Junk by Melvin Burgess

Title: Junk

Author: Melvin Burgess

Publisher: Penguin

Originally published in 1996

Pages: 278

Genres: YA fiction

Format: paperback

Junk = Heroin = Bliss = Despair = A love affair you’ll never forget

Tar loves Gemma, but Gemma doesn’t want to be tied down - not to anyone or anything. Gemma wants to fly. But no one can fly for ever. One day, somehow, finally, you have to come down. 

This is a very challenging book. Not because of the language, the language is very accessible. Not because of the storyline, the story is quite simple. It’s challenging because of the content. When I was a teenager I used to read a lot of books halfway through before abandoning them, and in this case that’s a very bad idea. The first half of this book gives the reader a romanticised view of addiction, the rock-and-roll lifestyle and idealised notions of living a life without restraint, answerable to no one. The second half displays, slowly, insidiously, and with a creeping sensation of eventual disintegration, the effects of addiction.

Books are amazing, and one of the things that makes them amazing is their ability to allow the reader to experience the experiences of others without actually going down that road for themselves. This is a book aimed at teenagers, and I ardently believe that all teenagers should read it, but I also believe that all parents should read it beforehand so that they are somewhat aware of the life lessons being taught.

The narrative format is first person and the chapters jump between characters. This gives a wide reaching view of the situation and, explores the ‘unreliable narrator’ convention excellently. In one character’s narrative they will swear blind to the reader that they would never use needles, in the next character’s narrative they describe watching the former inject themselves. This method is subtle, allowing the reader to come to steady realisations that the characters themselves are finding hard to face.

Everyone should read this book. If nothing else it introduces themes that most people try to avoid, it forces the reader to face an uncomfortable reality, that kids do make these decisions, they do get into these situations, and the more we talk about it the better our society will be.   

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.  

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.    

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.