Corrag

Title: Corrag
Author: Susan Fletcher
ISBN: 978-2-00-732159-9
Published: Fourth Estate (HarperCollins)
Date: 2010

Book quote:


“I walked. I made my way further down into the dusky glen. My skirts dragged their branches, which dragged their own branches now. It was a noisy load to pull which grew louder with each step as it gathered more leaves, more peat and stones. I looked back on my trail. It was tatters and cow muck, and I turned to rid myself of it but by turning so did my skirts, and I turned like a dog that seeks its own tail. I could not reach the branches. I stretched, but they moved away as I stretched. For a moment or two I turned, and turned.

I stopped, considered this.

A spider hung down from my hair on its thread.”
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Corrag, having been condemned as a witch, is in prison awaiting her execution. The setting is Scotland, 1692. Charles Leslie, a clergyman from Ireland, interviews her regarding the events at the historical Glencoe massacre of 38 members of the McDonald clan just prior to this. Charles has Jacobite sympathies and is gathering information to incriminate the reigning Dutch king, William of Orange, with an aim of re-instating James 2nd exiled in France (William is thought to be ultimately behind the massacre). Corrag agrees to tell him of the event, with the proviso that he listen to the story of her life as well – which he consents to. For about two weeks he visits her daily to listen to her story, the transcript of which forms the bulk of the text. Interspersed amongst these are his own letters to his wife back in Ireland, which describe his own, increasingly sympathetic, reactions to Corrag’s narration.


Corrag describes her own life as being in four parts – her early life with her mother, (Cora), her ‘running life’ with her mare as she travelled north, her life in Glencoe and her life in the prison. While the description of life on the margins of village life in England is engaging enough, the second chunk describing the journey north is the point at which the novel starts to become tedious. It is in severe need of editing. Just how many times do we need to be told how her hair flies out behind her, or how her skirts billow out, or how her mare gallops on? An originally effective passage is rendered dull by the time it’s been recycled so many times. Even the exchanges and interactions that occur are more noted for their (much-discussed) emotional impact on the narrator than being simply laid out and described adequately.


Luckily, there’s a marked change in the quality of writing as Corrag settles down in Glencoe, and Fletcher feels free to do what she seems to be best at – minute observation of sensory input: olfactory, auditory and visual. It’s noticeable that tactile and gustatory senses are barely represented, and indeed this can be seen as appropriate for a character who lives on the very remotest margins of society and whose interaction with others is a strictly non-contact sport. The stillness of the life in the glen seems to allow for some very good passages, which are mercifully free of reflection on emotional effects they induce in the narrator. The colour of a buttercup, if described well enough, is more than sufficient to keep the reader engaged. The passage I picked for the book quote almost marks the start of this phase.


Unfortunately, just as we’re being lulled into appreciation, in pops Charles Leslie with his letters to his wife. They would be a fine (indeed much-needed) alternative perspective, were it not that so much of their bulk is filled with his appreciation of ‘how well she speaks’. In effect, how well the passage preceding was written. One gets a terrible image of the author jumping up and down every now and then saying ‘look, didn’t I do that well, did you like that bit, are you sure you saw it?’ which is annoying, to say the least.


The other major problem I had with it was the anachronistic diction. 17th century diction verbatim would be hard on the modern reader for the duration of a novel, so I understand the need to update and simplify. However, certain very modern usages should really be eschewed. For example the use of ‘like’ as a conjunction in the place of ‘as’ (a modern American import to British English) leaped off the page and slapped me at some point. On a different level, the word ‘hag’ (much-repeated in the book) had, even by Spencer’s time, aligned itself with the connotation of ‘old’ and ‘ugly’ as well as Devil-inspired, so to imply that it was applied frequently to both Corrag and her mother (a child and an apparently very attractive woman) is not convincing.


There are also gross anachronisms in concepts. Corrag says of herself settling down in the highlands:


“I think, also that I healed. (…) I felt myself soften and tend to myself. I don’t think I had grieved, till Glencoe, or been kind to myself. I don’t think I had sat down and thought of Cora, and truly allowed myself to be sad.”


While the spiritually restorative virtues of the admission of grief were without doubt evident to people in the 17th century, they would never have phrased it like that, much less an unlettered herbalist. This is straight out of a 21st century self-help manual.


