Tag: literary fiction

Book Review – The Good People by Hannah Kent

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About the Book

good

County Kerry, Ireland, 1825. Nóra, bereft after the sudden death of her beloved husband, finds herself alone and caring for her young grandson Micheál. Micheál cannot speak and cannot walk and Nóra is desperate to know what is wrong with him. What happened to the healthy, happy grandson she met when her daughter was still alive?

Mary arrives in the valley to help Nóra just as the whispers are spreading: the stories of unexplained misfortunes, of illnesses, and the rumours that Micheál is a changeling child who is bringing bad luck to the valley.

Nance’s knowledge keeps her apart. To the new priest, she is a threat, but to the valley people she is a wanderer, a healer. Nance knows how to use the plants and berries of the woodland; she understands the magic in the old ways. And she might be able to help Micheál.

As these three women are drawn together in the hope of restoring Micheál, their world of folklore and belief, of ritual and stories, tightens around them. It will lead them down a dangerous path, and force them to question everything they have ever known.

Format: Hardcover (400 pages) Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 9th February 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Still mourning the death of her daughter, newly widowed Nora finds herself alone and trying to care for her grandson, Micheál. She cannot understand what has happened to turn him from a healthy child into one who cannot speak or walk. Ashamed and fearful of what neighbours will say about the afflicted child, Nora hires a young girl, Mary, to help care for him out of the public gaze. However, rumours about the circumstances of her husband’s death and the presence of an ‘unnatural’ child soon start to circulate. Nora becomes convinced Micheál is a ‘changeling’ – a child of the fairies or ‘Good People’ substituted for the real Micheál. In the hope of restoring what she believes is her ‘real’ grandson, she enlists the help of Mary and the local wise-woman, Nance, embarking on a path that will have far-reaching consequences for them all.

The author creates an evocative and moving picture of what life was like for people eking out a subsistence existence in 19th century Ireland where famine and homelessness was only ever a short distance away: a cow that stops giving milk, a crop that fails, inclement weather, illness or bereavement.

‘They’re worried about the butter. About being forced on the road. About having no money to pay the rent with. About neighbours turning on them, wishing them ill. Wishing sickness and death on them.’

How it can lead to a community seeking answers in the supernatural – in this case, the ‘Good People’ or fairies who dwell amongst them and who it is believed can bring good or bad luck. The story of Nora and Michael shows the desperate actions to which people can be driven by grinding poverty, ignorance and fear, and hatred and suspicion of anyone who is different, like Nance Roche, or afflicted with physical or mental illness, like Micheál.   Nora is a woman driven mad by grief and although she does some very terrible things, she never loses the reader’s sympathy completely. The fact the story is inspired by actual cases adds to the sense of realism.

I felt the author created a fully realised picture of a community of that time and its rituals: the customs associated with wakes and burials, gatherings around the well or at the blacksmith’s forge.  I thought she captured the lilt and rhythm of the dialect without trespassing into “Oirishness”. There was some wonderfully lyrical writing, particularly descriptions of nature.

‘December arrived and bled the days of sunlight, while the nights grew bitter, wind-rattled.’

‘She thought of how , in the valley, the people would soon pluck the yellow flowers for the goodness they drew from the sun, pulling primrose and marsh marigold and buttercups, rubbing them on the cows’ udders to bless the butter in them, placing them on doorways and doorsteps, those thresholds where the unknown world could bleed into the known, flowers to seal the cracks from where luck could be leached…’

I have not read Hannah Kent’s first novel, Burial Rites, but on the strength of this book, it will definitely be going on my wishlist.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Pan MacMillan via NetGalley.

In three words: Emotional, lyrical, enthralling
Try something similar: The Signal Flame by Andrew Krivak

About the Author

Hannah Kent’s debut novel, the international bestseller Burial Rites was translated into 28 languages. It won the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year, the Indie Awards Debut Fiction Book of the Year and the Victorian Premier’s People’s Choice Award, amongst others. Burial Rites was also shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize), the Guardian First Book Award, the Stella Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. It is currently being adapted to film.

Hannah co-founded the Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings, where she is currently publishing director. The Good People is Hannah’s second novel and was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2017.

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Book Review – Three Daughters of Eve by Elif Shafak

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About the Book

daughters

Peri, a wealthy Turkish housewife, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag.

As she wrestles to get it back, a photograph falls to the ground – an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor. A relic from a past – and a love – Peri had tried desperately to forget.

Format: ebook (383 pages) Publisher: Penguin
Publication date: 2nd February 2017 Genre: Contemporary Fiction

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My Review

When the photograph drops from Peri’s handbag, it triggers memories of her childhood, her parents’ troubled relationship, her time studying in Oxford and the events that took place there with lasting consequences for her and others. These events are recounted in episodic fashion switching between time periods, the full picture only emerging towards the end of the novel. Peri’s encounter with the beggar also unleashes the complex feelings of uncertainty, anger, anxiety and guilt she has tried to suppress all her life, weighed down by family and society expectation: “Sometimes her own mind scared her”.

There is imaginative use of metaphors. For example, on the ambivalence of Turkey’s position on the borders of Europe – as if it “had put one foot through Europe’s doorway and tried to venture forth with all its might – only to find the opening was so narrow that, no matter how much the rest of its body wriggled and squirmed, it could not squeeze itself it.” Or, the need for the women of Istanbul, in their dress and body language, to navigate “a stormy sea swollen with drifting icebergs of masculinity… better to manoeuvre away from them, gingerly and smartly, for one never knew how much danger lay beneath the surface”.

A frequent theme is the conflict between religious belief and atheism/secularism and in particular how this featured in the modern history of Turkey. The novel does not shy away from tackling the turbulent and at times violent and repressive events in its history; the scenes following Peri’s brother’s arrest are especially unsettling.  At times, the message becomes a little heavy-handed, approaching didactic. For instance, the dinner party in Istanbul seems really to be a device to include a debate on contemporary Turkey. The other dinner party guests are not named but referred to by their occupation and appear to be there to represent the various ideological viewpoints.

Through Peri’s perpetual uncertainty and Professor Aziz’s lectures, the author poses the question how any person can be certain of the superiority of their beliefs, particularly if they have limited knowledge of other cultures and philosophies? A dialectical approach is evident through the frequent use of oppositions. For example, Peri’s parents inhabit each side of the religion versus atheism/secularism argument. To some extent, Mona and Shirin (who along with Peri make up the “Daughters of Eve”) mirror Peri’s mother and father, with Peri perpetually in the middle.  In fact, Peri describes herself and her friends as “the Sinner, the Believer, the Confused”. In spite of the title, only two of the “Daughters of Eve” – Peri and Shirin – seem fully developed characters; Mona is something of a cipher, merely there to represent the devout and to provide an opposite to Shirin.

Despite some reservations, I enjoyed the book, particularly the sections covering Peri’s childhood. At times, bordering on the didactic, it engages with debates which have contemporary relevance for the wider world.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers Penguin UK/Viking in return for an honest review.

In three words: Engrossing, thoughtful, dialectical

About the Author

Author Elif Shafak

Elif Shafak is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read woman writer in Turkey. Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and she was awarded the honorary distinction of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. Shafak has published thirteen books, nine of which are novels and writes fiction in both Turkish and English. Blending Western and Eastern traditions of storytelling, she brings out the myriad stories of women, minorities, immigrants, subcultures, youth and global souls, drawing on diverse cultures and literary traditions, as well as a deep interest in history, philosophy, Sufism, oral culture, and cultural politics. Besides writing fiction, Shafak is an active political commentator, columnist and public speaker. 

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