Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 148
June 11, 2017
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery, by Henry Marsh
The memoir of a neurosurgeon, focusing on how dangerous it is for patients, how it's often a complete gamble whether surgery will cure them or kill them (or paralyze them, or leave them in a permanent coma, etc), and how much that gets to the author.
If a book which is largely about the doctor's feelings as opposed to those of his patients, when the catastrophe happened to them rather than to him, annoys you on principle, don't read this. Personally, I liked knowing that there is at least one more doctor in the world who cares what happens to his patients, even if the caring is composed in equal parts of compassion, professional pride, and fear of being publicly shamed.
As that suggests, it's a memoir dedicated to saying how he really feels, whether that's elevated or petty. He spends quite a bit of time on justifiable raging over his hospital's incredibly terrible computer system, which keeps locking up the password so no one can see the scans they need to operate (hilariously, at one point some equally angry person sets the password to fuckyou47 (and then no one can remember if it's 47, 46, 45...), the lack of beds that mean that patients are deprived of food and water all day pending surgery and then the surgery gets canceled, and all the other myriad ways in which health care in England now sucks. (It still sounds about a million times better than health care in America.)
He talks frankly about his mistakes as a surgeon, some of which killed people. This is really a taboo topic, and my hat is off to him for going there.
There's also a lot of fascinating anecdotes about individual patients, and some beautiful writing about surgery, the physical structure of the brain, and the constant paradox of how that one squishy organ is the source of everything that makes us human and able to do things like write books, all of which is a source of wonder to him and one which he conveys very well.
It's definitely worth reading if the subject interests you, but it doesn't quite rise to the level of medical writing that I'd recommend whether the subject interests you or not. (My nominees for the latter are Atul Gawande, Oliver Sacks, and James Herriot.)
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery[image error]
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If a book which is largely about the doctor's feelings as opposed to those of his patients, when the catastrophe happened to them rather than to him, annoys you on principle, don't read this. Personally, I liked knowing that there is at least one more doctor in the world who cares what happens to his patients, even if the caring is composed in equal parts of compassion, professional pride, and fear of being publicly shamed.
As that suggests, it's a memoir dedicated to saying how he really feels, whether that's elevated or petty. He spends quite a bit of time on justifiable raging over his hospital's incredibly terrible computer system, which keeps locking up the password so no one can see the scans they need to operate (hilariously, at one point some equally angry person sets the password to fuckyou47 (and then no one can remember if it's 47, 46, 45...), the lack of beds that mean that patients are deprived of food and water all day pending surgery and then the surgery gets canceled, and all the other myriad ways in which health care in England now sucks. (It still sounds about a million times better than health care in America.)
He talks frankly about his mistakes as a surgeon, some of which killed people. This is really a taboo topic, and my hat is off to him for going there.
There's also a lot of fascinating anecdotes about individual patients, and some beautiful writing about surgery, the physical structure of the brain, and the constant paradox of how that one squishy organ is the source of everything that makes us human and able to do things like write books, all of which is a source of wonder to him and one which he conveys very well.
It's definitely worth reading if the subject interests you, but it doesn't quite rise to the level of medical writing that I'd recommend whether the subject interests you or not. (My nominees for the latter are Atul Gawande, Oliver Sacks, and James Herriot.)
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery[image error]
comments
June 8, 2017
Jukebox 2017
I wrote a treat story for an unusual fic and art exchange,
The whole collection is worth checking out; in most cases knowledge of the songs adds to the enjoyment of the stories but you can enjoy them without it. But songs are easy to pick up. Here's a playlist. I found some great new songs on it, from hiphop (This Is The Opposite Of A Suicide Note) to French traditional songs (J'ai Vu Le Loup, Le Renard Danser.)
Some of the highlights of the collection include a Tarot card for Leonard Cohen's The Stranger Song and a beautiful moonlit scene for Loreena McKennitt's Courtyard Lullabye.. Of the stories, I especially enjoyed the post-apocalyptic fantasy Midnight, like a lost Stephen King story written between The Gunslinger and The Stand, and the excellent sf story Trajectory with cool aliens and immense sense of wonder. But there were really a lot of excellent stories in the collection. If you have time, it definitely rewards browsing. If you do, comment with your favorites!
