Archive | January, 2012

Feminism and Jack the Ripper – a ramble through a disordered mind

31 Jan

I got yet another email last night accusing me of being ‘un-feminist’ because of my interest in Jack the Ripper and suggesting that I am contributing to the glamourising of what were clearly horrific crimes against women and subsequent fetishising of the victims. I say ‘yet another email’ as this isn’t actually the first time I have been accused of something along these lines and probably won’t be the last so I thought I’d publicly address it here or at least thrash it out in the open where you can all bear witness to my torturous thought processes and lack of any intellectual rigour.

I feel like I shouldn’t have to say ‘I’m a feminist’ because I don’t happen to think that’s how these things should work. I mean, I don’t have a very clear idea about what feminism is but I do have definite ideas about what it ISN’T. Or maybe I don’t. It’s all so NEBULOUS, you see. And also PERSONAL. All I know is that I am one. I suppose I’d feel the same sort of uncertain inarticulate mental stultification if someone asked me ‘Why are you a woman?’ I DON’T KNOW WHY. I JUST AM.

For the record, I also believe that not every woman is a feminist and that not all feminists are women. Make of that what you will.

However, unlike seemingly a lot of other people, feminism itself holds no fears for me. As I may have mentioned before, I was raised by my grandparents, both of whom grew up during the second world war and had, shall we say, rather NOVEL ideas about child rearing and, more crucially, femininity or rather the role of women. my grandmother was very fond of lecturing me about my ‘duty’ to any future husband (if I was lucky enough to ensnare one with my frankly limited charms because don’t forget I was ALSO getting regular bulletins about how unloveable I am too) and how I had to be at the beck and call of this draconian imaginary complacent entitled fuckwit and have his sodding dinner on the table when he got home from his bloody work and all sorts of nonsense like that.

However, luckily for me, my mother, whom I did see from time to time (although in a charmingly Catherine Cookson twist, I was raised to think that she was my sister – which gives me excellent fodder for my books as you can imagine) was what I consider to be Old School Feminist which served as an excellent antidote.

I love the way that whenever I feel stressed and unhappy, it is my grandmother’s voice I hear inside my head (not literally – I’m not certifiable), ordering me to clean and be obedient and subservient but when I’m feeling pretty good, it is my mother who inspires me. She’s pretty awesome and a great role model actually but I’ll talk about that some other time.

Now, before I go on, I did once upon a time announce that I wasn’t a feminist but in my defence it was said to someone who is not only as thick as mince but also well known for being a pompous buffoon fond of dreary, badly spelt self righteous pontificating and dismal condescending twaddle. They were spoiling for a fight and I was in a sufficiently bad mood to oblige. I felt bad though. I felt even worse when one of my very dearest friends jumped in to defend me against the inevitable attack. I am a bad person.

I’m not going to do that now though. Well, clearly I’m not.

The question about Ripperology and feminism does interest me though because it is something that makes me feel vaguely uneasy at times. I know that feminist groups have protested in the past about the Ripper exhibit at the London Dungeons and moved to have the name of the Ten Bells changed back again when it was briefly called the Jack the Ripper and that makes me wonder – am I the Enemy here? Am I the one using these horrible murders for entertainment and a bit of seedy gratuitous thrill seeking? Should someone be trying to stop ME?

I mean, I am not an academic and have no useful, official or sensible purpose to my interest in the Ripper case so does that mean I am being titillated by it in some way? Is this one of those situations where if you don’t have a good reason for being there, then you shouldn’t be there at all? I don’t think so – but then, for a start, I don’t see it as a game of whodunnit. As I have explained here before, I am not actually all that interested in unmasking the Ripper. Beyond a belief that he was a random nutcase and not the product of some macabre, internecine, Hollywood friendly conspiracy, I have very little interest in him at all. But even if I DID, would that mean that I am fundamentally some sort of raving misogynist? I don’t think so.

