BOOK REVIEWS
I have dispensed with my 'Books of the Year' postings which covered the years 2009 and 2010, and now attempt to review a selection of books that I have read both good and bad, in editions old and new. Much of what I buy is often based on suggestions by others, or some train of thought that makes me think "maybe I should try..." so they are not necessarily all strange/supernatural fiction.
With many small press books costing around £35-£40 each, and some seemingly worthy tomes changing hands on the second hand market for many times that, these reviews may also give the potential purchaser some indication of what they might receive for their money. Needless to say, my opinions should not be given any great value as I bring my own foibles to every review and these may change at any time.
Julien Cracq 'Chateau d'Argol'
(Pushkin Press)
ISBN 978 1 901285 14 7 - 148pp
ISBN 978 1 901285 14 7 - 148pp
This is perhaps more a novella than novel and seems to be influenced by both the 'gothic' school of literature, especially Walpole and Poe, as well as the school of symbolist literature.
The Chateau is owned by Albert, a young man of prodigious learning and beauty who is visited by his old school friend Herminien and his woman friend Heide. This trio become very immersed in one another and, needless to say, it does not go well.
The above would imply that there is a plot of sorts, or incidents which drive the story forward but such concerns are not high on the agenda of Cracq who instead gives the reader what would be more akin to Gothic style prose poems. The forest surrounding the castle is a 'stifling cloak', 'a green abyss'; that 'must be alive'; bare rocks 'glint like ominous cuirasses' and rain sounds like 'crystalline purity'. Needless to say nothing is ever 'ordinary' and everything is something else.
At times this works very well; when the trio take a swim in the ocean and get the collective urge to leave the land behind forever the prose carrying both reader and swimmer is very evocative as they begin feel more at one in the ocean, but the relentless barrage of images and adjectives throughout the book as a whole begin to leave this reader wishing that all this would take us somewhere.
Once I decided that it was a tome to dip into and savour slowly, a chapter at a time rather than view it as a narrative, I began to enjoy it far more and ceased to wonder if all the symbology was actually a re-telling of the Parsifal myth as has been suggested by others.
I feel that this is a book that will divide its readers into the 'love it/ hate it' camps, but at only £7.00 for what is a small but nicely produced volume one can scarcely feel cheated.
The Chateau is owned by Albert, a young man of prodigious learning and beauty who is visited by his old school friend Herminien and his woman friend Heide. This trio become very immersed in one another and, needless to say, it does not go well.
The above would imply that there is a plot of sorts, or incidents which drive the story forward but such concerns are not high on the agenda of Cracq who instead gives the reader what would be more akin to Gothic style prose poems. The forest surrounding the castle is a 'stifling cloak', 'a green abyss'; that 'must be alive'; bare rocks 'glint like ominous cuirasses' and rain sounds like 'crystalline purity'. Needless to say nothing is ever 'ordinary' and everything is something else.
At times this works very well; when the trio take a swim in the ocean and get the collective urge to leave the land behind forever the prose carrying both reader and swimmer is very evocative as they begin feel more at one in the ocean, but the relentless barrage of images and adjectives throughout the book as a whole begin to leave this reader wishing that all this would take us somewhere.
Once I decided that it was a tome to dip into and savour slowly, a chapter at a time rather than view it as a narrative, I began to enjoy it far more and ceased to wonder if all the symbology was actually a re-telling of the Parsifal myth as has been suggested by others.
I feel that this is a book that will divide its readers into the 'love it/ hate it' camps, but at only £7.00 for what is a small but nicely produced volume one can scarcely feel cheated.