My story, i swear by all flowers, was inspired by Simon & Garfunkel's wistful April Come She Will. Spoilery story notes below cut. ( Read more... )
comments
The whole collection is worth checking out; in most cases knowledge of the songs adds to the enjoyment of the stories but you can enjoy them without it. But songs are easy to pick up. Here's a playlist. I found some great new songs on it, from hiphop (This Is The Opposite Of A Suicide Note) to French traditional songs (J'ai Vu Le Loup, Le Renard Danser.)
Some of the highlights of the collection include a Tarot card for Leonard Cohen's The Stranger Song and a beautiful moonlit scene for Loreena McKennitt's Courtyard Lullabye.. Of the stories, I especially enjoyed the post-apocalyptic fantasy Midnight, like a lost Stephen King story written between The Gunslinger and The Stand, and the excellent sf story Trajectory with cool aliens and immense sense of wonder. But there were really a lot of excellent stories in the collection. If you have time, it definitely rewards browsing. If you do, comment with your favorites!
My story, i swear by all flowers, was inspired by Simon & Garfunkel's wistful April Come She Will. Spoilery story notes below cut. ( Read more... )
comments
June 4, 2017
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide, Except For Me & My Monkey
Last post provided some interesting, and I use that word advisedly, information in comments, which in turn provided more fodder for internet diet rabbit hole exploration. It was dark and humid down there. There was also some actually-cool info that was not about horrifying diets; I definitely recommend reading the comments if you missed them. Includes a discussion of cooking with cricket flour. I would try it. Seriously.
Here are a few highlights, by which I mean lowlights:
I was introduced to the monomeal. I propose it as the villain for the next Godzilla movie. Monomeal Stomps Tokyo!
Some diet freaks think fruit is bad. Others claim that fruit is the One True Way and each One True Fruit should not be contaminated by eating it with anything else, including other fruits.
Meet Freelee the Banana Girl, a vlogger who is scarily thin despite devouring 50 bananas every day and who once dated another vlog personality by the you-can't-make-this-shit-up name of DurianRider. You will be unsurprised to hear that she thinks chemotherapy rather than, you know, cancer kills people with cancer. And also that periods are a sign that you have toxins in your body, so if your period stops when you go on an all-banana diet, that proves that it's good for you.
My conclusion is that any time anyone says cavemen did anything and follows that with diet advice, their knowledge of cavemen consists of The Flintstones.
And also that anyone can get rich or at least Instagram-famous quick by coming up with an idiotic diet with a catchy name and a scientifically illiterate caveman justification.
I propose Monkey Meals (TM). You can eat anything you like as long as you eat five bananas first. Guaranteed weight loss! (Because bananas don't have many calories, but if you eat five of them before you eat anything else, you'll be too full and/or nauseated to eat much else. Seriously, I think this would work. For as long as you can stand it.) Like the monkeys they evolved from, cavemen ate lots of bananas. So as long as you eat enough bananas, you will be as healthy and skinny as a caveman!
comments
Here are a few highlights, by which I mean lowlights:
I was introduced to the monomeal. I propose it as the villain for the next Godzilla movie. Monomeal Stomps Tokyo!
Some diet freaks think fruit is bad. Others claim that fruit is the One True Way and each One True Fruit should not be contaminated by eating it with anything else, including other fruits.
Meet Freelee the Banana Girl, a vlogger who is scarily thin despite devouring 50 bananas every day and who once dated another vlog personality by the you-can't-make-this-shit-up name of DurianRider. You will be unsurprised to hear that she thinks chemotherapy rather than, you know, cancer kills people with cancer. And also that periods are a sign that you have toxins in your body, so if your period stops when you go on an all-banana diet, that proves that it's good for you.
My conclusion is that any time anyone says cavemen did anything and follows that with diet advice, their knowledge of cavemen consists of The Flintstones.
And also that anyone can get rich or at least Instagram-famous quick by coming up with an idiotic diet with a catchy name and a scientifically illiterate caveman justification.
I propose Monkey Meals (TM). You can eat anything you like as long as you eat five bananas first. Guaranteed weight loss! (Because bananas don't have many calories, but if you eat five of them before you eat anything else, you'll be too full and/or nauseated to eat much else. Seriously, I think this would work. For as long as you can stand it.) Like the monkeys they evolved from, cavemen ate lots of bananas. So as long as you eat enough bananas, you will be as healthy and skinny as a caveman!
comments
June 3, 2017
Real cavemen eat bone broth
For reasons that really don't bear rehashing, I spent the last two years getting told to go on diets. Every kind of diet. No "nightshades." No acid. No gluten. No dairy. Low-FODMAP (bans dairy, gluten, soy, legumes, and half of all fruits and vegetables.) Low-fat. "Eat nothing but bone broth that you made yourself, and if you don't simmer it for six hours, it's no good." "Microwaving food destroys its nutrients." At one point I had successive doctors tell me to go on a low-fiber diet and a high-fiber diet.
