Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs

As the novel opens Jacob Portman is just a rich American kid with an eccentric Grandpa, Abraham, who backs up wild tales of his youth with a few weird looking photographs. These date from the Second World War when, as the only survivor of his Jewish family in Poland, he was placed at Miss Peregrine’s orphanage on a remote island off the coast of Wales.

Abraham is suffering from paranoia, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, and one day Jacob finds his Grandpa dying from horrific wounds. His parting gifts to his grandson are some enigmatic last words, an old letter from Miss Peregrine, and the box of photos.

Suffering post-traumatic hallucinations and nightmares Jacob gets a shrink who concludes Jacob is obsessed with his Grandpa’s mysterious past and would benefit from a trip to Wales to confront reality.

So the action switches to the Island of Cairnholm where Jacob discovers the derelict, bombed out orphanage, yet more photos, and crucially a time portal that allows him to step back into September 1940 when the establishment was in full swing and occupied by real life children with peculiar talents.

But they are under threat from both the Luftwaffe bombing raids and their more eternal enemies – the ‘hollowgasts’ -  and Jacob’s own undiscovered talent is needed to help defend the Home for Peculiar Children.

The first person narrative takes the story along briskly, and though possibly aimed at the older teen fiction market, the use of vintage photographs throughout makes it enough of a curiosity to interest adults as well. The downside of the photographs is an occasional contrived reference but this does not detract from the story or the overall appeal of the book.

Death Comes to Pemberley – PD James

Yes it’s that Pemberley, country seat of Darcy and his wife Elizabeth (nee Bennet) of Pride and Prejudice fame. The couple are well settled and have a couple of children by now, but their idyllic existence is about to be intruded upon.

A violent death occurs in the grounds; and Darcy’s old enemy, and now his shamed and shunned brother-in-law, Wickham is involved. This creates conflicted emotions with personal antipathy struggling against family honour.

This gives a lot of scope for Darcy to stiffen his upper lip, for the family servants to display commendable loyalty, and for Elizabeth to simper about from good sister to bad sister via sweet sister-in-law, while ensuring the house is kept up to scratch.

The crime investigation is minimal, no Adam Dalgleish here, instead a Justice of the Peace and Coroner just ask a few questions and assume that those interrogated are either telling the truth or are lying for good honourable reasons, and so should not be pressed further.

A trial takes place, enlivened by a late revelation, and eventually the whole truth comes out as those in the know don’t so much spill the beans as spoon them out carefully, strictly on a need to know basis.

It is an interesting curiosity of a read; those more familiar with Pride and Prejudice may get more out of it than a one-time reader like me. PD James clearly enjoyed attempting to write in the style of Jane Austen, and I for one do not begrudge her this indulgence.

Gone With The Wind (volume 1) by Margaret Mitchell

The journey

Part of the America 1850 reading journey

How it got on the shelf

It’s a bit of a mystery as no one in the house will own up to buying it, but it has been there a while, intimidating in its bulk and close knit print in this 1996 (60^th anniversary) paperback edition. It probably arrived as a second hand, but clearly unread, makeweight in a buy three for a pound offer; picked up due to its inclusion in both the BBC Big Read best 100 novels of all time and the Channel 4 books of the century list.

The Review

This thousand page blockbuster is helpfully split into two volumes, which will allow a two part review. There may be some spoilers below but the main story will be familiar from the film and, of course, history.

Volume 1 is very much the story of southern belle Scarlett O’Hara, eldest of four daughters of Gerald and Ellen. He of rough and ready Irish extraction, she with French ancestry, which gives Scarlett unrivalled beauty dangerously mixed with a belief that life is for living and convention is for others. Life on the Tara plantation suits her down to the ground as she keeps all the young beaux dancing to her tune, although the only one she really wants (Ashley Wilkes) is proving resistant to her charms.

The war with the North is coming, but the South’s preparation more resembles that for just another, if rather large, summer ball – what colour uniform should the Georgia cavalry wear, and should they let the ‘poor whites’ join, even if their horses are a bit of a disgrace? Indeed much of part 1 could be mistaken for a haberdasher’s manual as organdie, muslin, lace, silk and taffeta combine to great effect (in the ladies’ dresses rather than the gentlemen’s uniforms).

The coming war produces a scramble for husbands and, despite a desperate last ditch attempt by Scarlett (witnessed by the dashing, if socially unacceptable, Rhett Butler), Ashley opts for another. Scarlett settles on the rebound for an unlikely alternative but her marriage proves short-lived though productive, leaving her a widow and single parent at just 17 years old.

In part 2 Scarlett, restless at Tara, takes up an offer to move to the bustling town of Atlanta, moving in with Ashley’s wife, Melly and her aunt. As the war cranks up and the Yankee blockade begins to bite Scarlett is distressed at the consequent shortage of new dresses and hats with even ribbons hard to come by. Not to worry, for Rhett Butler, now  a ‘blockade runner’ is able to keep her well supplied, tempting her out of her widow’s weeds and wheedling his way into the ladies’ society.

By part 3 the war dominates as the confederate army struggles and is driven back towards Atlanta. Reality finally hits Scarlett as she is pressed into helping at the hospital and keeping the home going with Aunt Pittypat, as useful as her name suggests, the increasingly pregnant Melly, and of course the last remnants of their loyal  ‘blacks’ . These latter are treated throughout a bit like favoured household animals for whom affection is held but who need to be scolded and occasionally beaten for their own good.

When the unthinkable happens and Atlanta falls Scarlett needs all her innate Irish practicality, independent nature and sheer cussedness to get her though some tough situations (with a little help from Rhett before he, better late than never, heads off in support of the now lost cause). Scarlett heads back to Tara with her motley crew, not knowing whether it will still be standing, whether her family will still be there or how they will survive. Her transformation is illustrated through her reckless exposure to the elements and the ever present danger of freckles, and the selfless destruction of her petticoat to provide a halter for a stray cow encountered on the journey. More dramatic trials await her at Tara.

