The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin

Title: The Dispossessed

Author: Ursula Le Guin

Publisher: SF Masterworks

Originally published in 1974, in Great Britain in 1999

Pages: 319

Genres: Science Fiction

Format: Paperback

The Principle of Simultaneity will revolutionise interstellar civilisation by making possible instantaneous communication. It is the life work of Shevek, a brilliant physicist from the arid anarchist world of Anarres. Shevek’s work is being stifled by jealous colleagues, so he travels to Anarres’ sister-planet Urras, hoping to find more tolerance there. But he soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game. 

This is my favourite book of all time, and I can read it again and again. Every time I read it there’s more and it is utterly unputdownable. So where to start? The most fascinating element of this book is the stark difference between the society on Shevek’s native Anarres, with its anarchist state, and the more familiar capitalist regime on Urras. Shevek travels to Urras and as a foreigner entering a world that to the reader makes sense, his experiences shed light on the absurdity of our own system. This is an exploration of how an anarchist state might exist on a large scale and just by presenting an alternative Le Guin has fundamentally changed the way I look at our world. 

That’s not to say that Anarres is presented as perfect, there’s a sinister undercurrent there too and the planet itself requires more help to function than the neighbouring Urras. One of the best things about this book is that nothing and no one is presented as perfect. Shevek is the hero of the story and he is irresistibly likeable, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t make mistakes or behave badly. As a reader we follow him through a huge culture shift and that change does bring out the worst in him at times. He is an alien, and yet utterly human at the same time. 

(at this point I opened the page at a random point, started reading, and then suddenly realised i’d lost half an hour) 

The only draw back of this book is that it takes two or three chapters to get into. The style is jarring at first and I think that initially one has to muster some determination to carry on. That’s it. The only downfall I can think of. Get through the first three chapters, the rest will follow and you will be well rewarded. Le Guin is a creator of worlds, and in this she is masterful. If you read to broaden your mind, if you read to learn what questions are the right questions to ask, then you must read this book. 

I am yet to read a science fiction book not by Le Guin that I can place in the same class. Dune by Frank Herbert might do it, but as i’m still reading that one we’ll have to wait and see. 

Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper

Title: Beauty

Author: Sheri S. Tepper

Publisher: Gollancz (Fantasy Masterworks)

Originally published in 1991

Pages: 476

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction

Format: Paperback

On her sixteenth birthday, the princess Beauty sidesteps the sleeping curse placed upon her by her wicked aunt, the fairy Carabosse - only to be kidnapped by visitors from another time and place, far from the picturesque castle in fourteenth century England. 

She is taken to the world of the future, a savage society where, even amongst the teeming billions, she is utterly alone. And as she travels magically to places both imaginary and real, Beauty eventually comes to understand her special place in humanity’s destiny. 

I love this book. It has mixed reviews elsewhere, but I think most of those come from people who found the time-travelling element confusing. The way I approach time travel in books is to accept that after every instance both myself and the character will take at least a couple of pages to find our feet in the narrative again. Personally, any book that takes one of the most helplessly inanimate heroines of our past, and gives her agency, purpose, and power, gets my immediate approval.  

In this book traditional fairytales are worked into a new tapestry that reaches far back to our past, and reveals a disturbing future. With a clear feminist and environmental agenda the book avoids the lure of the soap-box and instead drives its messages home through compelling narrative leading always towards a foreseen eventuality. However, although the eventuality of mankind is foreseen, Beauty’s journey is not as it zig-zags through time and ventures into faerie realms. 

Beauty herself remains believable as a starry-eyed fifteen year old right the way through to exhausted old age. She is not perfect, indeed she is delightfully cunning and manipulative, and at different points takes on many of the different roles assigned to women in fairytales. She is also the victim of violence and sometimes its instigator and enabler, this book is not gentle but stark, uncompromising, and often grotesque, all without lessening the wonder, magic, and inherent romance of the story. 

This is a book that you can gobble up in any place, at any time. Take it on holiday with you or on your work commute, the story will carry you through wherever you are. I will issue a healthy warning, the future that Tepper paints is grim and the images conjured in my mind while reading those passages have stayed with me. This is definitely an adult book, and I would strongly advise reading it first before handing it to any young person.  