Every single diet-pusher, whether doctor or rando, said or implied (usually explicitly said), "If you don't do this, you'll never get better. Don't you want to get better?"
This was especially infuriating given that I was so underweight that I had symptoms of malnutrition. And also that in two years of dieting, there had never once been any indication whatsoever that my illness was caused by diet or that changing my diet was helpful. I eventually came to the conclusion that Americans are fucking insane about food and that a primary manifestation of sexism is controlling women by controlling what they eat.
Anyway, I am not dieting now. But now that I am slightly less likely to hit NEON RAGE APOCALYPSE at the word "diet," I clicked on a link and fell into an internet rabbit hole of diet advice. Like the evolved forager that I am, I bring you my findings for amusement, analysis, and mockery:
- A comparison of wild fruits and vegetables with cultivated ones, concluding that eating fruits and vegetables is unhealthy because they are unnatural and not what the cavemen ate.
By that reasoning there is literally nothing we can eat unless we get air-dropped into some untouched stretch of rainforest to forage for wild bananas.
- Eating fruit makes you fat.
- Humans did not evolve to eat fruit.
We're PRIMATES. Monkeys love bananas.
- Corn causes Oppositional Defiant Disorder.
- Corn causes ADHD.
- Corn causes autism.
- Corn causes cancer.
- Broccoli causes cancer.
- Hot water causes cancer.
The last one, from a study saying that drinking hot beverages can cause cancer, had the best response: David Spiegelhalter, a professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Britain's University of Cambridge, said: "In the case of very hot drinks, the IARC concludes they are probably hazardous, but can't say how big the risk might be," according to the Australian Financial Review. "This may be interesting science, but makes it difficult to construct a sensible response."
- A Breatharian – as defined in the book A Year Without Food – is a person who chooses to live mostly, or completely, from Pranic nourishment. Israeli author Ray Maor claims that once Breatharians have trained their body to absorb this energy from the air and sunlight, they are no longer dependent on food. Many of them continue to taste food for enjoyment, but do not need it for survival, he says.
Umm.
- Brian J. Ford has suggested that ketosis, possibly caused by alcoholism or low-carb dieting, produces acetone, which is highly flammable and could therefore lead to apparently spontaneous combustion.
The Atkins diet will make you burst into flame!
- Our ancestors NEVER ate a carb. They ate meat and fat and that was it. On that diet, they grew, improved their lot, invented the wheel, survived in caves and hinted in groups.
Bad history aside (even in the Arctic, people ate seaweed and lichen), anyone who's ever lived in a small town or attended school knows that a major human activity is indeed hinting in groups.
comments
Every single diet-pusher, whether doctor or rando, said or implied (usually explicitly said), "If you don't do this, you'll never get better. Don't you want to get better?"
This was especially infuriating given that I was so underweight that I had symptoms of malnutrition. And also that in two years of dieting, there had never once been any indication whatsoever that my illness was caused by diet or that changing my diet was helpful. I eventually came to the conclusion that Americans are fucking insane about food and that a primary manifestation of sexism is controlling women by controlling what they eat.
Anyway, I am not dieting now. But now that I am slightly less likely to hit NEON RAGE APOCALYPSE at the word "diet," I clicked on a link and fell into an internet rabbit hole of diet advice. Like the evolved forager that I am, I bring you my findings for amusement, analysis, and mockery:
- A comparison of wild fruits and vegetables with cultivated ones, concluding that eating fruits and vegetables is unhealthy because they are unnatural and not what the cavemen ate.
By that reasoning there is literally nothing we can eat unless we get air-dropped into some untouched stretch of rainforest to forage for wild bananas.
- Eating fruit makes you fat.
- Humans did not evolve to eat fruit.
We're PRIMATES. Monkeys love bananas.
- Corn causes Oppositional Defiant Disorder.
- Corn causes ADHD.
- Corn causes autism.
- Corn causes cancer.
