Author Archives: Delia

I picked Winter Ghosts on an impulse. The title conjured up scary images in my mind and I do love a scary story. What I got, however, was something slightly different.

This is the story of a man, Freddie Watson, who is trying to come to terms with the death of his brother, declared missing in 1916, one day before the Battle of Somme. Freddie knows his brother was the favorite child in the family. As grief tears the family apart, it is clear that Freddie has to deal with the death of his brother by himself. Years later, after some time spent in sanatoriums following a nervous breakdown, Freddie started traveling around France in the hope that the cooler climate of the mountains will restore his frail nerves.

On one such day he gets caught up in a winter storm and comes close to losing his life. Dazed and bloodied, he makes his way to a nearby village where he is given help and a place to spend the night. That night the village celebrates “la fête de saint Étienne” and Freddie is invited to the party. The celebration, however, is stranger than he thought. The food, the people, the clothes, the atmosphere, everything makes Freddie feel as if he had stumbled back in time. At the party he meets a striking young woman, Fabrissa, and her story manages to shake Freddie from his lethargy. Determined to find out more about her, he asks the villagers but his inquiries are met with strange looks and not much more. Undeterred, Freddie continues to search for Fabrissa. What he finds is a way to face his grief and move on. He begins to understand that life is worth living, that loved ones die but are never forgotten, and in the end holding on to happy memories is all we have.

I liked the book for the easy pace, the stories within stories, and the bits of history it provided (I didn’t know much about the Cathars and their religion and this book made me want to find out more). The story however, became predictable after a point. Reading this book felt like taking a walk through a forest on a quiet afternoon: you can see the path winding up between the trees and you know the exercise will do you good, just like you know that the scariest thing you’re likely to encounter will be a squirrel or a rabbit. Despite the “ghost” element it wasn’t scary – there was a point where it seemed things could get more chilling but it passed quickly and the story went back to its even pace. An enjoyable quick read.

*Read in October 2011

A bit of an update:
I’ve been a bit lazy in the writing department these days. There are a few books sitting on my desk, waiting to be reviewed, and a few others that I can’t wait to start reading. Right now I’m enjoying a long awaited holiday and also keeping my fingers crossed that the rains will stop so I can go on a trip I’ve been dreaming about since last year. Until then, I’ll try to get back to writing and this is the first (overdue) review. Happy reading!

***

Pulse

The book contains 14 stories (I wonder if the author was superstitious) about life, choices, love and marriage. I was attracted to this book by the title – it seemed like an interesting name for a book.
While at the bookstore I started reading the first story, East Wind, about Vernon, a late thirties divorcee, who falls in love with Andrea, an East European waitress. There was something funny and likable about Vernon, and I decided to take the book home and continue reading.

What I really liked about this book was the way the author managed to infuse the stories with humor but also with sadness at the same time, a notable accomplishment which is tricky to achieve within the same story. There’s also a bit of cynical witticism in the “At Phil and Joanna’s” stories (there were four), in which a group of friends gather for dinner and some verbal banter. The dialogue is entertaining and well written, the topics ranging from politics and grammar to sex and religion to name just a few.

Another story I particularly liked was The Limner. I must confess I had never heard the word before (and that is yet another reason why I liked this book – finding new words) and had to look it up in the dictionary. The limner, Mr. Wadsworth, is a traveling portrait artist. He can’t speak or hear, due to a childhood illness, but that doesn’t mean he’s dumb, as some of his customers seem to think. Attention to detail is observed not only when painting, but also when dealing with others and he manages to form an accurate opinion of the people he meets. This is one of my favorite passages from the story:

“The limner had shown the collector of customs some miniatures of children, hoping to change his mind, but Tuttle merely shook his head. Wadsworth was disappointed, partly for reasons of money, but more because his delight in painting children had increased as that in painting their progenitors had declined. Children were more mobile than adults, more deliquescent of shape, it was true. But they also looked him in the eye, and when you were deaf you heard with your eyes. Children held his gaze, and he thereby perceived their nature. Adults often looked away, whether from modesty or a desire for concealment; while some, like the collector, stared back challengingly, with a false honesty, as if to say, Of course my eyes are concealing things, but you lack the discernment to realise it. Such clients judged Wadsworth’s affinity with children proof that he was as deficient in understanding as the children were. Whereas Wadsworth found in their affinity with him proof that they saw as clearly as he did.”

In Carcassonne, the author explores the concept of marriage, how couples meet and what keeps them together over the years. Is it passion, like the type Garibaldi and his wife Anita felt the first time they laid eyes on each other, or is it something more subdued, like the man who had met his wife at an office party and when asked what did he feel when he saw her, said “I thought she was very nice”. Do couples without children have more chances of staying together, unencumbered by responsibilities and worn out by worries, and what about gay couples? Questions, musings, experiences shared. No miraculous recipe for a long, happy marriage, only doubt and various perspectives – it’s all a roll of the dice.