By the end of volume 1 the war has been lost and along with it the comfortable plantation life, the cotton crops and worst of all the youth of the South; will Ashley and Rhett be numbered among them?

The Cat’s Table – Michael Ondaatje

On the ocean going liner Oronsay, the Cat’s Table represents the opposite end of the social scale to that of the Captain and his dinner guests; and this is where 11 year old Michael takes his meals during his three week voyage from Ceylon to London, where he will be reunited with his mother.

His fellow diners, as well as some interesting adults, include two boys of his own age with whom he soon forms a companionship based on a shared appetite for adventure and mischief; which without any meaningful adult supervision (it is the 1950s) they are able to indulge to the full.

The story is related by the adult Michael looking back with a mixture of nostalgia and hindsight, and as the book (and the voyage) progresses the lives of the adults on board take on more significance than the boys’ pranks. The fellow cat’s table diners, crew members and others on board form an eccentric bunch, with rich seams of adult experience for the boys to mine.  

As the book delves into their lives, and into more recent events in Michael’s life, its pace drops to a meandering reflective stage almost mirroring some sort of mid-voyage doldrums.

Just as the reader begins to accept that the book is no more than an enjoyable series of episodes and character sketches, the pace picks up again with moments of tension and glimpses of potential resolution that last to landfall in the Thames.

The sense of time and place and the unfolding of chance encounters carry the narrative along effortlessly, even though little happens most of the time. But how little is needed to disproportionately affect us at an impressionable age?

As Ondaatje says “it would always be strangers like them at the various Cat’s Tables of my life who would alter me”.

The Evil Genius – Wilkie Collins

The title seems at first a bit of a misnomer. There is no wicked mastermind at work here, all the damage is caused by unwise love and misguided good intentions. This does not diminish the melodrama that is Wilkie Collins’ familiar house style; but it places the reader in unfamiliar territory without clear villains to hiss and heroes to cheer.

Instead we have a (so far) upright husband, the good wife and their precious child; then the young, vulnerable but pretty governess arrives (not the wisest appointment as pointed out by the opinionated mother-in-law). Things happen, as things will, and suppressed desires emerge and moral dilemmas multiply with the involvement of the brother, the lawyer and the philanthropic but mysterious ex-sea captain.

It is an intellectual challenge to keep track of who knows what about whom as paths criss-cross with folk popping in and out of doorways in the various locations – Scottish estate, seaside guest house, London hotel – missing each other narrowly to keep the tension high.

The challenge emotionally is with whom to sympathise, as the balance of blame shifts about with the vagaries of human behaviour, all too often at the bidding of their ‘bad angel’ – presumably the evil genius of the title.

So although lacking the high criminal drama of ‘The Moonstone’ and ‘The Woman in White’, this still draws the reader into a gripping story of uncertain outcome.

The Blackhouse – Peter May

DI Fin Macleod returns to work in the Edinburgh Police following a personal tragedy only to be despatched to the Isle of Lewis to assist in enquiries into a gruesome murder. Not only does the crime resemble an unsolved case he investigated recently, but he was born and bred on the Isle, so he knows the turf and can speak the Gaelic.

However it has been 18 years since he quit the island and though many of his generation remain they have changed as well as him. As Fin unpicks the crime’s motives and opportunities, some threads lead back to the time of his youth, causing him to recall and relate the events of his formative years.

The contemporary murder investigation combines satisfyingly with the coming of age tales through well-crafted linkages. The Isle of Lewis is lovingly described, with the wide open landscapes and huge horizons contrasting with the claustrophobic nature of island society, where secrets are held close, strangers are mistrusted and returning exiles resented.

Added into this is the strange (and apparently authentic) custom of an annual expedition by a select group of men to cull or ‘harvest’ two thousand young gannets needed to prepare the local dietary delicacy of ‘guga’. Fin’s one and only involvement ended in tragedy, and this year’s trip, almost due, may have a bearing on the case.

The various ingredients provide a heady mix of topography, mystery, nostalgia, loss and redemption. It is well written and richly layered with an exciting climax and resolution uncertain until the very end.

As the first part of a trilogy it will be hard to follow, but harder to resist.

Ladies and Gentlemen by Adam Ross

Read as part R of the “Along the Library Shelf” reading journey

Chosen because

My eye was drawn by the unusual cover showing a hotel door handle, complete with hanger displaying the book title rather than Do Not Disturb. A peek inside revealed a collection of short stories (not previously featured in the journey) and the opening pages of the first one soon hooked me in.

The Review

The seven stories, ranging from 14 to 60 pages, show slices of contemporary middle income life in the USA.

In ‘Futures’ a job interview has an unexpected outcome. In ‘The Rest of It’ and ‘When in Rome’ professional men move out of their comfort zone into murkier depths of society. The prospect of an extra-marital adventure arises in ’Ladies and Gentlemen’, as in ‘Middleman’ does the chance for an adolescent to finally connect with an out-of-his-league dream-girl. ‘In the Basement’ questions whether beauty is only skin deep and ‘The Suicide Room’ draws some college kids into dangerous territory.

These well-varied story situations are used mainly to provide a stage to examine a range of personal relationships and interaction; as such not all have a neat resolution, indeed some are left deliberately, and not inappropriately, ambiguous.

The prose is sharp and the dialogue particularly authentic, which makes for a satisfying read in bite size, meaty chunks.

Read another?

It would be interesting to see his style and characterisation operating in a full length novel, so I will look out for ‘Mr Peanut’.