- Broccoli causes cancer.
- Hot water causes cancer.
The last one, from a study saying that drinking hot beverages can cause cancer, had the best response: David Spiegelhalter, a professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Britain's University of Cambridge, said: "In the case of very hot drinks, the IARC concludes they are probably hazardous, but can't say how big the risk might be," according to the Australian Financial Review. "This may be interesting science, but makes it difficult to construct a sensible response."
- A Breatharian – as defined in the book A Year Without Food – is a person who chooses to live mostly, or completely, from Pranic nourishment. Israeli author Ray Maor claims that once Breatharians have trained their body to absorb this energy from the air and sunlight, they are no longer dependent on food. Many of them continue to taste food for enjoyment, but do not need it for survival, he says.
Umm.
- Brian J. Ford has suggested that ketosis, possibly caused by alcoholism or low-carb dieting, produces acetone, which is highly flammable and could therefore lead to apparently spontaneous combustion.
The Atkins diet will make you burst into flame!
- Our ancestors NEVER ate a carb. They ate meat and fat and that was it. On that diet, they grew, improved their lot, invented the wheel, survived in caves and hinted in groups.
Bad history aside (even in the Arctic, people ate seaweed and lichen), anyone who's ever lived in a small town or attended school knows that a major human activity is indeed hinting in groups.
comments
June 2, 2017
FMK # 3: Misc Nonfiction
Explanation on FMK tag if you missed it. Please feel free to discuss your vote in comments.
View Poll: FMK # 3: Drugs, Deserts, and the Devil
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View Poll: FMK # 3: Drugs, Deserts, and the Devil
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The Five-Minute Marriage, by Joan Aiken
The blurb writer was confused; this is not a Gothic, but a regency. However, it does briefly turn into a Gothic for about ten pages toward the end, so I see how that could happen. I too struggled to categorize it, as, unsurprisingly considering the author, it's hard to categorize. It has the plot but not the substance of a romance; the heroine only displays brief flickers of romantic feelings for the hero, and they don't interact much. It's mostly a comedy with a lunatic excess of plot, about half of which is crammed into the last twenty pages.
The time is 1815. The heroine is Philadelphia "Delphie" Carteret, music teacher and caretaker for her sick and periodically delusional mother. The plot begins when she goes to some long-lost relatives to hit them up for money to take care of her mom, accompanied by her madcap neighbor Jenny. The relatives own a castle with a moat, into which Jenny cunningly flings herself and pretends to be drowning so the hero, Gareth Penistone, will (reluctantly) rescue her and ensconce her and Delphie at the castle, over the objections of cousin Mordred. Once ensconced, Delphie is astounded to find that the family thinks she's an imposter, because someone named Elaine has been claiming to be the Carteret daughter for the last twenty years.
This lunatic farrago of wackiness plus semi-random Arthurian references (there is also a notorious and deceased ancestor named Lancelot, and ten peppy children who all have Arthurian names) is completely typical of Joan Aiken. So are the funny names. I do not for a second believe that she was unaware of the implications of a hero named Penistone (yes, I know it's a village in Yorkshire), especially given this line of dialogue: "I don't like these angry voices and all this talk of Bollington and Penistone!"
Though a series of ridiculous events, Delphie fake-marries Gareth Penistone; needless to say, the fake marriage turns out to be real, to everyone's dismay. The ten Arthurian kids tend to a languid poet in debtor's prison, the hero poisons a sick mouse he's supposed to be nursing back to health, Mordred lives up to his name (name a kid Mordred, and you deserve what you get), and the last chapter consists of long blocks of text in which characters madly explain who secretly married who and why the impersonation-- all of which was so convoluted that I did not even try to follow it.
Funny, fluffy, utterly absurd. If it sounds fun, you will enjoy it. Some animals are collateral damage of villainous plotting.
Only $3.99 for the ebook on Amazon: The Five-Minute Marriage[image error]
Amazon has a number of similarly priced Aiken books on Kindle. Grab 'em if you want 'em!
If any of the people who wanted this book from me would rather have it in hard copy, I'll send my copy to the first who comments for Paypaled postage.
comments
The time is 1815. The heroine is Philadelphia "Delphie" Carteret, music teacher and caretaker for her sick and periodically delusional mother. The plot begins when she goes to some long-lost relatives to hit them up for money to take care of her mom, accompanied by her madcap neighbor Jenny. The relatives own a castle with a moat, into which Jenny cunningly flings herself and pretends to be drowning so the hero, Gareth Penistone, will (reluctantly) rescue her and ensconce her and Delphie at the castle, over the objections of cousin Mordred. Once ensconced, Delphie is astounded to find that the family thinks she's an imposter, because someone named Elaine has been claiming to be the Carteret daughter for the last twenty years.
