'The Obligatory Awards List At The End Of The Year...'

It is a fun little time of year, is it not? – the time when, for some reason, critics and reviewers, both on the television and especially on the internet, all and perhaps even sundry decide to make these little lists of their favourite and least favourite things of the year. This year I shall follow in suit, but rather than do a little numerical hierarchy of things I liked the most, I shall just hand out a number of awards in my own categories to the things that I deemed worthy to receive them. The categories speak for themselves. The winning book will always be underlined, like this, to avoid any confusion. And remember, whereas reviewers generally just offer their own opinions in these sorts of things, I promise that everything written here is objective fact.

The Friendly Boffin Award for the Preeminent, Most Useful, but also Accessible Book in the Realm of Non-Fictitious History Award. Edward Gibbon’s six-volume Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a masterpiece of historical narrative and dry wit from the late 18^th century, does not stand a chance of receiving this particular award. It’s a shame, but it is a fact that no-one in their right mind would read Gibbon unless it was an integral part of their career to do so, and considering that I myself have only read a mere fraction of the total work, I can’t really disagree. The award then, goes to a wonderful thing that I found on the shelves of a popular High Street bookshop, and that thing might even be the founding stone of my future interests: Byzantium, by Judith Herrin. An interesting parachute history of the medieval Greek-centred Roman Empire, this book aims to bring to life a little known subject from the mists of time. Interesting and informative, but also quick and easy to read, it gives us a view of a world culture that few people (at least in western Europe and the Americas) know anything about, and in the interests of curing people of ignorance, this book goes a long way.

The Pants-Wetting Award for Scariest Book Ever Written Award. No, this award won’t be awarded to H.P. Lovecraft, and nor will it be taken by any of his Cthulhu-mythos imitators or wannabes, or Stephen King or James Herbert’s popular attempts to make people literally shit their pants out of terror for what they read on a page. Dracula? Don’t make me laugh! The only thing Bram Stoker achieved was to bore me stiff. Ghouls, ghosts, vampires, zombies; all are silly infantile things whose welcome has been overstayed for many many decades. Only one book this year has really honestly scared me, and it’s not something that many people would describe as a horror book. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Monsters do not exist. People, governments and organisations who want to maintain absolute control over an overgrown human population? They exist alright. Technology that allows them to monitor us and suppress our individual freedoms? That certainly exists. George Orwell wrote of a bleak near-future that seems all too possible, and maybe it didn’t happen in the year 1984, but the threat is looking more and more likely as time goes on, with the government and corporate spying and the erosion of democratic freedoms. That’s what should really scare people, not ghosties and ghoulies.

The J.R.R. Tolkien Award for the Unsurpassed The Lord Of The Rings Award. This is a custom-made award for a book that is deserving of its own mention, despite not receiving the Best Book of the Year Award. Naturally this goes to The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, a magnificent sprawling epic set in a beautifully written world of nostalgia. A conglomeration of fairy tales, a straight battle between Good and Evil, and a journey all across a war-torn world. I could call it a member of the Fantasy genre, but it feels somehow separate, as though above such an arbitrary definition.

The Greatest Thing Ever Written Award. There is no competition for this one. ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ by Margery Williams. A short children’s story about heartbreak and loss, the life of a toy rabbit who just wants to understand what it means to be real. An ideal litmus test to see if you have a soul or not.

The Shameless Plug Award for Most Excellent Recent Novel Award.

Something written in recent years by a still living author which might be worth picking up. This one goes to Gravedigger by Michael-Israel Jarvis. Some memorable characters, interesting premise, and a good story.

          Thank you mister Jarvis, you can hand me the cheque in the morning.

The Horrible Award for the Worst Book of the Year Award. When drawing up a short-list for books I’ve read this year that I did not like, I am glad to say that it was actually quite short. There are things I like more than others, but even with the others I can usually find something good to say about them; Paradise Lost, for instance, though I could barely understand it, had its moments of brilliance, and the subject matter and its immense role as a landmark in the history of writing means that I would never actually consider it for the reception of this particular award. In the end there is only one novel I’ve read this year that could be unashamedly condemned: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, by H.P. Lovecraft. When Lovecraft’s writings are good, they’re good. Alas, his first novel-length story contains everything that is bad about his writing style; dull, long-winded, lacking in character, and an unrelenting dream-like narrative that only serves to put the reader to sleep. Despite being only a very short novel, more of a novella really, reading it feels like you’re wading through treacle, without respite or distraction of any kind. It consists entirely of endless vague description, and contains not one single speech mark, thought or anything that would break up this monotonous prose, and as such it is as though the reader is pursuing shadows in a land entirely of fog. So many vague references to non-existent places and people, so many ridiculous names and concepts clutter the pages and paragraphs that our minds still reeling from a difficult narrative style are left bewildered and exhausted right from the beginning, and even if it had some artistic merit to it, which I am not saying it doesn’t, the fact that it is so bloody long saps any and all patience I could ever muster for it. It must be stressed that Lovecaft has written some very good things, but he was no super-writer who continuously spat out pure gold on paper, and at the end of the year The Dream-Quest takes the terrible biscuit.