What I am actually interested in are his victims and their lives as they offer a snapshot into existences that ordinarily would be hidden from view in their own time and then lost to history. What happened to them was dreadful beyond all comprehension and I suppose I see it as my own personal mission not to forget them and to make sure other people don’t either. I also have a more underhand agenda of using their unhappy stories of relationship breakdown, dependancy, poverty and addiction to remind people of why we NEED welfare in this country. I’m always saying that I judge societies by the way they treat their weakest members and I’m afraid, based on the lives of Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman et al, I’m judging YOU, Victorian England, VERY HARSHLY INDEED.

Do I fetishise them? Well, I’d like to think that I don’t. The definition of fetishising is to hold an intense, excessive and irrational devotion to something. I don’t think that’s the case here. However, yes, I do refer to myself as a Victorian Prostitute Re-enactor and, yes, I am writing a book about the Ripper murders. The re-enactment is a sort of in-joke based on my previous experiences of re-enactment in my less creaky youth and also because one of my friends and I thought it would be fun to dress up in Victorian rags and hang around Whitechapel at night. I suppose there’s an element of reclaiming the streets there and also a nod to the fact that most re-enactment appears to involve men with long hair recreating past wars, bloodshed and hideous conflict so why shouldn’t we, as women, dress up to recall to mind our own bloody history or to show a bit of across the centuries solidarity with our unfortunate nineteenth century sisters?

I also like to dress in Victorian clothes and as I’m a bit scruffy, that’s always going to veer towards the more bohemian and down at heel styling, I’m afraid.

As to the book, well, it seems that what I like to write about are women, their relationships with each other and how they are affected by traumatic events. I’ll own up now that if you are expecting a big fat whodunnit and a dramatic unmasking at the end of my Ripper book, you’ll be sadly disappointed as the book isn’t really about him – it’s about the effect his actions have on the lives of a trio of fairly different young women and, in essence, explores more fully the ideas that I don’t really have the space or energy to expound in full in this here blog post.

In a nutshell then, I don’t believe that, done properly, Ripperology is intrinsically ‘un-feminist’ or women hating or misogynistic or using murder victims as some sort of bizarre historical snuff porn. Not all Ripperologists are the same though – some enjoy the thrill of the chase and get really, really excited about each and every new theory about the Ripper’s identity; others are in it because they like the whole ambience of gaslit, foggy streets (I’m pretty appreciative of this sort of thing) and others, like me, are interested in the social history and can barely bring themselves to look at the mortuary photographs of the victims. I’m ALL OVER maps and contemporary photographs of the actual area though.

I’m not being all holier than thou, though. Although I will tend to avoid most documentaries on the Ripper case, the deeply flawed From Hell is one of my all time favourite films. I don’t feel obliged to wholeheartedly LOVE everything about it though – the prettying up of what, and I say this as someone who has absolute respect for them, was a group of rather unlovely women makes me wince rather a lot and makes me wonder if it is more disrespectful to make someone more attractive than they were in reality than it is to show them in all their toothless, grimy, warts n all glory?

I think I’ve said enough. What do you think? Have you been grinding your teeth for months wondering if I am the sort of misguided female who writes love letters to serial killers on death row (I’m really REALLY not but as to whether there should even BE a death row, ah well, that’s a whole new rant really, isn’t it?) or if I have ANY IDEA how rampagingly misogynistic I am being by flouncing about the place rambling on about GIN and alleyways?

Anyway, I have other thoughts but my RSI wrist is telling me stop plus this is getting a bit epic now and is rapidly spiralling out of control. As always, I am reminded of the scene in Father Ted, where he accepts an award and gives the longest speech ever, being interrupted at the point where he says: ‘And now, moving on to LIARS…’ What do you think, anyway? Let’s have a chat about it. Or not. We could talk about something else if you like? Like the snow or what happened at the end of the last episode of Sherlock or how much the Daily Mail pay journalists to watch award ceremonies and premieres and look out for tan lines/price stickers on the bottom of shoes/bags under the eyes/spinach between the teeth…

Whitechapel 3, part 1.