This lunatic farrago of wackiness plus semi-random Arthurian references (there is also a notorious and deceased ancestor named Lancelot, and ten peppy children who all have Arthurian names) is completely typical of Joan Aiken. So are the funny names. I do not for a second believe that she was unaware of the implications of a hero named Penistone (yes, I know it's a village in Yorkshire), especially given this line of dialogue: "I don't like these angry voices and all this talk of Bollington and Penistone!"
Though a series of ridiculous events, Delphie fake-marries Gareth Penistone; needless to say, the fake marriage turns out to be real, to everyone's dismay. The ten Arthurian kids tend to a languid poet in debtor's prison, the hero poisons a sick mouse he's supposed to be nursing back to health, Mordred lives up to his name (name a kid Mordred, and you deserve what you get), and the last chapter consists of long blocks of text in which characters madly explain who secretly married who and why the impersonation-- all of which was so convoluted that I did not even try to follow it.
Funny, fluffy, utterly absurd. If it sounds fun, you will enjoy it. Some animals are collateral damage of villainous plotting.
Only $3.99 for the ebook on Amazon: The Five-Minute Marriage[image error]
Amazon has a number of similarly priced Aiken books on Kindle. Grab 'em if you want 'em!
If any of the people who wanted this book from me would rather have it in hard copy, I'll send my copy to the first who comments for Paypaled postage.
comments
May 29, 2017
The Green Book, by Jill Paton Walsh
This is the first book I’ve read by Walsh. I think she’s best known for a children’s time travel novel, A Chance Child, and official Lord Peter Wimsey fanfic.
Earth has been environmentally devastated and is about to be destroyed; it’s unclear if that’s because of war or something else. Many people have already fled in spaceships. The book is from the point of view of a very young girl, Pammy, whose family is with the very last group to flee, in a low-grade spaceship and with minimal preparation and supplies. The mad scramble to get out results in everyone being allowed to bring exactly one book, but no one consulting with each other to prevent duplication; this has major repercussions on the planet they end up on.
This is children’s sf, very short, written in clear, simple prose but with some remarkably beautiful imagery. It’s written from the point of view of a very young girl, Pammy, but she uses “we” and “Pammy” rather than “I,” reflecting that she’s part of a community of children.
The best aspect of the book is the evocative descriptions of the alien world and its landscapes and ecology. I absolutely love this sort of thing, and the world here is my favorite type: dangerous, strange, and beautiful. The book was worth reading just for that. It also has an excellent ending.
I had some problems with the plot, both because some crucial points required everyone to be idiots and that some things needed more explanation to be plausible or emotionally resonant.
The rule about bringing only one book is supposedly because of weight/space issues, but a tiny children’s paperback and the complete works of Shakespeare are both considered “one book.” This makes no sense. It should have been determined by weight or mass, as those were the reasons for the restriction.
Other issues are spoilery. ( Read more... )
The Green Book[image error]
comments
Earth has been environmentally devastated and is about to be destroyed; it’s unclear if that’s because of war or something else. Many people have already fled in spaceships. The book is from the point of view of a very young girl, Pammy, whose family is with the very last group to flee, in a low-grade spaceship and with minimal preparation and supplies. The mad scramble to get out results in everyone being allowed to bring exactly one book, but no one consulting with each other to prevent duplication; this has major repercussions on the planet they end up on.
This is children’s sf, very short, written in clear, simple prose but with some remarkably beautiful imagery. It’s written from the point of view of a very young girl, Pammy, but she uses “we” and “Pammy” rather than “I,” reflecting that she’s part of a community of children.
The best aspect of the book is the evocative descriptions of the alien world and its landscapes and ecology. I absolutely love this sort of thing, and the world here is my favorite type: dangerous, strange, and beautiful. The book was worth reading just for that. It also has an excellent ending.
I had some problems with the plot, both because some crucial points required everyone to be idiots and that some things needed more explanation to be plausible or emotionally resonant.
