ISBN: 0330412590
140 pages
published in 1988.
I picked up In The Winter Dark as a potential candidate for a paper I’ll be writing this summer with the help of my advisor on the environment in Australian literature. I’ve read books by Winton before — you can check out my review of Dirt Music. I did not enjoy In The Winter Dark as much as Dirt Music. For one, I feel like the writing was not as mature — but the story was still wonderfully crafted and given the limits enforced by the small size of the book, the characters were very well developed and interesting. At times it also seemed a bit vague and lazy, but it’s hard to tell if that’s an actual fault or my own lack of perception.
The story revolves around four individuals living in a small valley in Western Australia — a married couple, a young girl and a middle-aged man who has moved into the area after retiring. Of the four, only the couple are native to the area and as such are fairly protective over their way of life, viewing the other two as outsiders. However, they are drawn together by mutual loss in the form of some brutally slaughtered pets and livestock. They must work together to find the creature that is responsible, but it is lurking in the dark somewhere, amidst the trees and the wild, and they are not sure what it might be. As it turns out, the trouble from the outside seems to reflect the secrets they’re harboring inside of themselves and they must solve these first.
Most of the story is narrated by Maurice Stubbs, who has lived in the valley with his wife most of her life and all of his. His narration is interesting in the way it sheds light on the other characters in the book, but due to the state of his mind (that is better understood by the end of the story, but which we get insight into as the story trots along) we are inclined to wonder about the authenticity of his descriptions of the events and of the other characters thoughts and actions. There is definitely a supernatural twist to the story, but the extent of it and the reality of it within the context is really up to interpretation, and I believe Winton intended it to be that way.
Despite being down one terrier in a particularly gruesome fashion barely after the novel has begun, Ida Stubbs was (at least for me) the strongest character in the story. She is wise, yet funny in a very down-to-Earth sort of way. She is very flawed, but she seems to accept these flaws much more than anyone else does, and this may be why I was so taken by her character — for all the good it does her, as you will see.
And simply because this is something I should begin thinking about, this book was really wonderful to choose for this project and I’m hoping it winds up being useable for me. (I’ve been advised to try and narrow the scope of what I’m doing, but damnit, it’s hard! There’s so much good material.) Here’s a good passage:
“Ida Stubbs heard shots and flinched enough to drop the preserve jar and it smashed at her feet. She leant against the sink a moment and looked out the window to the forest up the hill. Another shot; she heard it soar over the valley and it gave her a flittery feeling she didn’t often get anymore, that sense of being small, of not really belonging. She’d had it in her chest the day she’d come here after the wedding. And she got it each time she brought a baby back from the district hospital. She’d stand here at the window and feel new and strange, as though maybe she should get back in the car and take this helpless child to a town, a city, somewhere where the trees didn’t stand over you, where the swamp didn’t sit there brewing at your doorstep, where people might drive past occasionally and wave on their way to somewhere else.”
I guess I’ll leave you guys with that. Despite the slightly lower rating on this book (in comparison to Dirt Music) I totally recommend it. It is intense, suspenseful and strangely compelling — it’s also a short book, so if anything it won’t steal away much of your time!
ISBN: 0440238137
368 pages
published in 1995.
I first read this book a few years ago. I found the story itself captivating, as well as the idea of the daemons, like many readers before me. It was recommended to me many times before I finally got around to reading it, and by the time I did, I wished I had read it sooner, because I feel like I would have appreciated it even more as a child. In any case, most of us are familiar with the movie version that came out a couple years ago, which I did go to see and was very happy with.
The Golden Compass, known throughout most of the world as Northern Lights, is the first book in a trilogy about Lyra Belaqua, a young girl from Oxford, who exists within a world parallel to our own. Everyone in her world has a daemon, a manifestation of their soul that takes the form of an animal. Daemons are able to change form when a person is young, but as soon as puberty is reached, they assume a fixed shape and stay that way for the duration of the person’s life. Consequently, Lyra’s daemon, Pantalaimon — or Pan, as she calls him — is Lyra herself, yet a separate entity from her own body. The bond between human and daemon is the strongest in the world and for normal humans, even being far apart from each other causes intense physical pain for both. In this world is also witches, whose daemons can travel far from them, ghouls and ghosts and various sorts of ghasts, and armored bears, bears who are larger than normal bears and who can talk and have their own society in the North, on Svalbard, and who make themselves armor out of metal.