There were a couple of stories I didn’t care much about. While I had no complaints about the writing style, which by the way, seems to flow nicely enough, those stories in themselves fell short of interesting. But then it’s almost inevitable for this to happen in a book of short stories.
An entertaining read, quite different from the books I usually pick. I have to admit I was more excited about this book when I finished it but for some reason I postponed writing a review and in time my enthusiasm decreased considerably, which is a shame, really…

*Read in August 2011

This book is the last in the trilogy which started with Man and Boy and continued with Man and Wife. When I read Man and Wife, I had no idea that it was part of a bigger story so I can safely say that I sort of started in the middle. The books however, can be read independently.

In this new chapter of Harry Silver’s life, Parsons delves deeper into the problems and challenges of a mixed family. Now married for the second time, to Cyd, who has a daughter, Peggy, from a previous marriage, himself the father of a teenage boy named Pat, from his first marriage, Harry finds himself yet again caught in the turmoil of everyday life. A new daughter, Joni, born into the mixed family, completes the picture.
Conflicts arise from every aspect of his life: the loss of his job, his son becoming a teenager, the return of his first wife, Gina, who decides she wants to play an active role in Pat’s life after years of being away, the arrival on his doorstep of one of his father’s comrades from the war, all this is enough to bring complications, misunderstanding and resentment but also new lessons in love, compassion and trust. There is a palpable undercurrent of anger which can be felt throughout the book, a feeling which seems hard to control for Harry.

The reason why I liked all of Tony Parsons’ books I’ve read so far is because he succeeds in telling this universal story of love and heartbreak, mistakes and forgiveness and the power to start all over again in such a compelling way. The characters feel real, the situations even more so, and even though sometimes I wanted to shake Harry and Cyd for almost giving up, in the end I could not help but like them.
There are also a few words from the author at the back of the book – about how his personal experiences have played an important role in the writing of the trilogy, about life, mistakes and the power to turn it all into a story that does not belong to one man only but to all of us.

*Read in September 2011

…and a lot of other things in between. Tony Parsons’ new book can be viewed as a collection of personal opinions on various issues with lots of biographical references thrown in. He explores a range of topics, from the mid-life crisis myth to dying, from the feel of fake breasts to getting fit and staying in shape, from dealing with a parent’s death to finding happiness.
Does it sound like one of those self-help books? It really isn’t. This book could be the answer to a (far from simple) question: what ails the modern man? Is it the thought of failure, both career-wise and sexual, is it nostalgia for the long gone experiences of childhood, anger at how things have changed, a feeling of regret for a past marriage? All this and more is talked about and examined and dissected in under 300 pages.

While many of the things may be familiar to the reader, the author manages to combine just the right amount of British humour with sarcasm and some inspirational stories to make the reading of this book an enjoyable experience. And while reading about football and cars and politics isn’t exactly my cup of tea, the author’s point of view did not make me want to skip a few pages ahead. Quite the contrary. The book has the ring of an honest and straightforward story of a man who has been through some tough times, survived and learned a few important lessons, a man still trying to make sense of the world around him, just like we all do. Maybe that’s what makes the book so readable and entertaining and fun.

*Read in September 2011

That’s what my friend Kate said, after I had texted her saying I’d just come out of a Kinokunyia bookstore, after an hour and a half of browsing which resulted in the purchase of three books. She had sent me a message to let me know of a discount sale at another bookstore across town. That’s what friends are for, right?
So the next day I went to Dasa, an used books bookstore, and came away with another three books (and now regret not buying the fourth, but maybe it’ll wait for me until next time). I’m going to need a new shelf soon, but for now I’m building towers of books.

What I bought:

1. On life, death and breakfast, by Tony Parsons
I’ve read Man and Wife by the same author and I really like his no-nonsense approach to life and relationships, so I was intrigued by this book. Also, the title seemed familiar, and if you’ve heard of “Life, the Universe and Everything” by Douglas Adams (hint: the third book in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy”) then the mystery is solved.

2. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
This will be my first novel by this author. I’ve come across a few of his stories in the anthology By Blood We Live – Edited by John Joseph Adams and Stories – All New Tales Edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio and enjoyed them very much. I think it’s about time I tried a full length novel.

3. The Birth of Love, by Joanna Kavenna
I thought it was time for a “girl” book. The back cover promises a story that connects people across time, from a lunatic asylum in 19th century Vienna, to a woman about to give birth in London, with the word “dystopian” thrown in. Intriguing.

4. The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
Now I’ve had my eyes on this author for a while, ever since Nath (a friend on www.goodreads.com) mentioned how much she enjoyed it. Then I said to myself, an old and mysterious house, the promise of a haunting, how can I resist? It sounds just like my kind of book.