The rule about bringing only one book is supposedly because of weight/space issues, but a tiny children’s paperback and the complete works of Shakespeare are both considered “one book.” This makes no sense. It should have been determined by weight or mass, as those were the reasons for the restriction.
Other issues are spoilery. ( Read more... )
The Green Book[image error]
comments
May 28, 2017
Today at the Farmer's Market
Click to enlarge.
comments
comments
May 27, 2017
FMK # 2: Gothics!
How to play: Fling means I spend a single night of passion (or possibly passionate hatred) with the book, and write a review of it, or however much of it I managed to read. Marry means the book goes back on my shelves, to wait for me to get around to it. Kill is actually "sudden death" - I read a couple paragraphs or pages, then decide to donate or reshelf (or read) based on that. You don't have to have read or previously heard of the books to vote on them. Please feel free to explain your reasoning for your votes in comments.
Italics taken from the blurbs. Gothics have the best blurbs.
View Poll: FMK # 2: Houses Are Terrifying
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Italics taken from the blurbs. Gothics have the best blurbs.
View Poll: FMK # 2: Houses Are Terrifying
comments
The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy, by Penelope Lively
The winner of FMK # 1! Alas, I did not fall madly in love with it, but I did enjoy it. FMK is definitely off to a good start, because God knows how long that book has languished unread on my shelves. I'm pretty sure at least five years and possibly ten. But I'm very glad I finally got to it.
Twelve-year-old Lucy returns to the small English village of Hagworthy, which she hasn’t visited since she was seven. There she stays with her aunt, reconnects with some childhood friends and finds that both she and they have changed, and looks on in growing alarm as the well-meaning but ignorant new vicar resurrects the ancient tradition of the Horn Dance, which is connected to the Wild Hunt.
The premise plus the opening sentences probably tell you everything you need to know about the book:
The train had stopped in a cutting, so steep that Lucy, staring through the window, could see the grassy slopes beyond captured in intense detail only a yard or two away: flowers, insects, patches of vivid red earth. She became intimate with this miniature landscape, alone with it in a sudden silence, and then the train jolted, oozed steam from somewhere beneath, and moved on between shoulders of Somerset hillside.
This is one of my favorite genres which sadly does not seem to exist any more, the subset of British children’s fantasy, usually set in small towns or villages, which focuses on atmosphere, beautiful prose, and capturing delicate moments in time. Character is secondary, plot is tertiary, and there may be very little action (though some have a lot); the magical aspects are often connected to folklore or ancient traditions, and may be subtle or questionable until the end.
You can see all those elements in those two sentences I quoted; the entire subgenre consists of inviting the reader to become intimate with minature landscapes.
This is obviously subjective and debatable, but I think of Alan Garner, Susan Cooper (especially Greenwitch), and Robert Westall as writers with books in this subgenre, but not Diana Wynne Jones. The settings are the sort parodied in Cold Comfort Farm. Hagworthy is full of darkly muttering villagers who kept making me think, “Beware, Robert Poste’s child!”
In The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy, Lucy’s parents are divorced, and her mother is now living in another country with a baby brother Lucy has never met. This is mentioned maybe two or three times, very briefly, which is interesting because so many books would make a much bigger deal of it. Lucy returns to Hagworthy for a vacation with her aunt, a botanist.
Of her childhood friends, the two girls have become horse-mad and have nothing in common with Lucy. The boy, Kester, is now a moody misfit teenager, and Lucy, who is also a bit of a moody misfit, becomes friends with him all over again. They wander around the countryside, fossil-hunting and stag-watching, periodically getting in fights over Kester’s refusal to discuss the thing hanging over the story, which is the new vicar’s revival of the Horn Dance to fundraise at a fete. This is very obviously going to awaken the Wild Hunt, and Kester has clearly been mystically targeted as its victim. Though there is a ton of dark muttering about what a bad idea this is, no one does anything about this until nearly the end, when Lucy finally makes first a misfired attempt to stop the Horn Dance, then a successful one to save Kester.
The atmosphere and prose is lovely, and if you like that sort of thing, you will like this book. Even for a book that isn’t really about the plot, the plot had problems. One was the total failure of any adult to even try to do anything sensible ever, for absolutely no reason, until Lucy finally manages to ask the right person the right question. This could have been explained as some magical thing preventing them from acting, but it wasn’t.
