Mrs Butler's Blog Number19

Mrs Butler’s Blog Number 19 November/ December 2005

I’m afraid there really hasn’t been time to write up my reading diary. I re-read Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen and the little World Book Day book, The Creature in the Case (all by Garth Nix). After the disappointment of Eldest I was reassured that there can be good and original fantasy. It is such a treat to have strong heroines instead of callow kitchen boys/pig boys/hobbits. And how could I resist Lirael, whose ambition is to be a Second Assistant Librarian?

During November and December I found that I usually had 2 books on the go: one for lunchtime reading at school and one for luxury reading for home.
Lunchtimes:
The Tortured Wood by Malcolm Rose. This is one of the first in a new Horror series published by Usborne. We already had a proof copy but the pink proof jacket said “Girlie” not “Creepy”! And it is a creepy story, about a bullied boy who takes refuge in a wood full of horrible carvings. The problem is that the carvings are of real and unpleasant events. Did the accidents come first or did the carvings?

The Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith. Mama Ramotswe of the Number One Ladies Detective Agency solves another crime. She longs for the gentler, respectful manners of her youth but she is not averse to a spot of blackmail to solve the murder. I can’t make up my mind about these novels. On the surface they are charming, folksy stories set in an idealised Botswana - with a philosophical twist. In this case, “Do the ends justify the means?” But I feel slightly uncomfortable with these delightfully simple, but shrewd African characters, written by a middle-aged Scotsman.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.
This is an amazing gallop through the history of scientific discovery, for people who really don’t know very much about it. It is hilarious. You’ll laugh out loud at the story of the stolen head which rolls down the hill into a cottage. You couldn’t make up the story of the ill-fated French expedition to the Andes; the leaders wouldn’t speak to each other although they were practically the only survivors. And you will never forget the poor astronomer who returned after a disastrous trip to find that he had been pronounced dead and his relatives had sold his possessions. It is just wonderful.
I haven’t finished it yet because the Christmas holidays intervened.

My reading at home was a vice which I have hinted at before: Robert Jordan and I’m afraid he will need a whole blog entry to himself.

Mrs Butler's Blog 18

Number 18 November 2005

A complete surprise this evening! I thought I ought to do a boy book and possibly a factual one so I picked up Everest by Gordon Korman. This book is called Book 1: The Contest, and from the sepia photographs on the front cover I assumed it was an account of early attempts on the mountain. (I had just been cataloguing lots of true adventure/survival/shark stories.) I was wrong.

Everest is about a publicity stunt to put a team of very young climbers on Everest. Dominic Alexis is determined to be selected like his older brother, Chris, who is already rated number two of under-seventeen climbers in the US. There is just a chance for Dominic. If he can find the lucky Summit coupon (just like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory visit!) he could go to the boot camp from which the team will be selected.

Reality TV meets extreme sport! It’s fantastic. They start out with sixteen hopefuls and put them through the Hell of night climbs and pitching tents in snowstorms. Dominic is years younger and a lot smaller than all the others so his chances are slim, but his enthusiasm and natural flair (of course) for climbing ensure that he survives, as other more obvious candidates are eliminated. The cast of characters includes a talented but objectionable kid with a big chip on his shoulder; the nephew of the sponsor who is actually scared of climbing; and a wacky girl who is into extreme sports in an extreme way.

The Contest seem to be the first of an Everest trilogy. Gordon Korman has written another trilogy called Island which is also published by Scholastic (on horrid paper). The adventure story as soap opera. Heartland for boys?

Mrs Rush's Reviews - Kazuo Ishiguro

Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro

As Kathy drives around the country she remembers her school days with Ruth and Tommy. They all went to a strange boarding school where the only adults they came into contact with were the teachers, who were very protective towards them. The children have never met their parents. As Kathy remembers more the reader slowly realises that her life is very odd indeed.
The book states that it is set in England in the late 1990s but as you read more you realise that this is not the England we know but one with slight differences. The frightening thing about it is that it could happen. I can't say too much more about it as I would give away the terrific plot.
The book is beautifully written, as you’d expect, and left me feeling very sad and angry.