Which leads on to the lack of differentiation between the characters’ reported speech. Corrag has a vocabulary that far exceeds what might reasonably be expected. (What 17th century peasant would have a lexicon including Latin-derived ‘mucus’ and ‘grandeur’?) Mostly it’s not noticeable, but when she sits down with the McDonald woman Sarah and we have a rare moment of sustained dialogue, they more resemble a couple of college girls discussing ‘life n’ stuff’ than a witch who is so uncivilised she laps water from the lake like a cat, and a wild Highland lass. Discussing ‘politics?’ the term ‘politic’ might have been in relatively common usage (though as its meaning was different it wouldn’t have featured much in the oeuvre of the two women concerned) but ‘polyticks’ in its roughly modern sense had only really been around for about 30 years prior to this - and that in lettered circles. (There are mentions as far back as 1529 but very rare). This is not just quibbling on the use of a single word – it’s the concept, and the appropriateness of the subject’s consideration by the characters, which is disturbing.


All this is sounding like a very negative review, and indeed this was not a book I enjoyed myself. It does however have its good points, and I know that a lot of readers will like it and want more of the same. The sensory descriptive passages are genuinely effective and well-rendered. Overall, the tension is kept up more or less via the ever-present question of whether Corrag will really be burned at the stake – you can always tell whether you’re really intrigued by whether you’re tempted to flick forward (which I was). Sympathy for the character is created, we do care. I also found the images from the novel lingering in my imagination after closing the book, which is always a good sign.


I think this novel would in particular appeal to young females, who enjoy a good romantic read. If, however, you tend to be a bit of a nit-picker with semantics, or have much knowledge of realistic 17th century prose, or are much given to textual analysis, or indeed if you’re an editor, this book might well annoy you. Susan Fletcher won the Whitbread 2004 First Novel Award for her first novel Eva Green, as well as the 2005 Betty Trask Prize. Alas, I don’t think there will be many awards for Corrag, but the potential is definitely there for future works.

Burning Bright

Title: Burning Bright
Author: Tracy Chevalier
ISBN: 978-0-452-28907-9
Published: First Plume Printing
Date: 2008
Book quote:

“My songs and pictures do not become memories – they are always there to be looked at. And they are not illusions, but physical manifestations of worlds that do exist.”
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Burning Bright is a pleasant, enjoyable read. It’s a good story that follows the fortunes of the Kellaway family from Dorsetshire: chairmakers come to Lambeth in 1792 London at the invitation of flamboyant Philip Astley, the great circus owner. The friendship and interactions of the son Jem, and Maggie, the London girl who lives nearby, form the emotional backbone of the plot.

Unfortunately, their reason for existence is their peculiar friendship with William Blake. “Unfortunately”, not because Blake is an unsuitable subject for a historical novel, and certainly not because the novel is underresearched. Quite the opposite.


For me, this book falls between several seats. The primary impression it gives is that the author is fascinated by Blake and his works. The main motivation behind the novel seems to be to paint scenes from his life, and to bring our understanding closer to the nuances and feelings, the sights and sounds, of his London. It feels like a Blake student writing a heavily-disguised essay on Blake's life and works, while being ceaselessly interrupted by the very lively characters that have almost inconveniently sprung into life to illustrate it.

The long walks that take up a great deal of space within the novel are typical of this. A good example is Jem and Maggie following the funeral procession for Blake’s mother, all the way from Lambeth, through Soho, Smithfields and on to Bunhill Fields. The section takes up 20 pages of the total 308, and its purpose is almost entirely to describe different areas of London – by extension, areas that Blake wrote about directly or indirectly. Now, there is a wealth of first-hand descriptive material on London life from this period, as well as almost endless commentaries in the social, political and literary contexts. Were I studying Blake, I would rather refer to these than to a historical novel, and were I simply reading a novel, I would prefer it not to meander about into places it has no need to. Again, if one knows the references the book alludes to, the narrative merely appears strained – and if one doesn’t then the references are simply lost.


Fair enough, the central theme of the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are linked throughout the novel with Jem and Maggie’s struggles to reconcile themselves to the ‘grey’ areas between black and white, good or bad. Likewise, the topics the Blake works deal with are fundamental to the process of growing up, both for individuals and for countries, and as such are appropriate for a central core to a book featuring adolescents and the French Revolution. The plot is woven carefully, the details painstakingly accurate. But the overall impression is of someone dancing round the central maypole of the themes, not really looking where they’re going because they’ve got their nose stuck into a reference book.


