Alex Nye's Blog: Life Through A Window, page 5

A Reflection on War

Have just finished reading My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young.

This novel is set during the First World War, but tells the story in a very original way, much more so than most historical fiction. We really get inside the heads of the characters. What really grabbed me at the beginning of the book was the spiky character of the boy Riley, when he falls in the Round Pond in Kensington, and ends up being linked or connected to a 'well-to-do' family which takes him out of his own class background to some extent. What I liked about this was the candid way in which the class differences and prejudices were looked at, in a manner that was fresh and straightforward. Riley's own awareness of trying to lift himself towards better things, and his family's reaction to this are all quite evocatively told.

The writing style is very pleasurable to read, beautifully wordy and almost a touch indulgent - but I like that. what's wrong with being a little indulgent, especially when the reading matter is so difficult? I suppose this is what sweetens the pill to some extent, because the topic is a grim one.

For me personally it was an eye-opener to another world - both of my grandfathers died very young because of that war and I therefore never met either of them. My own father (who sadly died in 2006) grew up in a fatherless household, never knowing his own father... and I always grew up with a profound awareness of this. My other grandfather (on my mother's side) joined the war at 17 and must have had a similar experience to Riley in the book. This was an insight for me, into the hidden world of my own grandparents, and made me think about what it must have been like for them, and how brave that seventeen year old must have been, my mother's father, to face such an ordeal. Oddly, it's the first time I'd ever really thought about it properly on that level, and I have this book to thank for it.

Although dealing with such shocking and brutal material, it also carries a ring of hope with it. Wasn't too sure if the pill was a little bit over-sweetened towards the end of the book - but, what the hell? Enjoyed it anyway.

South Africa and Nostalgia

Have just finished reading the most amazing book, Ruby Red by Linzi Glass. It was published in 2007, and I think it's possibly YA fiction, as the heroine, Ruby is a seventeen year old school girl, on the verge of adulthood. But why this book is so profoundly moving is because it is set in South Africa in the early Seventies at the height of Apartheid. Ruby's parents are 'political', in that they try to fight against what their government are doing in S. Africa. Ruby's mother is a gallery owner, who supports a struggling black artist from the Soweto townships who is saying new and radical things through his art, despite his poverty and oppression. The story is told through the eyes of 17 year old Ruby, who falls in love with an Afrikaans boy, and sadly watches the black gardener working on the grounds as she sits in her oppressive and privileged 'white' classroom. She waves to him now and again, and later realises that she is the only person ever to have done so. In June 1976 (a year I remember clearly as part of my own youth), Soweto school children march against the government's new law that they should all learn in Afrikaans, and many of them are shot and maimed. The gardener's granddaughter is among those killed, and as Ruby leaves the school, she realises that he is the only person there that mattered to her. The story is very poignant, very moving, and contains wonderful snippets of characterisation. It is also evocatively nostalgic of the Seventies, even down to the descriptions of the clothes, and in this sense, it quite took me back to being a teenager who cares passionately about things. Where did it all go?....

A GOOD READ

Have just finished reading The Outlander, by Gil Adamson. Again, found this just by chance in a charity shop, hadn't heard of it before, but the recommendation on the cover by Michael Ondaatje (one of my favourite authors) was enough to tempt me. I immediately liked the preface of a solitary outsider, a young woman not fitting into conventions and social mores of the time and being so different that she is considered 'weird'. The first 100 pages or so were a little turgid at first, but then the narrative suddenly got into its stride and I had a sense of where it was going - then I couldn't stop reading it. Devoured the book in a matter of days. The style is beautifully rich, experimental, brave and detailed, and the pace of the narrative fairly carries you along. The girl begins by being a real victim, typically trapped by the limitations of being a girl, victimized, terrorized, bereft, abandoned, invisible to her parents, to her grieving father and berating grandmother, so she obediently gets married in the hope this will sort out her future. She then has to learn how to survive in a remote log cabin in the wilderness. When she ends up murdering her husband, she is then pursued through the mountain passes in harsh winter conditions by her implacable brothers-in-law, who silently hunt her down. She survives, finds friends along the way, and manages to evade capture ... or does she?

It's a very good read, and I would certainly recommend it.

South Africa at the height of Apartheid

Ruby Red by Linzi Glass

My rating: 5 of 5 stars






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As autumn nights draw in...

As autumn nights draw in, I'm using the school October holiday to polish, hone and re-draft my new ghost story - DARKER ENDS. I am one of my own worst critics. Self-doubt sits on my shoulder, an incorrigible editor who insists that I weigh up and agonize over every word. Will it ever be perfect? Probably not. But I hope it's quite atmospheric and haunting...

The mellow mists and golden leaves are putting me in the right frame of mind, anyway. Also working on another children's story set in Holocaust, but still very much at early stages (20,000 words) so it's bad luck to talk about it...