Mrs Rush's Reviews - Anthony Horowitz

The Killing Joke
Anthony Horowitz

Have you ever wondered where a joke came from, or who was the first person to tell it? Guy Masters is told a tasteless joke in a pub. When he protests about it he is headbutted and then wonders whether it is possible to find out who originally told the joke. This leads to him travelling around the country but other people are intent on preventing him from finding anything out.
The book starts off as a crazy quest and becomes something a lot more sinister along the way. If you enjoy(ed) the Alex Rider series you’ll like this. Comes complete with the quirky bad taste Ian Fleming (James Bond) female names. The characterisation is pretty threadbare but there are plenty of jokey leads and clues along the way. About half way through I realised that the head-butting, lazy builder was probably just another joke.
It becomes slightly more surreal as it goes on with an ending similar to that of Scorpia . Did AH just give up or is it cleverer than it appears?
Reminds me of a joke I know -
There’s this guy, goes into a bar . . . .

Mrs Butler's Blog 17

Number 17 November 2005

Two great books for girls!

Deep End by Sam Hutton
I’ve just read a girl’s answer to Alex Rider. It’s fantastic. Maddie Cooper is a star at the Royal Ballet School, dreaming of a career as a professional dancer, when her life is wrecked in an instant A hitman shoots her mother dead, wounds her father and shatters Maddie’s hip. (I have considerable fellow-feeling for her at this point!)

When she gets out of hospital and begins to consider a new career she opts to visit her father’s office for work experience. Now, even though he is in a wheelchair, her dad is a top cop, in charge of Police Investigation Command. Somehow Maddie gets herself on to the team (at sixteen!) gets kidnapped, rescued and gets revenge on the crooks who killed her mother – all in 24 hours. I’m sure there will be more Maddie Cooper adventures. Stand by for a series of Special Agents.

Mates, Dates and Cosmic Kisses by Cathy Hopkins
I’d never read any of this popular series so I thought I’d try it this weekend. I started on Number 2 but it didn’t matter.

It opened with a bang! Izzie is disgusted that she’s got to wear a bright green bridesmaid’s dress to her step-sister’s wedding so she dyes her hair green to match. She’s very funny.
“Then my grandma would have been proud – Irish roots and all that. Geddit? Emerald green roots?”
She’s really surprised that everyone is upset!

Izzie has two good friends, Nesta and Lucy, but she nearly fouls up her friendships because she’s a real pain, drooping over the dream-boy she met on the aromatherapy stall at Camden Lock market. The relationship with Mark is off-on throughout the book. Will they ever get as far as the Cosmic Kisses?

I do hope the other books in the series are about the same three friends because I liked them so much. I was tickled by the reference (homage?) to Angus, Thongs and Full-frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison and I thought Izzie’s song lyrics were stunning. I’ll have to try another to see if she can keep it up.

Mrs Butler's Blog 12

Number 12 November 2005

So what happened to the real Blog 12? Did I delete it by mistake? Or did I simply make a mistake in the numbering? No idea!

Another mystery plaguing me is the disappearance of Fergal’s Brain from the Library. He was the gruesome centrepiece of the Philip Ardagh display. He was a bit small and a bit too vulnerable to leave on his own, so we tied him in invisible thread and suspended him in a pickle jar. It looked quite convincing.

Now some little toad has stolen him. (My money is on Year 11.) I’ve offered a suitable reward for his recovery but I suspect that he’s been chopped in bits and thrown away because he was no fun anymore.

Mrs Butler's Blog 16

Mary Wimbush died this week. She was a radio and TV actor. All the obituaries – including E J Thribb’s in Private Eye – mentioned her three characters in The Archers.
I didn’t see any which described her early work on radio.