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Title: Pale Fire

Author: Vladimir Nabokov

Publisher: Penguin Classics

Originally published in 1962

Pages: Either 27, 97, or 334

Genres: Poetry, poetic commentary, criticism, 

Format: Paperback

The famous American poet John Shade was murdered in 1959. This book contains his last poem, Pale Fire, together with a foreword, a lengthy commentary and notes by Shade’s editor, Charles Kinbote. Known on campus as the ‘Great Beaver’, Kinbote is haughty, inquisitive, intolerant, but is he - can he possibly be - mad, bad, even dangerous? As his wildly eccentric annotations slide into the personal, he reveals perhaps more than he should about ‘the glorious friendship that brightened the last months of John Shade’s life’. 

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain 

By the false azure in the windowpane; 

I was the smudge of ashen fluff - and I  

Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.

This is a book that appears different from every single angle. The poem, by the character John Shade, is beautiful, moving and intensely sad. It is the grief in verse of a father who lost his daughter to suicide, and can be appreciated as a stand-alone piece. If one reads the commentary and notes by the character Kinbote we begin to see Nabokov’s criticism of literary critics emerge. Kinbote hijacks the poem entirely, making it a history of his so-called home country Zembla. There’s a dark humour here, a bitter reflection held up to those who read literature with a pre-set agenda, to those who re-write the book according to their own bull-headed interpretation. 

The title of the book, Pale Fire, is taken from Timon of Athens (Act 4) 

… the moon’s an arrant thief, and her pale fire she snatches from the sun. 

With this in mind it’s almost necessary to view Kinbote as the thief, taking Shade’s poem and redirecting the light for his own purposes.  

Pale Fire is, in my opinion, a literary middle finger held up to the criticism levelled at the artist. It is entertaining, it is grotesque, it is marvellous. The two characters live beyond their written words, coming to life in the mind of the reader as two men. Shade: the artist, the grieving father, patiently humouring his nutty neighbour. Kinbote: the eccentric professor, obsessively seeking validation for his powerful delusions. 

This is a book that you can dip in and out of. If you enjoy literary puzzles, and often approach a book like Sherlock Holmes would approach a murder investigation, then this is totally your bag. If you’re looking for a poem rich in imagery and pathos, then this is also your bag. If you are up for reading a book that you can laugh along with in the face of human absurdity, then again, this is for you. 

Personally I enjoyed reading about Pale Fire as much as I enjoyed reading the book itself. This is not what I would call a holiday-pool-side-read.

The Red Tree by Shaun Tan

Title: The Red Tree

Author: Shaun Tan

Publisher: Lothian

Originally published in 2001

Pages: 28

Genres: Children’s Picture Book

Format: Waxed Paperback

Sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to

This is a remarkable book. Too many adults ignore the children’s section of the bookshop, thinking that there’s nothing there for them, believing that whatever concerns a child will never be of concern to an adult. This book proves how false that notion can be. In just 122 words Shaun Tan captures the essence of depression, despair, hopelessness, and finally renewal. I would say that the real magic of this story is in the pictures, but the art and the words form something of a symbiotic relationship, existing to supplement each other. 

Each illustration depicts a new world that might reflect our surroundings or the inner workings of our brains. They are abstract enough to be somewhat universal, and detailed enough that you’re sure to spot something new every time you look at them. 

I was introduced to this book in the first Children’s Literature seminar at Glasgow University. We looked at several illustrated children’s books and discussed them all. I was initially disturbed by the psychologically challenging content being aimed at children through The Red Tree, as I had previously associated children’s books with charmed escapism into a world where all is simple and happy. But let’s face it, whether it’s because of their own mental challenges or because of external factors, a lot of kids experience childhoods filled with anxiety and stress. It’s somewhat refreshing to pick up a children’s book that doesn’t seek to patronise the reader. Instead it acknowledges the universal difficulties that people everywhere face at different times, displays the various emotions connected with these feelings, and ultimately reassures.   

After my initial response I kept being drawn to this story, and I eventually bought myself a copy as I realised that this is one of those books that is universal and therefore belongs on every bookshelf. It is art of both the most simple and the most complex variety.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Title: The Giver

Author: Lois Lowry

Publisher: Laurel-Leaf

Originally published in 1993

Pages: 179

Genres: YA, Science Fiction

Format: Paperback

Jonas’s world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear or pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the Community. When Jonas turns twelve, he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now it’s time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back. 

The Giver is set in a dystopian future where the residents of the community take pills to suppress their human emotions so that they live a life of control, free from complication. Don’t worry, i’m not giving anything much away by telling you that, it’s the events that happen beside that point that drive the narrative. Jonas is, like many heroes from the ‘coming of age’ convention, singled out as special. The role that is assigned to him is assigned to no others, and the previously selected children have failed. As one might expect, Jonas succeeds where the others have not. 