The Most Prestigious Award for the Best Book I Read During the Year of 2013 Award. This is the big one, the one that every book is clamouring for, as it signifies their obtainment of my pseudo-divine favour. I’m going to have to tweak my own rules for this one, because there are actually two that are worthy of such a prize. They are Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, and The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Both are nihilistic post-war American novels, both are not too long, and both are harrowing soul-wrenching looks at the western world from the eyes of scepticism, and both have caused a fair bit of moral outrage from the conservative quarters of American society and beyond.

Catcher is a first-person account from a teenager called Holden Caulfield who is quickly slipping down the slope of depression and loss of faith in the world. He is aimless as he wanders around New York city, just trying to find somebody to talk to, somebody who will listen to him. The character is there, and his voice is there, and you cannot fail to be drawn in to his world. Slaughterhouse meanwhile is a distant and objective third-person view of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a prisoner of war who witnessed the massacre of an entire city. Displaced in time, Pilgrim is at the mercy of fate, and after surviving a plane crash he ends up meeting a strange alien race who tell him about new and peculiar ways to view life.

Why are these books good? It’s because they show you, without mincing words, just how strange and cold life can be. There are no rose-tinted spectacles for you to wear here; no rip-roaring plot, no incredible twists, no happy endings. Just Billy Pilgrim as he is jerked through time, between being a German prisoner of war and a then a husband, father and optometrist, and Holden Caulfield as he wanders aimlessly through uncaring city streets, just trying to find somebody to talk to. They are both incredibly human, remorselessly demonstrating that life is not logical, cosy, or a plot-driven fairy tale. You must read them both.

__________

If you wish to know any more about any of the books mentioned here, I have reviewed them all earlier this year - except for ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’, which I could not do justice even if I tried. If you still wanted to know more, then you could, y’know, actually read the book. In fact, why don’t you do that. Read every book recommended here (except for The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, which is sort of an anti-recommendation), and then see just how right I was about everything.

And so to wrap up, have a Happy New Year and all that jazz, and keep on reading.

Biblioption

Herrin, Judith. Byzantium – The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire. Penguin: St. Ives. (2008 [First Published 2007])

Jarvis, Michael-Israel. Gravedigger. Taravatara Publishing. (2012)

Lovecraft, H.P. The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath from Lovecraft: The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories. Penguin: St. Ives. (2005)

Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. Penguin: St. Ives. (1949)

Salinger, J.D.  The Catcher in the Rye. Penguin: St. Ives. (1951)

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord of the Rings. HarperCollinsPublishers: Hong-Kong. (1991 [First Published 1954-55])

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse 5. Vintage: Croydon. (1969)

Williams, Margery. ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’. Mammoth: Musselburgh. (1989 [First Published 1922])

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

‘Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused – in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened – by the recurrence of Christmas.’

          [Extract from: ‘Christmas Festivities’ by Charles Dickens]

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is an enduring cultural icon, adapted and parodied so many times over the past couple of centuries that we all know the story off by heart. There’s probably no need for me to summarise the plot here, but in case this review is all that remains of our civilisation in a dark post-apocalyptic future, I suppose I should make the effort any way.

There’s a tight-fisted old rich-guy called Ebenezer Scrooge, and it’s Christmas time in London. Scrooge hates Christmas, and seems to go out of his way to be nasty to people. One night, just before Christmas, Scrooge is visited by the tormented ghost of his old business partner Jacob Marley, who warns Scrooge to mend his ways. He is then pestered by three subsequent ‘Christmas Spirits’, the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future, and by guiding him through visions they manage to get Scrooge to lighten up and become a better person by the time Christmas morning opens up. A bad fate is averted, and we end with the words from Tiny Tim: ‘God Bless Us, Every One!’

           So what is the original book like? Well, it’s not that long, for starters. Just a short little novella which can be easily consumed in the run-up to Christmas day, with a mere five chapters to divide it up. The first chapter details Scrooge’s character, and the other people who pop into in his life, such as his long-suffering clerk Bob Cratchit, his nephew Fred, a couple of ‘charity workers’ cold calling to raise money for the poor, and the ghost of Jacob Marley. Each of the Three Spirits gets a chapter all to themselves, while the final section details the effects of Scrooge’s conversion on Christmas day, his making amends with the people he treated badly in chapter one, and general good cheer and joy, especially as Tiny Tim Does Not Die!