30 Jan

I think it’s probably very well known by now that I am a MASSIVE fan of the ITV series Whitechapel as evidenced by capering around like some sort of idiot at the premiere of the last series and also my first and last foray into fan fiction, which I will probably regret linking to here.

The thing is that I don’t just love Whitechapel because it panders to my immense love of historical crime – I mostly just love it because it is set in my favourite place or at least the one where I feel the most at home because my family have been kicking their heels up around Spitalfields for generations so it feels like home to me as well. It makes me feel absurdly happy to see little snippets of local life in the series, from pissed off hipsters hanging about all night bagel bakeries to skittish Jack the Ripper tours walking the streets in search of a bit of authentic gloom to pie and mash shops with their interesting aroma of brine, sour tea and parsley. Or at least that’s how they always smelt to me when I was growing up. If I ever become so famous that someone gets me to make a perfume, that’s what it is going to smell of, plus a dash of GIN. I’ll call it Eau de 1888 and no one will like it except me.

Anyway, moving on! I’ve been so excited all bloody week about the fact that the third series of Whitechapel was starting to tonight and crikey it didn’t disappoint! I like to keep my reviews relatively spoiler free so I won’t go on about it but from the first mis-step in the draper’s shop onwards, I knew it was going to be awesome stuff.

Tonight’s episode was the first of two (out of a six part series) based on the infamous Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811. I guessed as soon as the new series was announced last year that this would feature this time around and was a bit nervous that there might be infanticide involved (I can’t bear to watch or read anything that involves harm to small children) but if you are anything like me then you will be no doubt reassured to hear that although the series is based on those famous slayings, the choice of victim is quite different. It’s still savage, horrible stuff although not so bad as the first series about a Jack the Ripper copycat on the loose on the streets of the east end.

There’s always been something faintly X Files almost about Whitechapel with more than a vague nod at the supernatural and down right weird, both in terms of ambience and plot. This was quite marked in the first series but rather less so in the second, despite all its talk of ‘the legend of the Krays’. In the third series though, they seem to have really gone for it and it is even more creepy than ever with the tension effectively heightened by the gloomy colour palette, speeded up camera work and general fandango and trickery which is borrowed more from the film version of From Hell than the ITV’s most famous cop show, The Bill.

There’s also an underlying wry sense of humour too, or maybe it’s just me who chortled at the nods to Rupert Penry Jones fan girling (like Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, he has a cow eyed girl in a lab coat fawning over him in a hopeful manner), the ‘ARE YOU GAY’ conversation between Miles and Chandler and other stuff. I also did a bit of ‘PICK ME! PICK ME!’ when they were talking about getting a historical police advisor person in.

Scoffers can scoff, but I think this series might be the best yet. I’m wondering what they have planned for the other four episodes though – maybe the Pinchin Street torso or is that just too macabre?

A dread and terrible Queen – the bust of Nefertiti.

30 Jan

‘As we have it the bust of Nefertiti is artistically and ritualistically complete, exalted, harsh and alien… This is the least consoling of great art works. Its popularity is based on misunderstanding and suppression of its unique features. The proper response to the Nefertiti bust is fear‘ — Camille Paglia (my mother’s heroine), Sexual Personae; art and decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990).

Almost unbelievably beautiful, her head balanced like an elegant flower upon a slender neck, the iconic bust of Nefertiti represents to the modern mind all the esoteric mysticism, beauty and glamour of ancient Egypt. Despite the fullness of her lips and heaviness of eyelids, there is nothing winsome or sensual about Nefertiti’s beauty, instead its symmetry has an almost chilling, unnerving effect that keeps us at a respectful distance.

According to the official accounts, the bust was discovered by a local workman attached to the team of German archaeologist, Ludwig Borchardt on the afternoon of the 6th December 1912, while they were excavating the remains of the deserted ancient city of Amarna, once the capital of the so called heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Queen, Nefertiti.