Lowry’s book does not challenge the format of many books aimed at young adults. We follow Jonas as he sheds the simpler life of his childhood and begins to shoulder the responsibilities of his future. What is different about The Giver is the concept. The concept and the emotional, psychological empathy that the book demands. For such a narrow volume it packs a lot of punch, and it withholds just enough about the state of affairs at the beginning, that Jonas’s revelations become our own. 

On the surface this is not a complicated book. The ending remains pleasantly ambiguous, and can lead to some interesting discussions, but aside from that very little is left up to the reader. It is, instead, philosophically intense. Those who want a good, compelling story will not be disappointed. If you’re like me and you also like to read into texts and engage in analysis, then you’ll find plenty to draw upon. The depth of this book depends on the reader and so definitely falls into the category of YA fiction that will continue to appeal to a much older audience. It’s one you can go back to and it will reveal more every time. It’s also short, so if you find yourself with a free Sunday and feel like indulging by spending the day curled up on your sofa with a good book, this is one that you can get through entirely before dinner time.

Placing it in a wider literary context The Giver conforms with other YA books of the darker variety by centring upon a community where the adults in charge have fallen short and are not to be trusted. Lowry’s book can therefore be placed alongside His Dark Materials (Pullman), the Harry Potter series (Rowling), The Hunger Games (Collins), The Wind on Fire (Nicholson), and many more. 

Definitely read this book. It’s well worth the few hours that it will take you. 

The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick

Title: The Iron Dragon’s Daughter

Author: Michael Swanwick

Publisher: BCA

Originally published in 1993

Pages: 343

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, an alchemical fantasy

Format: Hardback

A dragon is sent through Dream Gate to raid the lower world and harvest mortal children. The child is claimed for the good of the state… 

Thus the life of Jane, changeling child, is shaped. Enslaved in a workhouse that manufactures iron dragons, terrorising engines of war, one day Jane finds a grimoire holding the secrets of the dragons’ sentience. So she escapes with an iron beast, unaware that his is her fate.  

Perpetually bound to the dragon, Jane’s adventures as thief and outsider are set in a world of rich, wild magic, one where spells hexes and all manner of faerie sorceries interweave with the sharpest edges of technology. And as Jane’s life unfolds, The Iron Dragon’s Daughter reveals itself to be a rattle bag of glittering tales, layer upon layer of fables, nightmares, advice columns, passions and loves, lies and deceits. 

A cornucopia of phantasmagoria… Part classic fantasy, part Charles Dickens, part Brothers Grimm… Michael Swanwick’s The Iron Dragon’s Daughter is simply brilliant, one of the most unique novels written under the banner of fantasy fiction.

This was an incredibly challenging book to approach and I still feel that i’ve failed to grasp it in some fundamental way. Then again I think that’s intentional. Just as I felt that I had settled into the rhythm of the story the sands under that falsely conceived conviction shifted and left me sprawled in some unknown territory. But the book led me onwards, relentlessly onwards, like the dark fate that propels Jane through Swanwick’s world. 

This book was recommended to me as supplementary reading for the Fantastic History of the Twentieth Century course that I took under Dr. Robert Maslen at the University of Glasgow. He assumed that those taking the course would have read the mainstream classics, and so set us challenging literature that would extract us from our fantasy comfort zones. Twenty-one years ago it was nominated for the Arthur C. Clark Award, the Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, and for good reason. 

The Iron Dragon’s Daughter takes traditional fantasy of the Tolkienesque mould and turns it on its head. Yes there’s a dragon, but it’s a sentient war machine built from cold iron by child slave labour, to be broken by technology and magic for the purpose of war. The heroine is a complicated and pleasantly immoral changeling girl, displaced from her home universe through human trafficking. She succumbs to the sinister flattery of the dragon, Melanchthon, and together they orchestrate their own displacement through a daring escape. In this world magic and technology exist side-by-side, dependent upon one another. It is a universe complicated by species from all magical writing, and throughout Jane is disappointingly, compellingly, triumphantly, human. 

If you’re looking for a book that will class as ‘easy reading’ or ‘escapism’ this is not it. For all the fantasy elements I couldn't help but see this book as our own world reflected back to me from the shards of a shattered mirror. At once beautiful, sad, and foreboding. 

It is a book that I will recommend to anyone who is not scared by the prospect of being challenged. And I would say that of all the books I read throughout my years at University, this is the one that continues to intrigue me.    

