Secret Water – Arthur Ransome
Of all the Swallows and Amazons books, this has a special
place in my affections. I read very few children’s books when I was young; I
was much more interested in what the adults were up to. The Ransome books were
amongst those few that I found interesting. And as we lived in Norfolk at the
time, I had an affinity with the East Anglian set books (much as I loved and
still love the Lake District). And of them all, I like this one especially
because my sister bought me a copy of the hardback when I was about ten.
Of course, without a decent story, it would never have held
my interest, all that other stuff notwithstanding. Like them all, on the
surface not a lot happens. Kids go camping and sailing. But under this is a
kind of anarchy (in its proper meaning). Their lives away from their parents
are communal. They care for the weakest. They look after themselves and take
responsibility for their actions. They also have a respect for the world around
them.
There is another element to this particular story that
fascinated me and that is map making. Hardly the stuff of high adventure, but I
loved the idea that you could make a place your own without having to own it.
Mapping and naming places so that they mean something to you rather than some
official cartographer is an important way of keeping in touch with the world
around you. A kind of nascent psychogeography.
Finally there is the innocence. It is not fey or naïve, it
is what kids should be. And given that book was written on the eve of the
second world war, it must have been at the back of Ransome’s mind that the
Walker children had a father who was serving in the Royal Navy. However, this is
fun and I love them.
A Hearse On May Day – Gladys Mitchell
Not one of Mitchell’s best, largely because any tension in
the first section (despite the attempt at menace) and the fact that there is
way too much business. In terms of an isolated village with strange goings on,
it is more like an early episode of The Avengers. You know who the villains
are, the red herrings are a tad too red and smelly to be taken seriously, there
is zero characterisation, and Dame Beatrice and the police amble through
familiar territory at a leisurely pace. Even so (and despite the poor
production of this particular edition) it is a pleasurable enough read.
Daughter Of Dreams – Michael Moorcock
An Elric/von Beck novel, first of a trilogy, and originally
titled The Dreamthief’s Daughter. Set during the first half of the
Second World War, this is less pacy than the earlier Elric novels. It does not
suffer much because of this, it is after all a first person narrative and Ulric
von Bek is given to philosophical discursiveness. The Elric/von Beck adventures
tie in with the strange pick ‘n’ mix mysticism of the Nazis who were known to
have collected various holy relics in the belief they would aid them in their
attempt to impose their twisted vision on the world. As a guardian of the grail
and a mystical sword, von Bek becomes their target. He is aided by Oona, a
mysterious woman, and by Elric, of whom von Bek is an avatar.
Weaving real world events with fantasy in a seamless
fashion, Moorcock has extended his Elric novels into yet another dimension. His
writing style has matured over the years (and relaxed without the pressure to
produce novels on an almost weekly basis). Yet the pace and excitement is still
there, never faltering despite the greater depth to the work with its
ruminations on cruelty and the parallels it draws with today’s world.
I am, of course, a huge fan of Moorcock and have been since
the late ‘60s. I’ve read this one before a number of times. It just keeps
getting better.
Mercury – Anna Kavan
A manuscript discovered and published posthumously, this
book is a close cousin to her work Ice. It employs the same basic
themes, has a similar storyline, and explores the same ideas. In most cases,
such a work would only be of interest to scholars looking to see how a work
developed. But in the case of Mercury, it is a work in its own right and
stands completely separate from Ice. Indeed, it draws power from the
similarities simply because both books are about layers of reality, about
dreams, about the ways in which we invent our lives and replay the incidents in
them. Mercury, therefore, is another layer of Ice.
The remarkable thing is that this book that never made it to
publication (for whatever written) is far better written than many that do.
Compact, simple language that is made to do remarkable things and produce
complex effects. Kavan is a proper writer who deserves much greater
recognition.
Destiny’s Brother – Michael Moorcock
Originally ‘The Skrayling Tree’, this new edition has been
retitled and packaged as part of the Gollancz re-issue. And as well as the joy
of having it as part of a uniform paper edition, I can now collect and read
Moorcock on my ereader.
This is an Elric story. Of sorts. He is a major character,
but this is not the Elric of old. For one thing it is himself dreaming himself
(you’d need to know about the Elric stories and the Melnibonean dream couches
and I’m not going to explain all that – buy the books, the first: ‘Elric of Melniboné’
is now available and if you’ve never read them I envy you the journey). These
later books are also written in a different style. The original Elric books
were pulp fantasy at its very best – dark, pacy, and with as many ideas in a
page as most writers today struggle to stretch across a 300 page volume.
The books, as the series progressed and tracked back on
itself, became more settled affairs and took a bit more time. I have to confess
I prefer the earlier ones, but that has as much to do with discovering a new
writer and reading them for the first time. I fully appreciate Moorcock’s
maturing as a writer; and I fully appreciate how he has made a virtue of that
in the stories, especially when tackling our own dark history.
This book cleverly uses the Longfellow/Hiawatha story as one
of its themes with the whole thing set in a mythical North American past. They
myth and magic of native Americans is touched upon and woven skilfully into the
wider Moorcock mythology of the multiverse with Elric and the von Beks
combining to defeat an attempt to bring down the very Tree of Life.
And if the pace is now a little slower as we grow older, the
chance to enjoy the scenery and one’s companions on the way is very much
appreciated. Excellent stuff.