The find was made while they were excavating the remains of the house and studio workshop of the sculptor, Tuthmosis, who was responsible for some of the most important sculptures of the Amarna royal family. When the city was abandoned, he had left behind some unfinished, broken or unimportant pieces and it was amongst these that the bust of Nefertiti was allegedly discovered.

We can only imagine the excitement when the bust was brought to the surface and gently cleaned so that its beauty could be seen again for the first time in thousands of years. It must have been immediately clear that here was a piece of enormous significance. As Borchardt himself wrote in his diary afterwards: ‘Suddenly we had in our hands the most alive Egyptian artwork. You cannot describe it with words. You must see it.‘

What happened next is open to some debate – according to the rules of the dig, all artefacts found on the site were supposed to be divided between the French run Egyptian museum service and the excavator but, oddly, the French site inspector took a painted relief of the Royal family instead of the bust, which was clearly the star piece of the dig. There is some speculation about how this came to pass with many people theorising that the German archaeologist team had somehow contrived to conceal the value of their find, either by hiding its existence, taking an unflattering photograph that was shown to the inspector or covering it with mud so that Nefertiti’s radiance was dimmed and it looked like just yet another unimportant royal statue.

Whatever happened, the bust was duly presented to James Simon, the backer of the expedition to Amarna and didn’t go on public display until 1924 in the New Museum in Berlin – its existence having been kept secret at the insistence of Borchardt until a year earlier. The tomb of Nefertiti’s son in law, Tutankhamen had been discovered two years earlier in the Valley of the Kings and the world was still in the grip of a furious obsession with ancient Egypt when the bust went on display to a rapturous reception and went on to become the museum’s star exhibit.

Feeling somewhat hoodwinked, the Egyptian authorities demanded the piece be returned to them, which the Germans refused to comply with – only backing down when two equally celebrated pieces from the Cairo collection were offered in exchange. However, the exchange never took place, probably because of protests from the German people.

It was at this point that the story of the bust took a somewhat sinister turn, when it was hailed in the 1930s by the German press as one of the finest art treasures of Prussian Germany and a symbol of German national identity. It was, in short, their Empress. Hitler himself was completely enamoured with Nefertiti’s aloof, austere beauty, regarding her as one of his favourite works of art and describing her as ‘a unique masterpiece, an ornament, a true treasure‘ and befitting an entire new museum which would have her as its centrepiece – ‘in the middle, this wonder, Nefertiti, will be enthroned, … I will never relinquish the head of the Queen.‘ There was clearly no way that the precious bust was ever going to be leaving Berlin.

During the war, the museums of Berlin were emptied of their treasures, which were hidden in shelters for safekeeping. Nefertiti was moved three times – to the cellar of a bank, the tower of a Berlin bunker and then finally to a salt mine in Thuringia, where she was later found by US troops.

After the war, the bust was moved several times before finally being returned to the Neues Museum in Berlin when it was reopened in 2009, where she is one of the most important and best loved exhibits. The Egyptian authorities make regular attempts to have the piece returned to them, but it doesn’t look like it will ever happen as by now Nefertiti has a strong and certain place in the cultural identity of the German people.

Controversy will probably always surround the bust of Nefertiti – as well as debate about the circumstances of its discovery and then new residence in Germany, there have also been rumours that the bust is in fact an elaborate fake, either by Borchardt, who used his wife as a model for the piece or by Hitler, to hide the fact that the original sculpture had been destroyed during the war.

These allegations are extremely unlikely to be true as a CT scan has revealed that beneath the smooth, austere perfection of Nefertiti’s face there lies another face, of an older woman with wrinkles and a prominent bump on the bridge of the nose. It’s also been revealed that the pigments used on the piece are those employed by ancient Egyptian artisans.