That not only Jem and Maggie, but even the peripheral characters are in Technicolor 3D and empathy (or antipathy) for them is created seemingly effortlessly, despite the obsession with the literary subject, bears witness to Chevalier’s prodigious talent as a writer. The briefest mention of any personae who step through the book is believable, the lightest touch brushing in a coachman, a passing button salesman.


Compared to this virtuoso technique in creation of unseen worlds, the sticky-tape-and-superglue attitude to combining the Blakes with the Kellaways and Butterfields appears even clunkier than it is. I was wondering whether the infamous Blake couplings in the garden would crop up, and sure enough there they were, right at the forefront to grab the reader’s attention. Although in a sense this could be used perfectly to illustrate differences (fitting in within the Innocence and Experience theme) between this and other sexual encounters, it is abandoned with only the lightest of references, which anyone unfamiliar with Blake’s philosophy will probably not pick up on.


On the whole, I’d say if you’re not overly familiar with Blake and want a good read, I’d recommend the book. It slips by pleasingly and is a delight to the imagination. If you’re an avid Blake fan you’ll probably enjoy it, too, as you’ll pick up on all the little pieces and not mind the children running through it making a noise. It’s only if you like your historical novels to be woven into place with some security of perspective that you might run into a bit of trouble.

The Murder Room

Title: The Murder Room

Author: PD James

ISBN: 0 141 01553 5

Published: Penguin Books

Date: 2003

The reviews snippets on the cover-jacket of this book promise that its:

“Genuinely chilling, a delight”
“Wholly engrossing, scintillates from the start”
“A totally absorbing read, a detective thriller of superb quality.”

Don’t be fooled.

I can’t remember a more soporific read. By comparison my school geography textbook was thrilling. I did make it though to the zimmer-frame supported end, but only after a limp of a read during which Hubby exclaimed many times he’d never seen me take so long over a book.


This was the first honest-to-goodness plain murder mystery I’d read, and I was expecting… well, a few murders, and a bit of detection. Was that wrong? The first victim doesn’t even come along until page 151. Almost the whole bulk of the book is made up of characterisation. There is some slight movement, but really the barest minimum possible. Some would say, far less than would be sensible. Particularly under the circumstances – that is, that of it being a supposed thriller.

There’s nothing wrong with characterisation. I’m all for it. It’s when its characterisation at the exclusion of absolutely everything else that it may be a problem. The plot… well as there’s precious little of it I won’t give anything away but suffice it to say it’s an investigation around murders connected to the Dupayne Museum, an establishment dedicated to the history of the inter-war years in the UK.


To give it its due, the book was extremely useful to me at the time, as I had to write a piece on the theme of “creating a detective” - and indeed it’s a great model of construction and well worth studying in that context. However, I don’t expect this particular aspect will be of much use to most readers.

While reading the novel, I couldn’t help reflecting how much of it is geared towards the television series. I may be mistaken but it felt more like a background character guide for the actors than anything else. Indeed, were the action sliced down to that which is actually there, it could make for a reasonably choppy bit of text. Sieved down to a screenplay of less than a quarter of the length, with the novel as background reading, it might start to make sense. I’ve never read a PD James before (outlook’s pretty bleak for future readings, too) and barely glanced at the TV series but even so it all strikes me as the only reason anyone would want to tackle ‘thriller’ writing in this way. Some passages in particular ring little alarm bells. When the pathologist enters the scene, there’s an in-depth passage about how he’s aged, looking different. Different from what? He’s only just appeared. Of course, the novels too are part of a series, but even so it reaches out like a slap in the face. Was it geared towards the actor’s changing characteristics, or perhaps a change of cast?

Also surprising was the fact that some of the descriptive passages are very evocative, not to mention almost lyric. Once again I don’t know the background, but in the absence of such knowledge I’d guess the writer was primarily a poet, who’s had to change tack for practical reasons. Again, not something I was expecting, but at least a pleasurable surprise this time.

If you’re a PD James fan, you’ll probably think this review is heresy, utter a few exclamations of disgust and move on. If however you’re not, and are looking for a thrilling read, this is not a book I’d recommend.