Moments of madness

Books on similar themes have a habit of arriving like buses. Hot on the heels of Writing Therapy, came Black Boxes by Caroline Smailes and Marie Strachan's The Earth Hums in B Flat. They couldn't be more different but both explore how mental illness can affect more than the individual concerned and rebound on others. Both are extremely accomplished novels by writers I shall most certainly keep an eye out for in the future.




Having said that, both made me wonder whether I am cut out to be a book blogger because I find it harder and harder to enthuse even though I couldn't ever think of being alive without reading fiction. Maybe I'm getting too old or maybe I now view novels more through a writer's eye than that of a reader. Whatever the reason, I find that I am am more and more picking on the negative aspects rather than the impact of the whole novel--a case of no longer being able to see the wood of accomplished writing for those niggly trees. I find myself underwhelmed by novels that other rave about and I wonder what the heck is wrong with me that I have to be so critical. (It's not as if I rate my own writing any more highly. Far from it. Someone once called me a bread-and-butter novelist and I know exactly what they mean.) Perhaps I'm reacting the way editors or agents do when they first pick up a submitted manuscript or have lost the knack of being a real reader.



Then again, every so often a novel comes along that squashes my inner editor flat and allows the joyful reader in me to have fun so that I find I'm not looking for problems but being swept along by a great storyteller. I'm reading one of those at the moment and will blog about it when I've finished it. (Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, published at the end of the month.)



But back to the two novels in question. I enjoyed The Earth Hums in B Flat the most. What follows is the review I wrote for Amazon: Gwennie is a young girl growing up in the nineteen-fifties in a close-knit North Wales community, dominated by the chapel and its strict moral code. She is highly intelligent, but naive. When a man goes missing and is later found murdered, Gwennie believes she can solve the mystery. However, her actions cause problems in unlikely places and she soon discovers that truth can be dangerous and that secrets are best left hidden. Novels told in the voice of an imaginative girl on the cusp of adulthood are popular with novelists. (Indeed, we even get the 'first period' trauma for good measure.) I can see the attraction of such a narrator because she enables the writer to set up a complex narrative where the difficulties, complications and compromises of adult life contrast with the black and white simplicities of childhood. And there is much to admire here. The sense of time and place are beautifully created and some characters are freshly drawn; such as Gwenna's grandma and the wonderfully ghastly Alwenna. Gwenna's father is also a fine creation because he is not a caricature, like most of the men in the village. There is plenty of humour in the darkness. The Sunday School scenes were very funny indeed. However, I noticed some flaws. Gwennie's naivety and imagination are refreshing at first but soon become irritating, then tiresome. For such a bright girl she quite often seems stupid. Did she really think that Mrs Evans had already been to the dentist? Even had she not known the expression 'black dog' couldn't she have worked out what it meant in context? Her literal interpretation of some things sits awkwardly on the shoulders of a girl who is an avid reader and has a vivid imagination. And I've read too many novels about fey girls who believe they can fly. I understand such 'out of body experiences' can occur at moments of distress in a young person's life but I could have done without it; it isn't necessary. The darkest secret in the novel comes to light when the children are taught at school about genetics and the way eye-colour is inherited. I know for a fact that this subject was not part of the school curriculum until later decades. And even if it was taught, surely the teacher would be aware of the can of worms she was opening in such a tight-knit community? I also felt the pace of the novel began to sag in the later parts. Maybe this was because its development was too slow and then suddenly, all revealed in one big lump when Aunty Sian tells the family story to Gwennie and her sister Bethan. (In fact, she has no other purpose in the novel.) And that's it, basically. It sort of fizzles out after that. Having said that, this is a first novel and I shall certainly look out for Mari Strachan's writing in future.



Caroline Smailes's Black Boxes is another matter entirely and to be honest I struggled to get through it. The main character is Ana. She is suffering from severe depression and sits in her room doing nothing but mulling over her failed marriage and the fact that her husband has left her for another woman. Meanwhile, her two children, Pip and Davie, are left to their own devices and suffer accordingly. In fact, this was the hardest part of the novel for me because I'm one of those people who feels physical and mental anguish when I read about children suffering in any way for whatever reason and I really had to steal myself to continue reading. And rightly or wrongly, notwithstanding the emotional abuse Ana suffered, I found myself wanting to scream at her, even though I know only too well how depression turns the best people into selfish miseries. It happens but it's still difficult to empathise with a fictional character who behaves thus. The author took a brave decision but that doesn't make it any easier to read.



But then, why should writers care what readers think about their own characters? Discuss...



Caroline is to be congratulated for sustaining a novel, not only through such bleakness but by experimenting with language and metaphor. The title is both literal and metaphorical. The boxes are real enough but also remind us of the flight recorders in all aircraft containing all the minutiae of a flight which can later be analysed when the plane suffers a disaster. So, Ana pores through the minutiae of her marriage looking for the reasons why her marriage crashed. Her daughter, Pip, keeps a secret diary which is her own black box. And because Ana demands silence in the house Pip and Davie learn to communicate in sign language. So, as well as a story of a breakdown in human relationships, this is also a novel about communication or the lack of it. This may be the reason why the novel doesn't flow well and is broken up into short jerky passages as well as the sign language. But this, in turn, makes it difficult to read. I'm sure this is deliberate but it demands oa lot of a reader. And this one didn't have the patience.



Maybe I'm just the wrong reader and not clever enough for it. After all, I have read quite a few reviews from people who clearly don't share my difficulties. I do like to read a novel that sustains me and (am I so shallow?) entertains me, even if that entertainment makes me think. But I did find it a bit tricksy and too clever for its own good, as my mother says of anyone more intelligent than she is. Therefore the fault is all mine and I apologise here to Caroline for not being bright enough to appreciate what she has written.