It is believed that the bust was created in the Amarna workshop of Thutmose in around 1345 BC. It was carved from limestone and then coated with a carefully applied layer of gypsum plaster before being painted. There are no inscriptions to identify the sitter but it wears a flat topped blue crown that is usually associated with Nefertiti, whose name, fittingly, means ‘The beautiful woman returns’.

The bust is usually shown in profile, which both displays the elegance of that long slender neck and also conceals the unnerving fact that one of the Queen’s dark eyes is missing. After its discovery, Borchardt searched the studio for the missing eye but was unable to find anything and indeed it looks like the eye was never actually in place which suggests either it a disease or that the piece was unfinished or used to train novice sculptors in the application of inlaid crystal eyes.

It always strikes me as quite funny that a sculpture so revered throughout the world as a depiction of ‘perfect’ female beauty should be missing an eye and I like to imagine unwary tourists approaching it in a reverent hush in its case in Berlin and then jumping back in horrified revulsion when the truth is revealed to them.

To me, however, the beauty of Nefertiti is diminished not one whit or iota by her missing eye. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it makes her more approachable or anything like that, but I do like to think that there is something universal and international about her allure, in which case a missing eye just adds to her all encompassing charm.

‘The portraits of other queens of romance, such as Cleopatra and Mary of Scotland, are apt to leave one wondering where the charm came in about which all men raved, but no one could question for a moment the beauty of Nefertiti. Features of exquisite modelling and delicacy, the long graceful neck of an Italian princess of the Renaissance, and an expression of gentleness not untouched with melancholy, make up the presentation of a royal lady about whom we should like to know a great deal and actually know almost nothing.‘ — J Baikie, The Amarna Age: a study of the crisis of the ancient world (1926).

If you want to know more about Nefertiti and her enigmatic life story, I really recommend Nefertiti: Unlocking the Mystery Surrounding Egypt’s Most Famous and Beautiful Queen by Joyce Tyldesley.

Three thousand book sales

29 Jan

I found out last night that I have now sold over three thousand books! I know that this is the merest BAGATELLE to quite a few of you but I am feeling jolly pleased with myself right now.

I don’t often like to talk about my childhood and upbringing as they are more fitting for the pages of a Misery Memoir than what is supposed to be quite an uplifting and pretty blog, but suffice to say that I was brought up by my grandmother to consider myself very very stupid and untalented indeed while any belief in ‘specialness’ was literally beaten out of me. Attempts to talk about my ambition to become a writer were greeted with derision and mockery so it wasn’t something that I ever thought within my grasp and I duly filed it away as something that other, more fortunate, people did.

As is often the case with people who have had miserable childhoods and have zilch family support or interest, I did myself no favours at all and completely lost my marbles while doing my A Levels which resulted in my becoming pregnant in the middle of my second year at sixth form, effectively dropping out and completely putting paid to any lofty plans I may have had for my future. Thus PLAYING INTO THEIR HANDS.

With the benefit of hindsight I can see now that my grandmother was motivated by jealousy and feelings of inadequacy as well as purest personal dislike for the grandchild that had been foisted on her at just a few months old. That doesn’t stop me occasionally rolling her spiteful words around in my head when I am feeling low – ‘You’d be lucky if someone hired you as a cleaner’, ‘You’ll never amount to anything’, ‘NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU.’ It’s toxic and wrong, but I can’t help myself.

Anyway! It’s taken a long, long time but FINALLY I feel a little bit able to feel proud of myself. I’ve spent most of my life feeling really stupid and as if I don’t have any discernible talent, but at last it looks like I might actually be a bit good at something and that feels weird but nice. I ought to thank my husband for a lot of this actually as he is the first person I have ever met who made me feel like I could actually achieve something with my life and wasn’t actually stupid and hopeless at all thus breaking a cycle of picking boyfriends who treated me in the same way as my grandmother did and doing their best to cut me down. He’s been amazing.