5. The Secret of Crickley Hall, by James Herbert
It’s probably obvious by now that I like scary stories and this one promised to scare my socks off. Good, I hope it lives up to the expectations!

6. The Winter Ghosts, by Kate Mosse
“An ancient mystery….., a cave that has concealed an appaling secret for 700 years…”
Need I say more? I was hooked!

I’ve been looking forward to reading this book. It sat there, in my to-be-read pile and I would look at it with the eyes of someone who saves the best for last and says, not yet…until one day, looking for my next read I thought “why wait?” and so my journey into the realm of magic began.
I am no complete stranger to the world of Clive Barker. Years ago I came across Galilee in a second hand bookstore and was intrigued by the promise on the back cover. It’s no surprise that I had high expectations from Weaveworld as well.

***
That which is imagined need never be lost

The story begins with birds, pigeons to be more accurate. Calhoun Mooney (Cal) is a young man caring for his father and his pigeons after his mother’s death. When one of them, named “33” (why 33, I wonder, at first I thought Barker had been 33 years old when he wrote the book but actually he was 35), escapes from its cage, Cal pursues it to a house where two men are attempting to remove a carpet and sell it. The house belongs to Mimi Laschenski, an old recluse who had been admitted to a hospital only days before, and the men want to sell the carpet to pay for the debts she had left behind.
In an attempt to capture the pigeon who had found shelter on the ledge of a window, Cal falls, just as the men had unfolded the carpet to have a better look at it. Only this is no ordinary piece of tapestry but an entirely different world. The carpet is the tangible representation of a magic realm, every thread and symbol and picture as real as it can be, all woven together in a brilliance of colors and patterns that dazzle the eye. It is the home of the Seerkind, a race of magical beings which humankind had hunted down and almost eradicated, the only record of them ever having lived being now found only in fairytales and legends.
The fall brings Cal right in the middle of the carpet and he gets a glimpse into that other world, but before more can be revealed, reality snaps him back and the two men leave taking the carpet with them. He vows to find out more and on a trip back at the house he meets Suzanna, Mimi’s niece, who had come following her grandmother’s letter. This is when their quest for saving the magic realm begins.

***

This story has all the elements of a fairy tale: there’s plenty of magic, a quest, love stories, a villain and even a dragon. Eroticism has its place too, although this being a fantasy it’s often twisted and grotesque not to mention appalling and compelling at the same time. The myth of the Garden of Eden is incorporated into the tale, as are churches and priests and a “demon” who thinks it’s an avenging angel.
The book is divided into thirteen parts, with a quotation by a famous poet/writer at the beginning of each part. This is one of my favorites, by W.H. Auden:

“The sky is darkening like a stain,
Something is going to fall like rain
And it won’t be flowers.”

I found interesting the use of the word “marriage” (and its variations) in the book. It would come every now and then, a tool used to describe the merging of elements:

“Of all the extraordinary times she’d had since she’d first become part of the Fugue’s story, these were in their way the strangest, as her experience of the Weaveworld and that of her present life did battle in her head for the right to be called real. She knew this was Cuckoo thinking; that they were both real. But her mind would not marry them – nor her place in them.”

“Hearing his boast her mind went back to the adventures she’d had in the book; how, in that no-man’s land between words and the world, everything had been transforming and becoming, and her mind, married in hatred with Hobart’s, had been the energy of that condition.”

Despite my efforts to keep up with the story, it was not long before I felt left behind. The characters seemed too remote and devoid of any real substance, the story too fragmented for my liking; it was as if I couldn’t latch on to anything. Halfway through the book doubts began creeping in – maybe it’s just not my kind of book, maybe I’m reading it at the wrong time. And then, in the last 200 pages (out of 722!) a strange thing happened – my eyes had encountered a passage :

“A man was dancing nearby, his skirts like living tissue.”

It was like a button inside my head had been pushed and it brought back a snippet of the past from somewhere deep where all good memories lie waiting. And just like that I went back a few years, to a cold and rainy Easter day when on a trip to Istanbul I watched the dervish dance, their clothes a pure white, human bells spinning around following a music like I hadn’t heard before, their movements hypnotic, making the world around disappear until there was nothing else but a flurry of white. And just like that, I found my way back to the story. If that is not magic, I don’t know what is.
I did enjoy the story but not as much as I thought I would. Barker creates amazing pictures with words, colors unfold and flash brilliantly, descriptions are vivid and mesmerizing, it’s like watching a painting come to life. I’m almost annoyed with myself for not liking it more – it feels that the story is just above average but I haven’t given up hope. Someday, another one of his fantastical stories will come my way and I can only hope this time the journey will be more enjoyable.

*Read in September 2011