The other problem I had was that nothing unpredictable ever happens. Everyone is exactly what they seem: the blacksmith has mystical knowledge, the vicar is an innocent in over his head, the horse-mad girls have nothing in their heads but horses, and so forth. I kept expecting something to be slightly less obvious—for the vicar to know exactly what he’s doing and have a nefarious purpose, for the horse-mad girls to not be as dumb as they seem or to have their horsey skills play a role in saving Kester, for Lucy’s aunt to know more about magic than the blacksmith, etc—but no.
I looked up Penelope Lively. It looks like her famous book is Ghost of Thomas Kempe[image error], which I think I also own.
There’s an album of music based on the book which you can listen to online. It’s by the Heartwood Institute, and is instrumental and atmospheric.
The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy[image error]
comments
Twelve-year-old Lucy returns to the small English village of Hagworthy, which she hasn’t visited since she was seven. There she stays with her aunt, reconnects with some childhood friends and finds that both she and they have changed, and looks on in growing alarm as the well-meaning but ignorant new vicar resurrects the ancient tradition of the Horn Dance, which is connected to the Wild Hunt.
The premise plus the opening sentences probably tell you everything you need to know about the book:
The train had stopped in a cutting, so steep that Lucy, staring through the window, could see the grassy slopes beyond captured in intense detail only a yard or two away: flowers, insects, patches of vivid red earth. She became intimate with this miniature landscape, alone with it in a sudden silence, and then the train jolted, oozed steam from somewhere beneath, and moved on between shoulders of Somerset hillside.
This is one of my favorite genres which sadly does not seem to exist any more, the subset of British children’s fantasy, usually set in small towns or villages, which focuses on atmosphere, beautiful prose, and capturing delicate moments in time. Character is secondary, plot is tertiary, and there may be very little action (though some have a lot); the magical aspects are often connected to folklore or ancient traditions, and may be subtle or questionable until the end.
You can see all those elements in those two sentences I quoted; the entire subgenre consists of inviting the reader to become intimate with minature landscapes.
This is obviously subjective and debatable, but I think of Alan Garner, Susan Cooper (especially Greenwitch), and Robert Westall as writers with books in this subgenre, but not Diana Wynne Jones. The settings are the sort parodied in Cold Comfort Farm. Hagworthy is full of darkly muttering villagers who kept making me think, “Beware, Robert Poste’s child!”
In The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy, Lucy’s parents are divorced, and her mother is now living in another country with a baby brother Lucy has never met. This is mentioned maybe two or three times, very briefly, which is interesting because so many books would make a much bigger deal of it. Lucy returns to Hagworthy for a vacation with her aunt, a botanist.
Of her childhood friends, the two girls have become horse-mad and have nothing in common with Lucy. The boy, Kester, is now a moody misfit teenager, and Lucy, who is also a bit of a moody misfit, becomes friends with him all over again. They wander around the countryside, fossil-hunting and stag-watching, periodically getting in fights over Kester’s refusal to discuss the thing hanging over the story, which is the new vicar’s revival of the Horn Dance to fundraise at a fete. This is very obviously going to awaken the Wild Hunt, and Kester has clearly been mystically targeted as its victim. Though there is a ton of dark muttering about what a bad idea this is, no one does anything about this until nearly the end, when Lucy finally makes first a misfired attempt to stop the Horn Dance, then a successful one to save Kester.
The atmosphere and prose is lovely, and if you like that sort of thing, you will like this book. Even for a book that isn’t really about the plot, the plot had problems. One was the total failure of any adult to even try to do anything sensible ever, for absolutely no reason, until Lucy finally manages to ask the right person the right question. This could have been explained as some magical thing preventing them from acting, but it wasn’t.
The other problem I had was that nothing unpredictable ever happens. Everyone is exactly what they seem: the blacksmith has mystical knowledge, the vicar is an innocent in over his head, the horse-mad girls have nothing in their heads but horses, and so forth. I kept expecting something to be slightly less obvious—for the vicar to know exactly what he’s doing and have a nefarious purpose, for the horse-mad girls to not be as dumb as they seem or to have their horsey skills play a role in saving Kester, for Lucy’s aunt to know more about magic than the blacksmith, etc—but no.
I looked up Penelope Lively. It looks like her famous book is Ghost of Thomas Kempe[image error], which I think I also own.
There’s an album of music based on the book which you can listen to online. It’s by the Heartwood Institute, and is instrumental and atmospheric.
The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy[image error]
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