She had a strange influence on my life. In the sixties I went to a bleak boarding school and I would listen after lights-out to Book at Bedtime (little transistor radio under the blankets). I guess this is the equivalent of watching late-night movies in your bedroom these days. One reader had the most wonderful deep voice. It was Mary Wimbush. I remember her reading The Moonstone and The Woman in White in particular. She made them seem so exciting, so easy to read that as soon as I was allowed out of school I bought copies of the books in Penguin. Do you suppose this started my career as a Librarian?

I notice that The Archers is doing her the great honour of killing off her character, Julia Pargeter, immediately. Her funeral will be held next week, which must be unusual because they record all the episodes three months in advance.

She did loads of radio plays too. I remember Caramels for Carlotta about the woman who was for a very short time the Empress of Mexico. I wrote recently about a radio play I’d listened to in the car. One of the two batty ‘librarians’ was played by Mary Wimbush, of course. I wish I’d written to her.

Mrs Butler's Blog Number 15

Number 15 November 2005

If you have read any of my blog you will know that I am normally positive about all the books I read. This is an exception. This book is a best-seller. It worries me that parents and children all over the world have been persuaded to spend a lot of money and a lot of their scarce reading time on this book because they have been assured that it is good. It worries me because I don’t think that a book this bad would survive in the adult market and I am angry that this inferior product should be palmed off on children simply because it was written by a child.

I am ploughing my way through Eldest at the moment. I’ve only reached page 100 of 668 and it feels like a penance. Eldest is the sequel to Eragon by Christopher Paolini.

When Eragon was published two years ago the hype was intense because of the extreme youth of the author and, presumably, its extreme length. I resisted buying it until it came out in paperback and several students persuaded me that it was brilliant.

I’m an addict of epic fantasies but I was desperately disappointed in Eragon. It combines all the worst excesses of American fantasy writers: it has a good basic plot but it is slavishly derivative (the obligatory dwarves, elves and orcs from Tolkien, dragon telepathy in italics from McCaffrey, etc.). There is no shame in following fantasy conventions but some spark of originality is required. It is tediously descriptive and completely lacking in any surprise. Every meal, every person, every journey is described in plodding detail as if it were written by a schoolboy, as indeed it was.

I had hoped that with the author’s increased years Eldest might be an improvement but, alas, I can only add illiteracy to his crimes. Consider this exchange on Page 24:
“Do not dishonor me.”
“Nor you I.”
or this sentence on Page11:
It felt like he had been sawed in half.

I’m afraid I laughed aloud at this bit:
Lathered over the remnants of his grief, anxiety now twisted his gut. He worried
about his own role in the upcoming events. Page 59
I don’t think he was talking about tummy trouble!

Like all fantasy writers he loves technical terms; there are loads of hauberks, brigandines and gambesons, but he has a talent for using a flat word or a grand one at inappropriate moments, and it seems to me that he does not always understand the meaning of his words (or am I failing to allow for American usage here?). I can’t decide whether he has absorbed too many fantasy novels without attention or if he uses a thesaurus rather badly.
Upon his head was a helm strewn with precious jewels. Page 55 [studded, set or even encrusted with – but strewn suggests that they might fall off at any moment!]
Deep in Tronjheim, a drum gonged. Boom. Page 56 [gonged? A drum?]
In the center, on a raised platform, was a great crypt open to waiting darkness.
Page 57 [a crypt is an underground chapel or burial place – tricky on a platform. Does he mean a tomb or a sarcophagus?]
Turning to the podium, Nasuada gripped it on either side and looked up...Page 62 [Imagine the Olympic winners’ podium. It is a platform – no sides. He must mean a lectern.]

As you can see I have taken most of these examples from a few consecutive pages but it is all like this. I find the constant jarring of misused words and the constant need for translation such an effort that it destroys all my pleasure in reading. I doubt if I shall persevere through the next 568 pages and the threatened third volume.