Lyra befriends members of all of these groups as she seeks to find out about the Gobblers, a group that has been stealing children from Oxford and from other places around the world, are up to. A device that tells the truth and thus can answer any question, the alethiometer, also falls into her hands. All of these circumstances are caught up in the question of Dust, a substance that has been causing great controversy among theologians and philosophers around the world, Lyra’s Uncle Asriel and a mysterious, enticing woman named Mrs. Coulter.
I’ll be starting the second book in the series, The Subtle Knife, as soon as I can. I really love this series and I can’t wait to find out what happens. I never got beyond the first book.
ISBN: 0441005489
352 pages
published in 1986.
I loved these books as a child. Recently, my boyfriend and I have been getting back into them. We just finished this one tonight (we like to read aloud to each other) and we’re very excited to move on through the rest of the series. I didn’t read all of the books that had been published when I was younger, but I did read quite a few of them. I believe there are 21 in total right now (as one is due to be published in February). It’s really mind-boggling that Jacques continues to publish as I believe he is 70 by now!
Redwall is the first book in the world-famous Redwall series of books, about various woodland animals (most typically mice, badgers, otters, rats, foxes, etc.) This particular story takes place at Redwall Abbey in Mossflower Wood, where a community of peaceful mice live deep in the forest, caring for the animals that live around them and generally promoting peace and prosperity in the land. An infamous evil rat shows up and threatens to take over their home, and the peaceful mice and their allies must fight back to defend themselves. At the heart of the conflict is Matthias, a young mouse from the abbey that longs to be as strong as Redwall’s mythological hero, Martin the Warrior. Given the opportunity to prove himself, Matthias struggles to find Martin’s sword and fight for his home.
The storytelling is wonderful. The description is vivid and beautiful. The characters are charming and well thought out. Each one of them is distinct, even the minor characters. The only major problem I have with this book, and furthermore, the series, is the way that creatures are divided by species as “good” or “evil” and rarely (really — never) cross that line. Rats are always evil, mice are always good. There is no grey. Jacques has confirmed this himself in his answer to a question that was sent in by a fan on his website, and this left me with a bit of a sour taste in his mouth. However, it doesn’t detract from the quality of the novels and I’m excited to relive the ones I know and discover the ones that are new to me.
ISBN: 1595141715
304 pages
published in 1996.
I am really so surprised by this book. I had only heard the best things about it and so when I found a brand new copy at the store for $4 I snatched it up right away. I hadn’t had a chance to read it though until recently due to my busy schedule, but I managed to read the whole thing through on Sunday and had to put it down for a few days after that in order to think it through.
On the one hand, I can see what Asher wished to accomplish with his story — unfortunately, wishes do not always come true, and the reality of the book is a poorly thought-out, badly-messaged mess of an idea. That’s not that it didn’t have potential — it did, especially towards the beginning of the book. However, once I learned more about Hannah & her character, the empathy factor plummeted. Not only were her problems petty at best, but the manner in which she decides to express her feelings is alarming. It’s not just the suicide thing — it’s the fact that everyone else in this novel is responsible for Hannah BUT Hannah. It was suicide, not homicide, and literally every time Hannah recalls being met with a person who seems legitimately concerned for her, she pushes them away in a dramatic sweep of teen angst.
Honestly, if this is the message being sent to young adults about suicide, I am a bit appalled. This book not only glamorizes it, but does so in a way that insists on lining up the other kids in the book by varying degrees of guilt. Yes, Hannah no longer has to deal with being picked on like every other teenager in America, but the people that were in her life now have to deal with a guilt that is entirely undeserved. Kids are stupid. Certainly some of the things done to Hannah were nasty — a couple even downright scary — but nothing out of the realm of commonly heard highschool horror-tales.
The only redeeming quality of the book is its style, which was what lured me into the novel to begin with. It’s disappointing that Asher should fall so far short of the story’s promise.
ISBN: 0192804243