          The book itself is rather well put together. A fairly minimal approach from Dickens, with a simple premise that he does great work with. Scrooge really is presented as a piece of work, with such immortal words as “If I could work my will, [...] every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!” and, when asked to donate money to help the poor of London, who would rather die than work in semi-slavery at the workhouses, he responds “If they would rather die, [...] they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” He really is a nasty chap, is Scrooge, and it is no plainer than in the words of Dickens himself.

          Having set up our villainous protagonist, it’s up to Marley (Jacob, not Bob) and the three Spirits to break down his barriers and save him from damnation. The Ghost of Christmas Past is a strange, trippy thing whose physical appearance is psychedelically vague to the point of Lovecraftian, who takes Scrooge back into his past to show him, and the reader, the evolution of the boy into the dark-hearted man we know today. The Ghost of Christmas Present, a jolly beaming giant and self-contained temporal nightmare, reveals how all sorts of people celebrate a wholesome Christmas in the company of family and friends. Being the main body of the text, these two little journeys are really just a series of sketches, painted in the true Dickensian way. Verging on the point of waffly, fortune has it that the creativity and energy of the writing keeps the reader hooked on every detail of the proceedings, none more so than in the warmth of the Cratchit family home as they prepare and eat their Christmas dinner. I do not see how it is possible to remain unmoved by this particular scene, and the lavish description of the dinner itself made my mouth water more with each passing sentence, until I was drooling onto the very pages themselves. 

Scrooge is pretty much converted by the end of the tour with the Ghost of Christmas Present, but the penultimate section which shepherds in the Ghost of Christmas Future is a dark one indeed, and is necessary to deliver that last Knock-out blow. A silent, ghostly sort of ghost, the Spirit of Christmas Future shows Scrooge what will happen if he continues to be a nasty old skinflint and a miser; how he will die alone, his corpse being robbed even before it cools, while Tiny Tim Cratchit also dies, bringing grief to Bob and his family. It is a dark place for a Christmas story to descend to – alongside the section just prior, with the Ghost of Christmas Present, after showing all the joy and warmth experienced by so many people over Christmas, then reveals the two starved children he keeps under his cloak; symbolically named Ignorance and Want, while the jolly giant of a ghost uses Scrooge’s own nasty words to batter him into submission. There is no reason to suggest that A Christmas Carol is a wholly jolly sort of Christmas tale, and it is surprising that such a dark little story has become an integral part of our tradition. It may be to do with the happy ending; in the final chapter Scrooge is a changed man, being won over by the spirit of Christmas and resolving to make a better man of himself. He gives Bob Cratchit a long overdue pay rise, reconciles himself with his nephew, hands out money to the charity workers from before, and both he and Tiny Tim survive thanks to the old man’s change of heart. It is a classic in unambiguously happy endings.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, Artichoke sincerely hopes you have a very Merry Christmas. I know it’s corny to say things like that, but if we can’t be corny at Christmas then when can we be?

Bibliomas

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol – and Other Christmas Writings. Penguin: St. Ives. (2003 [A Christmas Carol first published 1843]).

The Maker's Bloodline: Land Rising, by Michael-Israel Jarvis

Michael-Israel Jarvis is an author whose career I have been following (and in some cases, possibly stalking) for some time now. His first novel, Gravedigger, I reviewed at the beginning of the year, and so in true cyclical fashion I’m now ending the year with his next book, the recently released and critically acclaimed* novel The Maker’s Bloodline: Land Rising. Young adult fantasy seems to be the genre of choice, and like his previous work it features distinct characters and a side-helping of horror and violence.

          The story opens with a young prince by the name of Fox, the lone survivor of a disastrous medieval-style battle. Running into a peasant girl called Kesta, who’s lost her entire family as a result of war, the two of them make their way back to Fox’s homeland, pursued by some dark and terrifying entity, while the back-story unfolds. The land is divided between a number of noble families, all with the names of animals; Fox belongs to the Fox family, and the war they’re involved in is against the Ox dynasty of the plains, whose ruler is out to make himself supreme master of all the lands. There are also a Tiger family and a Heron family who come into it later. Fox, however, seems to have been taken with a case of the ‘generic fantasy hero disease’, which gives him a mysterious origin, supernatural abilities, recurring nightmares, and a fate that makes him the last hope of defeating some random diabolical evil. 

          There are two simultaneous plot threads that run throughout the course of the book – the war against the Ox family, and the reawakening of some sort of evil god-like devil thing, whose minions are around causing havoc. The war with Ox takes secondary importance in the first section of the book, with the pursuit by the sinister Shadow giving the first few chapters a good level of tension. Even when Fox and Kesta reach safety, there’s always a sense that the evil has only been slowed down, not actually defeated, and this works quite well. As we get deeper into the story we learn more about the Ox situation, and the role of the battle that Fox took part in; the story subtly changes focus, bringing Ox into the foreground while the Shadow business takes a back-seat. Ox is far more interesting than the Shadow, for even though he only appears one time in the story, he’s an ever present part of the tale; a cruel warlord who seeks nothing except to expand his own power, and will use any means at his disposal to achieve that. There are a couple of scenes of war-planning and intrigue in the first half of the book that paint a vivid image of just what is happening in the wider world, and its effects on all the characters involved, all adding up to create a neat and accessible story.