Publishing and the Tech Industry

The battle between Hachette and Amazon has been raging for almost a year and it may take as long again to reach a resolution. I am a Literature graduate who wants nothing more than to make my way in the publishing industry, but I previously worked at a tech company where developers laboured over innovative solutions to historic problems and congratulated themselves daily on being the future. 

My partner is a developer, he scoffs at my enormous book collection and if he had his own way would pair our furniture down to a sofa and a series of interactive screens. This being the case I straddle the line between the worlds. I write books, I paint, but I am also designing a computer game using entirely digital media. 

Now the publishing industry desperately needs developers on its side if it’s to survive, an uncomfortable fact for some die-hard book lovers to accept, but a necessary one. The problem is that developers feel that the publishing industry has allowed itself to die, and they’re now awaiting its inevitable descent into history. To them Amazon is progress. Self publishing is progress. To a lot of developers the internet has removed the need for many traditional institutions. 

I argue that quality control has its place and so does the recognition of art and the ability to invest in the important works of the future. They argue that internet consumers provide all the quality control a product needs, that if a book is good the internet will hear about it, if it’s bad it will disappear into oblivion. I happen to think that the publishing industry can adapt to incorporate the internet as an essential medium, and that a middle ground will be reached. The fact is that this battle between Amazon and the main publishers: Hachette, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Penguin Random House, needs to be fought before a way forward can be forged. These publishers are trying desperately to catch up after some bad initial decisions, like forfeiting control of the price at which ebooks could be sold through Amazon, the devastating mistake that has spawned these disagreements.   

When the dust settles the publishing industry will have no choice but to embrace the developers and hack a solution out of this technical thicket. Unfortunately, while publishing houses are beginning to recognise the need for in-house developers, the current job descriptions being drafted and released confirm how out of step the industry is with the turning tide of future economics. 

For instance, any developer will laugh at the idea of accepting a job in London for 18-24k a year. The technology industries are on the up, and as a result their wages reflect this. A publishing house would have to look seriously at doubling that figure to attract a quality developer, and it would have to put up a fight for them as well. 

To make things worse most developers will not take a job in publishing for their love of books and literature. It’s a cut-throat world they live in. Developers have to hone their skills regularly to stay ahead of the curve and this means paying attention to current and future technological trends. Anyone who allows themselves to fall behind are left behind, as the Pirate Code would have it.

If the publishing world is to adapt in this changing environment, it is going to have to invest real money in developers. There will be no sympathy, and they will not be persuaded to help otherwise. 

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Title: Dracula

Author: Bram Stoker

Publisher: Penguin Popular Classics 1994

First Published 1897

Pages: 449

Genres: Gothic Horror, Vampire Literature, Horror Fiction, Invasion Literature, 

Format: Paperback

Dracula is a unique horror masterpiece and the most famous of all vampire tales. 

Few readers will ever forget the nightmare atmosphere of Count Dracula’s sinister castle in Transylvania, the prowling of the Un-dead, the blood-curdling tension as Bram Stoker’s tale races towards a thrilling climax. 

Dracula recounts the struggle of a group of men and a woman - Dr. Seward, Dr Van Helsing, and Jonathan Harker and his wife Mina - to destroy the vampire, whose sinister earth-filled coffins are discovered by Harker in a ruined chapel adjoining Dr Seward’s asylum. Cruel and noble, evilly and fatally desirable to women, Dracula possesses a terrifying lust for power and, like Dr Jekyll or Conan Doyle’s Moriarty, is one of the immortal fictional monsters. 

This book is a romp. I’m not usually one for the hysterical gothic novels, they’re a bit too full-on for my cynical sensibilities, but Stoker managed to contain this epic in a way that others (Matthew Lewis The Monk) failed to. I bought it in a charity shop for £1, it’s a battered old paperback with 449 yellowed pages, which made it feel a bit daunting even to me. I could, however, barely put it down. It opens with this intriguing, and traditional for the era/genre, statement:

How these papers have been placed in sequence will be made clear in the reading of them. All needless matters have been eliminated, so that a history almost at variance with the possibilities of latter-day belief may stand forth as simple fact. There is throughout no statement of past events wherein memory may err, for all the records chosen are exactly contemporary, given from the standpoints and within the range of knowledge of those who made them. 

