Tag: literary fiction

#BookReview Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford

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Light PerpetualAbout the Book

November 1944. A German rocket strikes London, and five young lives are atomised in an instant.

November 1944. That rocket never lands. A single second in time is altered, and five young lives go on – to experience all the unimaginable changes of the twentieth century.

Because maybe there are always other futures. Other chances. Light Perpetual is a story of the everyday, the miraculous and the everlasting. Ingenious and profound, full of warmth and beauty, it is a sweeping and intimate celebration of the gift of life.

Format: eARC (336 pages)                     Publisher: Faber & Faber
Publication date: 4th February 2021 Genre: Literary Fiction

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My Review

I loved Francis Spufford’s first book, Golden Hill and was intrigued by the premise of Light Perpetual. The opening chapter is certainly powerful – dare I say, explosive – describing the obliteration by a Nazi V2 rocket of a Woolworths store, and all the people in it, into fragments of atoms in a mere fragment of time. It was disappointing then, only a few chapters in, to realize the novel was becoming a bit of a slog. Not so much “light perpetual” as “book perpetual”, I found myself thinking.

I think one reason is the episodic nature of the book’s structure as the reader catches up with each character relatively briefly with longer and longer intervals between visits. Sometimes, the timing seemed more designed to coincide with some social change the author wanted to explore, such as the industrial unrest in Fleet Street at the end of the 1970s or the property boom of the 1990s. At one point I even considered not continuing with the book – not something I do very often – but in the end I did persevere.

I found myself questioning whether I actually cared much about the five characters whose lives the book follows. For example, I couldn’t find much in the way of sympathy for Vern who pursues a relentlessly selfish life, albeit showing the resilience to recover from a number of setbacks along the way. It seemed fitting when he is finally confronted by the victim of one of his business ‘opportunities’.

My favourite character was probably Jo, who seemed to come nearest achieving her potential in the life the author imagines for her. Even so that still means her musical talent goes unrecognised in an industry dominated by men.  Choosing to sacrifice the career she might have had because of family commitments, notably supporting her sister Val’s poor life choices, Jo observes, “This is an accident. There is no need for her life to have worked out like this at all. So many other possibilities.” 

I think it was this observation that helped me “get” what the author was trying to do.  Even more so when I read the acknowledgements at the end of the book in which he explains the story was inspired by a plaque commemorating those killed in a V2 attack on the New Cross Road branch of Woolworths in 1944. Effectively, Light Perpetual is the author’s memorial to the children who died that day and who, in his words, “lost their chance to experience the rest of the twentieth century”.

Although I may had issues with some elements of the book, I couldn’t fault the quality of the writing.  To borrow a musical metaphor, the book includes some virtuoso solos. For example, the episode in which bus conductor Ben struggles to gain control over his dark and tortured thoughts, or Jo’s whole class singing lesson which neatly echoes a scene from the beginning of the book. I also liked Alec’s observations about the mass of individuals he sees in a crowded Underground carriage.  ‘Every single one of these people homeward bound, like him, to different homes which are to each the one and only home, or else outward bound, to different destinations at which each will find themselves, as ever, the protagonist of the story. Every single one the centre of the world, around whom others revolve and events assemble.’

And I appreciated some of the subtle touches towards the end of the book, as the characters reach old age, that suggest the memory of the event that might have killed them but didn’t still persists in some form. For example, Ben’s feeling that, “Sometimes everything seems to be shaking to pieces, idea from idea, bone from bone, matter all flying apart into a broken heap, and then he thinks he can hear a huge sound, a rattling rolling crash he has somehow been living inside”. Or, glimpsing the former site of Woolworths from the bus, Jo’s sensation that the building is “flickering in and out of existence”.

The book is not the literary equivalent of the film It’s A Wonderful Life where you discover what would have been missing from the world had the children not been killed in the rocket attack. It’s more akin to the TV documentary series that started with 7Up showing how social and technological changes have affected the way people live. Overall, Light Perpetual is a book I admired rather than loved.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Faber & Faber via NetGalley.

