What I have been reading

Once again, a weird combination of books - one extreme to the other I must say. On the other hand, a distinct lack of non-fiction in this group... not to say that I haven't been reading non-fiction, just that I haven't finished any in say, the last two weeks or so. I just wanted to indulge myself in the world of not-here, you know? Also I should note that there could be spoilers here. I'm not very good at working out whether I've written a spoiler or not I'm afraid.

I finished Barbara Erskine's Daughters of Fire about a week ago now. The book was leant to me by my mother and as a result when I picked it up I was ready for a little trashy indulgence, a little bodice-ripping, and some general escapism. "Ooh yeah!" I said "Bring on the indulgent trash!"

As in all of the Erskine books I have read, the story hinges on supernatural possession by a strong female figure from England's past. In this book it's the Celtic warrior queen Cartimandua. An historian writes a book about the queen and is then possessed by her spirit through the medium of an Iron Age brooch called the Cartimandua Pin. Two other people are possessed by other figures from the Cartimandua story as a result of handling the Evil Pin. Everyone hangs out in Iron Age forts and the country and two people try to record a radio play and the historian's boss isn't impressed by the main historian character's historical methods (understandably) but really he's just misguided and secretly in love with her but can't work it out because she was best friends with his wife who died of cancer.  A student has a crush on the main historian and takes her home to meet his mum who turns out to be a nutter. Some of the people from the past who are possessing the future-people are evil. Some are just misguided, and desperate to tell their true story (although why they waited almost 2,000 years I have no idea).

I wasn't expecting an work of high art, but I was disappointed nonetheless. I became unbelievably frustrated as the story constantly repeated itself and some serious editing wouldn't have gone astray/ It rather seemed as though the author desperately wanted to write a story about Cartimandua but had got stuck in a weird thing where she didn't feel as though she could just commit to writing a historical romance and was padding out the bits she really wanted to write with some "present day conflict". Furthermore, there was very little bodice-ripping, and a little more wouldn't have gone astray during some of the more tedious inter-possession scenes. I mean, really, write for your audience. I couldn't recommend this book to anyone with a clean conscience. Kids, don't do it.

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And this morning, I've finished Hodd by Alan Thorpe. This was a library book, so I was reading against the clock (also it was stupid heavy to carry around in my bag and I was over the shoulder pain).

In Hodd, Adam Thorpe is essentially offering a reconstruction of the Robin Hood story. The text itself is posited as a rediscovered post-World War I printers proof of a translation of a badly copied medieval Latin text (so: a text within a text within a text). Something po-mo is going on here. I would draw some superficial parallels with Coetzee's Foe, but I'm afraid I would expose the fact I haven't read Foe for sometime now and the comparisons would be very superficial indeed.

The main character is the nameless Author, and the text is the Author's written confession. The main part of this confession is the Author's involvement with Robert Hod's (Robin Hood's) gang, the violence and heresy that he participated in, and his attempts to expose these aspects of the myth - the twist being that his involvement (as a minstrel) was what perpetuated the Robin Hood "jolly-jolly fighting for the Poor" myth in the first place.

I love stories about myth construction and myth-origin and as a result, I was biased towards this book from the start. However, despite it's cleverness it was genuinely interesting. The writer's attention to historical detail was so complete that it didn't come off as belaboured at all - and in terms of writing with a historical bent I think that's deeply admirable. READ IT, DARLINGS. Unless you really hate footnotes.