I try and stay 'au courant' with the writing of my favourite authors. And Ian McEwan is up there in my top 5. Periodically I google to make sure there are no titles that have slipped me by. I was intrigued to find this book listed and investigated further. Well, I really loved this book. You could view it as an adult book for children, or a children's book for adults. The boundary between the two genres is completely fuzzy. One story, The Cat, stands out as the celestrial gem around which the other astral bodies of this small constellation of stories cluster......
Peter Fortune is a quiet boy with a busy head. His teachers think he's dull, staring off into space all day, but he has nothing worse than an excessive imagination. He is a daydreamer, a quiet ten year old who can't help himself from dropping out of reality and into the amazing world of his vivid imagination. His world seems limitless - think of infinity and double it. In his dreams he fends off wolves, wrestles with dolls and exposes burglars with the aid of that perfect wonderland haven - a real mousehole. He can magically become a cat, or a baby; he even spends a few traumatic moments as a grown-up. Trying on all these lives for size is both flighty and educational: when he infiltrates the black fur of the family cat - after a brilliant unzipping scene in which the pair swap bodies - he enjoys a day of gorgeous feline laziness and fierce nocturnal vitality. As a baby he drowns in banana and plastic toys and comes to see the narrowness of the huge little boy (himself) who is being so unfriendly. These imaginary journeys leave Peter bruised but wiser.
In the end the book ends well, with an uneasy waking-up scene that both embraces and celebrates an authentic adult impulse. In a parody of Kafka's Metamorphosis, Peter wakes after a night of troubled dreams to find himself transformed into a 21-year-old. This happens during the holiday in Cornwall where the children - the Beach Gang - have been having adventures while their parents plan the barbecue. The Kafka echoes reinforce the sense of alienation: it is as if all adult life were a treacherous setback. And, at first, Peter is bemused. But then, in a lovely turnaround, he finds himself trembling in a railway tunnel with a 19-year-old girl called Gwendoline ('Morning sunlight, broken by the leaves of the apple trees, bobbed about her shoulders and in her hair'). Unimaginable pleasures rush upon him, and he hits on a big truth: that even adults have secret dreams. Suddenly the grown-up world, which all along has seemed a diminished version of the fantastic imaginary places, doesn't seem so bad after all.
Acknowledgements to The Independent review of The Daydreamer.
The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson
"This novella began as a Dare.
Hammer Horror used to be a part camp part scary British Horror Movie outfit that made Draculas and Frankensteins’s and classics like My Wife The Zombie.
Hammer dropped down dead for years and was assumed buried, but was lately revived by entrepreneur Simon Oakes who made Woman in Black and Let The Right One In.
They decided to start a publishing deal with Random House. Simon said to me: You lived near Pendle Hill didn’t you? Write me a novella about the Lancashire Witches.’
Nuts, I thought. And then I did." Jeanette Winterson.
Good Friday 1612. Pendle Hill.
A mysterious gathering of thirteen people is interrupted by a local magistrate. Is it a witches’ Sabbat?
In Lancaster Castle two notorious witches await trial and certain death, while the beautiful and wealthy Alice Nutter rides to their defence.
Elsewhere a starved child lurks. And a Jesuit priest and former Gunpowder plotter makes his way from France to a place he believes will offer him sanctuary.
But will it? And how safe can anyone be in Witch Country?
Brilliant writing, spare yet descriptive and so full of atmosphere and chill. Loved it.
No comments:
Post a Comment