I’m a reader not a writer and I don’t usually worry too much about style as long as the story is good enough to carry me along. I’ve read Terry Brooks, whose dull prose only comes to life when he describes a battle; David Eddings, whose coy American humour makes me cringe; and Robert Jordan whose overblown writing has filled eleven volumes of The Wheel of Time (so far - and that excludes the prequel) but I’ve never read anything which made me want to give up so early. Sorry, Jess! I tried.

Mrs Butler's Blog Number 14

Number 14 November 2005

At last, a book to give to fans of Witch Child! The sequel, Sorceress, was a bit too adult for many of the keenest Witch Child readers, but The Merrybegot by Julie Hearn may fill the gap.

I’m not sure if the word Merrybegot is an invention or a real rural superstition, but its meaning of a child born as a result of May Day merrymaking (frolicking!) sounds authentic or it ought to be. The other attributes of a Merrybegot as midwife to the fairies and protected by unearthly powers are the real concerns of this tale, which is set at the time of the Civil War, when the rise of the Puritans made it fairly hazardous to be involved with witchcraft.

The book is laid out in an intriguing way with the main story of Nell, the cunning woman’s granddaughter, interrupted by frequent remedies and spells, set in a wonderful typeface like ancient handwriting. Then it is framed and chopped up by another version of the story, (The Confession of Patience Madden), told by one of the vicar’s daughters nearly fifty years later in Salem. There are strong echoes of The Crucible in the witch-hunt and pretence of teenage hysteria – using the same sources, I suppose - but the surprise ending makes up for it all and Nell deserves her fate. By the end I was rather fond of the piskies - and the brown chicken.

Mrs Butler's Blog Number 13

Number 13 November 2005

I have done a lot of reading but I haven’t had as much time to record it now that I am back at school. So some if this may be a little sketchy because I can barely remember the
details.

You may recall the pack of Agatha Christies which was such a bargain from The Book People. All ten titles turned out to be Miss Marple mysteries – Miss Marple Pack, it said on the delivery label which may have been a clue. I dipped into The Thirteen Problems, which is a book of (thirteen) short stories, in which the finest brains are turned on apparently insoluble mysteries but they are all solved, in a very domestic way, by the old lady knitting in the corner.

I also read The Moving Finger, which by coincidence featured in a weirdly retro radio play about two batty sisters who run a ‘public library’ (afternoon radio can be as dire as daytime TV!). I noticed that it had been published in 1943, which explained why the very gentlemanly hero had to be a wounded pilot; I doubt if a non-combatant would have appealed to her wartime readers. It involved a small village, plagued by anonymous letters. Miss Marple only appeared at the end and it all ended happily with our hero marrying an etiolated half-wit – well, Christie laid it on a bit thick to make you think the girl might have been a mad murderess.

Mrs Butler's Blog 11

Number 11 October 2005

Surprise of the week: Very Different by Anne Fine.

I came back to school this week so there hasn’t been as much time for reading – or writing the blog – but I must tell you about this book. It has a very bright yellow cover with a cartoon-like face of a smiling gnome on the front, which suggests that this is one of Anne Fine’s books for younger readers. I found it in the Quickread section.

I am a passionate Anne Fine fan and I hadn’t read this one. It was a huge surprise. It is a book of very funny short stories; the first one is about a stolen garden gnome; in the title story a young couple try to get an abortion: another is about a boy’s difficulty in coming out to his parents – so, not a book for Year 7s after all!

I loved the one about a Scottish miner who cannot bear the idea of his son doing embroidery - his daughter can service the car so it’s a bit heavy-handed against gender stereotyping, but it is so funny that you won’t mind. (Anne Fine has always had a thing about the dumbing-down of what you learn in school. This story reminded me of a splendid diatribe in Goggle-Eyes, I think, when daughter says she’s got to wash her hair as homework because they are studying shampoo.) As well as the funny ones there is one truly creepy story and a sad one about the results of emotional cruelty.

By the way, I forgot to tell you that the gnome is wearing dark glasses. I didn’t realise the significance of this at first. You’ll have to read it to find out why.