The narrative then proceeds as a series of letters and diary entries by the novel’s protagonists, supplemented with the occasional newspaper clipping. Through this format the characters remain distinct and appealing, and, considering the era in which it was written, somewhat believable. I mention the era because one can’t read this book without recognising the historic themes at play. Blood transfusions are carried out without any attention to blood groups, sexist views and brainless chivalry are rife. The only recognisably erudite Vampire is Dracula himself, who appears in the first accounts as a lonely aristocrat. The other Vampires that we see are female and they’re much more recognisable as lacking humanity:

She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there… the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy’s sweet purity.

Which goes along with the Victorian idea that good women lacked any sexuality and were pure and virginal. Obviously this affliction doesn’t affect the Count to such a degree, so he can blend in with greater success. 

Despite these historical factors I enjoyed the tension of the plot, the constant stalling before the conclusion, and the final, inevitable, outcome. I read it mostly out of curiosity, a book like Dracula needs very little in the way of introduction as it has been immortalised by canon and the character adapted into so many new forms that we never go more than a few years without a new version of the original Vampire coming to our attention. The media having recently been through something of a Vampire Renaissance, I couldn’t help but wonder how our fascination had begun. 

How had we got from blood sucking aristocrats to sparkly floppy-haired teen American heartthrobs? It’s quite a leap after all. 

I was surprised by the lack of sexual themes, the book is not a romance, it is horror. I think that considering the recent successes of Twilight and True Blood it’s easy to assume that a Vamire themed book will involve scenes of a sexual nature, but Stoker’s work steered well clear.

If you, like me, are interested in the path of literature from The Count to Edward Cullen, then it’s definitely worth a read. If you can laugh at the ernest silliness of the plot then you’re in for an exciting ride, accepting that the conclusion is from the offset a forestalled inevitability. If you’re looking for literature that will challenge your brain and your perception of the world, then look elsewhere. 

How I went to Hogwarts... and what happened after I graduated

Like most people of my generation my first experience of genuine heartbreak came when, aged 11, September the first rolled on by without any sign of my letter from Hogwarts. I waited by my window that whole summer with bated breath, scanning the horizon for any sign of a largish bird that might be carrying the news that I was not ordinary, that I was talented, that I was magical. So instead of beginning High School with excitement and anticipation, I began it with a lump of broken heart in the pit of my stomach that added a bitter twang to the reality that I, Emily Grenfell, was nothing more than a muggle.

This experience is one I have come to accept as formative in my teenage development. I tasted absolute rejection early, and every setback from then on was a mere hiccup in comparison. The dream and the hope that was Hogwarts would never be my reality, but that did not mean that I couldn’t replicate it as closely as possible. When it came to choosing what Universities to apply to I found that I had the opportunity to make a decision for myself, and I chose to go to Hogwarts. 

My applications, then, consisted of what universities boasted adjoining castles. I applied to Durham, St Andrews, Edinburgh (this one is not technically in a castle, but there is one right there that you can look at) and Glasgow. Luckily for me I ended up at Glasgow, and the turreted Gothic architecture boasted quadrangles and cloisters, marble staircases and oak paneling that satiated even my thirst for a magical educational experience. 

This method of selection may appear ridiculous, a childhood fantasy indulged for a little too long coupled with an overactive imagination that may have led to a very bad decision, if it weren’t for one brilliant fact: only good universities have castles attached. 

Think about it: in every large town there are a few universities, a primary one and one or two secondaries, and you never find a secondary university in a castle. A classic example is Oxford and Oxford Brookes, Oxford was a dream too far for me, and Oxford Brookes lacked the architecture I needed to function on an academic level, so the Oxford option did not look great. As it was I ended up in a first rate Russell Group University, studying under some of the most respected academic minds in the world, and did I mention the turrets? 

For me the Hogwarts dream was one I made my reality as soon as I had the agency to do so, and I’ll never look back. Unfortunately, however, I had to graduate. It's an uncomfortable reality to face for someone like me, but last year it happened and after the reading frenzy that was my final year had passed I was faced with previously unknown freedom. I started reading books that i'd always wanted to read, books that as a Literature student I probably should have read, but no reading list called for them and no time permitted, so they've, until now, been neglected. 

This book-review blog will be varied and eclectic. I will explore my new found freedom and, hopefully, entice some of you to join me along the way. I might, at times, delve back to my years of study and review a book that is well worth revisiting. I will, always, be exploring literature from all genres, from Gothic Horror to Children's Literature to Romance to Sci-Fi to the Romantics. I may at times delve into deeper literary analysis... I don't plan to do this, but as a recent graduate writing about literature it's something of an occupational hazard! 

My aim is to read as widely as possible, so if you're searching for inspiration, if you're on the hunt for a book that is nothing like you've ever read before, you might just find it here.