD’S APPRENTICE by Sage Blackwood.

Published in 2013 by Harper Collins (USA) and Quercus (UK)

Review by Penny Dolan

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A Gathering Light by Jennifer Donnelly. Reviewed by Sue Barrow.

A Gathering Light is the story of sixteen year old Mattie Gokey, a lover of words and books, who dreams one day of leaving her backwater home town for college and independence in New York where she hopes to become a writer. Standing in her way is the promise she made to her dying mother to care for her younger sisters and overworked father after her mother’s early death.

The story, set in the Adirondacks at the start of the twentieth century, is fictional, but cleverly interwoven around the real-life murder of Grace Brown, a girl of Mattie’s own age. At first it appears that the girl has drowned in a boating accident. Mattie is working at the hotel where Grace Brown was staying with her fiancé and when her body is brought back to the hotel, Mattie is deeply affected by her sudden and shocking death. It is not until she reads the letters which Grace Brown entrusted to her that she begins to piece together the evidence which leads her to an altogether different conclusion. At the same time there is also a dawning awareness for Mattie that although their backgrounds are very different, Grace’s story and the choices open to her, run parallel to her own. As the story builds to its climax, Mattie is forced to decide what kind of future she wants - college and the opportunity to develop her writing gift or settling for what is expected of her, staying in Old Forge and marrying ‘the boy next door.’

The book flows in a wonderful way and although the chapters alternate between seasons, Donnelly’s use of past and present tense avoid any confusion and add to the emotional strength of the story. If I have a criticism it is that the narrative sometimes labours under the weight of the number of contemporary issues addressed - racism, female emancipation, family loyalty, not to mention bereavement and young love. But Mattie is a compelling character with an original voice and her interactions with Royal Loomis, the ‘boyfriend’, and her other peers, are authentic and convincing.

The story is sensitively and beautifully written, almost poetic at times, painting a true to life picture of small town America at the turn of the century. Jennifer Donnelly is not a prolific writer for the young adult market but having read this book twice and now thinking of reading her Tea Rose trilogy, I was left hoping that she might come back to A Gathering Light and think of adding a sequel. I for one would love to know what became of Mattie!

A Gathering Light: Bloomsbury 2003
ISBN 9780747570639
380 pages £6.99

www.suebarrow.com

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'Overheard in a Graveyard' by Susan Price - reviewed by Rosalie Warren

I love scary stories - not full-blooded horror and nothing too vampirical (is that a word?) - but ghost stories that reach down into the psyche: ones that unearth deep, unspoken, unacknowledged fears.

So how have I managed to live for more than fifty years without encountering the work of Susan Price? I don't know, but that state of affairs is now being remedied. Since reading Overheard in a Graveyard  I've downloaded - is it three or four of her other books? I'm an addict, anyway...

Overheard in a Graveyard is a collection of short stories, beginning with one of that name. The opening tale is a conversation between a night-time visitor to the graveyard and an inhabitant of one of the graves. It's creepy, to the extent that the words crawl like cold fingers down your back. I missed its power the first time I read it, as I hadn't got used to the form. When I'd read the other stories I went back and read it again. This time, it made me shudder. Shades of Heathcliff and and Cathy in Wuthering Heights (still gives me nightmares, that book), but with a compelling voice and atmosphere that is all Price's own.

The second story, 'Bus Aid', is a very different kind of beastie. There's social comment - social satire - here. There's claustrophobia; people trapped and desperately needing help. It's funny, too. And it leaves you wondering... who was doing the haunting in this tale?

Another favourite of mine is 'The Footsteps on the Stairs'. Young children left alone, and a father interrupting his evening at the pub to come home and check that they're OK. Or does he?

I'm trying to work out why these stories have such power. I think it's because of the realism - the poverty in which many of the characters live. The cosy, grimy, small-town life that surrounds them. And the shock of the supernatural, in among all that.

In Price's stories it feels sometimes as though the ghosts inhabit the true world - the one that makes more sense. Some of their transparency is coloured in by the reality of mid-twentieth century Black Country life. Almost as though it's our messy world that's doing the haunting and disturbing the cool, elegant realm we call the supernatural.

There's ambiguity, too - many more questions than answers. Was that really a ghost, or just a dream, or a frightened child's imagination run amok? And there's the delightful recognition that ghosts and spirits may sometimes be benign.

'Mow Top' is heartbreakingly sad. The picture of the toy car rusting away on its little stone on the empty moors will stay with me. This is how it works in real life. Children see ghosts and tell us. We reassure them, and ourselves, that there are no such things...

'The Familiar' is all about the cost of power, and cuts deep.

The final story, 'Overheard in a Museum', is a thing of beauty, like the ship itself. You can feel the swell of the sea beneath you as you read. It speaks of a distant era and reminds us that objects so often outlast people by a long, long time. Except that the ship is not a object - it's the spirit of an age.

You don't need to believe in ghosts to enjoy these wonderful stories, but be warned. You may dive in as a sceptic and find yourself an agnostic, or even a believer, by the end... perhaps not so much in ghosts as in another world, very close to and overlapping with our own.


Details:
Title: Overheard in a Graveyard and Other Stories
Author: Susan Price
Kindle Edition Publication Date: September 2011
Kindle Edition price £1.54
ASIN: B005NHG5XG
Click to view on Amazon.co.uk
Click to view on Amazon.com

Happy Reading,
Rosalie

Rosalie Warren
Author of Coping with Chloe and Charity's Child
See more of my reviews on my blog, Rosalie Reviews



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