          The characters are possibly the greatest strength of the book, whilst also proving to be a critical weakness of the work as a whole. The two protagonists are undoubtedly Fox and Kesta, our young heroes who have to save the world and defeat the baddies Etc. Etc.  Fox is not difficult to describe; you’ve seen him hundreds of times before, the emotional teen hero who has a destiny, vulnerable and human but somehow managing to be completely on top of the situation. His magical abilities tend to make all scenarios less threatening, and he so neatly fills the ‘good guy fantasy hero’ side of the spectrum that he might as well be made of porcelain. There’s just no real originality to him – we’ve all seen this character, the young champion with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and due to his aloofness he doesn’t even attempt to grab for our sympathies; he just demands them as a matter of course. If he were on his own it would only end up with a dull, lifeless novel, but the more adequately fleshed-out supporting characters, aside from being more interesting, end up highlighting just how uninteresting the Fox character is.

The other main character, Kesta, who we meet not long after Fox staggers into our vision, is in my mind the real protagonist. She doesn’t have all the waffly back-story or the ‘destiny’, but is just a poor girl who ends up way out of her depth. Unlike with Fox, we’re planted straight into Kesta’s head and see most of the action from her eyes. She doesn’t really ask for our sympathy, but she’s far more deserving of it. They eventually pick up a couple of other characters, far more interesting than Fox, such as the Tigress Taneshka, a very forward, independent young lady with a grasp of interesting weaponry – there’s an additional supporting character who appears rather late in the story, of whom I won’t give too much away here other than to say that they do make an interesting and energetic new addition to the cast.

          So perhaps we should talk about the emotional content of the book. Of course Fox and Kesta are bound to fall in love. Two characters in a novel who are young, opposite genders and in no way related can’t really get away with not falling foul of the ‘star-crossed lovers’ shtick, can they? The romance in the novel is a subtle plot device, tender and not overstated very often, but all throughout the plot are sickening overtones of modesty. Needless to say it’s all a case of ‘he loves her, and she loves him; it’s bound to happen sooner or later’, and it’s impossible to not see the vague outline of a cliché dancing off into the distance. The narrator follows just about everybody’s thoughts and feelings, Kesta’s, Taneshka’s, Fox’s, and whoever else happens to be in the same room at the time. I can’t help but feel that the narrator is a little too omnipresent throughout the book; being able to hone in on all the major character’s feelings and moods makes the whole thing generally less engaging. A plot is better when the focus is narrower; when we have to understand characters by what they say and do rather than just being told on every page precisely what they’re feeling.

          I like the fact that, despite the animal labels of the various factions, that the Ox was chosen as the villain, rather than the Tiger, or the Bat or the Wolf or the Siamese Cat – you don’t tend to associate Oxen with villainy because it hasn’t been done to death, and it does create an interesting personality for the villain of this story. The only trouble with this is that the names of the two major players sound very similar: Fox and Ox. Ox and Fox. Fox, Ox, Ox, Fox, Ox, Fox, Ox, Ox. Do you see my point? Well, as I was saying, the Ox/Fox dynamic is rather interesting. Unfortunately there are a couple of mentionings of a Wolf family, including right at the beginning, and me suspects that someone called Wolf is going to become much more apparent villain should this book spawn a sequel. The presence of a long title with a colon in the middle does rather suggest that this is going to be the case, to say nothing of a teaser at the end of the book. Don’t you miss the days when every book was a self-contained story, that didn’t build itself on the appeal of promising future adventures? Oh well.

          Last thoughts on the matter; whereas Gravedigger was a fairly original and engaging piece of Fantasy literature, The Maker’s Bloodline: Land Rising falls down in several major areas: a generic moody hero protagonist, overly liberal use of narrator for explaining character motives, and a deferred story. Good points include decent supporting characters, a nice overall pace, and a good setting. Michael-Israel Jarvis has already proven in Gravedigger that he’s a competent and talented writer, and it’s a little disconcerting that he should produce The Maker’s Bloodline: Land Rising as his next piece of work. We can hope for better things from him in the future.

* As a sort of a critic, I can acclaim this if I want to. Just by writing a review I’m acclaiming it, aren’t I?

Bibliostan

Jarvis, Michael Israel. The Maker’s Bloodline: Land Rising. Taravatara Publishing. (2013)