In three words: Thoughtful, imaginative, assured

Try something similar: Louis & Louise by Julie Cohen

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About the Author

Francis Spufford’s debut novel, Golden Hill, won the Costa First Novel Award, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, the Rathbone Folio Prize, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and the British Book Awards Debut Novel of the Year. Spufford is also the author of five highly praised works of nonfiction, most frequently described by reviewers as either ‘bizarre’ or ‘brilliant’, and usually as both. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He teaches writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and lives near Cambridge.

#BookReview Elmet by Fiona Mozley

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ElmetAbout the Book

Daniel is heading north. He is looking for someone. The simplicity of his early life with Daddy and Cathy has turned sour and fearful. They lived apart in the house that Daddy built for them with his bare hands. They foraged and hunted. When they were younger, Daniel and Cathy had gone to school. But they were not like the other children then, and they were even less like them now. Sometimes Daddy disappeared, and would return with a rage in his eyes. But when he was at home he was at peace. He told them that the little copse in Elmet was theirs alone. But that wasn’t true. Local men, greedy and watchful, began to circle like vultures. All the while, the terrible violence in Daddy grew.

Format: ebook (320 pages)            Publisher: John Murray
Publication date: 27th July 2017 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction

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My Review

Elmet is the story of two children – Daniel and Cathy – who live with their father in a house in a forest, largely apart from the rest of society.  It’s a strange, rather spartan life in which their father seeks to keep them separate from the world but also to protect them from some undisclosed danger. As fourteen-year-old Daniel, the book’s narrator, says, ‘Everything he did now was to toughen us up against something unseen. He wanted to strengthen us against the dark things in the world.’  Despite their very basic lifestyle and lack of creature comforts, the two children have a strong bond with their father.   ‘Cathy and I did not mind taking orders from Daddy. Sometimes we were more like an army than a family and he was not the type of leader to make you do anything for nothing.’

An interesting aspect of the children’s upbringing is the way it has blurred, even removed, gender distinctions.  As Daniel observes, ‘You have to appreciate that I never thought of myself as a man. I did not even think of myself as a boy… It is not as if I had ever actively rejected that designation. I just never thought about it. I lived with my sister and my father and they were my whole world. I did not think of Cathy as a girl nor a woman, I thought of her as Cathy. I did not think of Daddy as a man, though I knew that he was. I thought about him, likewise, as Daddy.’ 

Whilst an intense and, at times, disturbing read, I liked the way the author introduced themes such as concern for the environment.  In contrast to the local landowner, who regards the land merely as a source of profit, the children’s father carefully tends the forest and teaches his children the skills to do the same.  ‘In order to let new growth fight through, overhanging branches, crumbled bark and fallen trees must be cleared. Weeds in the undergrowth must be managed. The right shoots must be let through and the wrong ones discouraged.’  Much like indigenous people in other parts of the world, the children’s father cannot understand the concept of ownership of land. “It’s idea a person can write summat on a bit of paper about a piece of land that lives and breathes, and changes and quakes and floods and dries, and that that person can use it as he will, or not at all, and that he can keep others off it, all because of a piece of paper.”

When resistance grows to the landowners who wield power over the local community, the stakes are raised and events take a dark turn. As one of the leaders of the resistance, the children’s father becomes a target for retaliation of the most brutal kind and the children’s ability to respond to ‘the dark things in the world’ for which their father has prepared them is finally put to the test.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of John Murray via NetGalley.

In three words: Dark, chilling, unsettling

Try something similar: The Wanderers by Tim Pears

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Fiona Mozley authorAbout the Author

Fiona Mozley grew up in York and lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Elmet, won a Somerset Maugham Award and the Polari Prize. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dublin Literary Award and the International Dylan Thomas Prize. In 2018 Fiona Mozley was shortlisted for the Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award. (Photo/bio credit: Publisher author page)

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