I was terrified when I first published a book by myself – I was so sure that everyone would hate it and I’d be an object of ridicule but people have, mostly, been so very kind about it and I appreciate that SO MUCH. I am honestly SO grateful to everyone that has bought a copy and read it and even gone to the trouble to leave a review. It’s just brilliant of you.

Anyway, that’s enough of all that! There’s going to be a bit of a gap before my next book comes out but I’m working away on it! Progress is a bit impeded right now by the fact that my children are going through particularly demanding phases (this blog post has taken quite a few hours to write thanks to the continual interruptions – my writing fares even worse as they have the happy knack of waiting until I’m finally feeling my imagination soar before they interrupt and bring me crashing back down to earth again) and that due to personal and Boring Day Job reasons, my writing time is not exactly plentiful and I’m having to very sadly weigh up between Paid Work and unpaid writing. I’m doing the best that I can though and slowly but surely the word counts are ticking upwards…

I’m stressed though. Seriously stressed. I’m assured it will all be worth it in the end though.

In other news, lots of you have been asking if there’s any chance that I will be bringing my books out in a form other than Kindle. This is something I would like to do but only if I can produce books that aren’t heinously expensive for you to buy. If I can find a way to do it that means that you don’t pay more than you would ordinarily fork out for a paperback novel then I’ll get on with that.

Seeing as the children have momentarily stopped demanding things and appear to be happily watching a Harry Potter film, I’d best go and do some writing now, hadn’t I?

Thanks again! You’re all ace.

Dust and Shadow – Jack the Ripper v Sherlock Holmes

29 Jan

Haha, you thought I’d forget that Sunday is now Book Review Day but you were WRONG.

Thanks to the brilliant BBC series Sherlock and the Guy Ritchie films, there’s been a bit of a resurgence of interest in Sherlock Holmes lately and RIGHTLY SO because, let’s face it, Sherlock Holmes is brilliant and definitely the best Londoner, fictitious or otherwise, of all time.

I have read the original Conan Doyle stories several times since childhood and so have been feasting on more contemporary pastiches in recent weeks – namely Anthony Horowitz’s The House of Silk (which I won’t be reviewing here until Summer as I had to review it for somewhere else but suffice to say that I absolutely loved it) and Dust and Shadow by Lindsay Fay.

I wasn’t sure about reading Dust and Shadow to be honest as it is Yet Another Tussle between Sherlock and that other semi fictitious Victorian Londoner and dweller of gas lit foggy cobbled streets, Jack the Ripper which is fine if a bit done to death (Murder by Decree is the best in this genre) but I am writing my own take on the events of 1888 at the moment and have Rules about reading books set in the same period as the one I am writing about. I decided to ignore my misgivings though and give it a go, mainly because my own Ripper Book is absolutely NOT a whodunnit whereas Dust and Shadows plainly is.

Or is it?

The thing about Sherlock Holmes is that he speaks with such a marked, and easily sent up, idiom that you would think that writers would find it very easy to deliver a reasonable Holmes pastiche. Not so. The vast majority of attempts to replicate Sherlock Holmes are actually pretty ropey – either because they don’t try hard enough to capture the correct tone or, ironically, try far too hard. Horowitz manages it admirably in The House of Silk although at times I found his Holmes rather more reminiscent of the modern BBC version as played by Benedict Cumberbatch than the Conan Doyle original. Lindsay Fay’s attempt in Dust and Shadow isn’t quite so note perfect, but it is still pretty good.

I found the treatment of the Whitechapel murders interesting and suitably gruesome and the author had clearly done a lot of research. However, descriptions of the Whitechapel area itself didn’t always ring all that true to me but then if there is one place on earth (besides Revolutionary Paris) that I feel like I know intimately, it is 1888 Whitechapel so I think I’m probably quite hard to please in that respect!

There was the usual cast of Victorian miscreants, hapless street urchins, thugs and gin swilling tarts, which was great – my favourite character was the excellently feisty Miss Mary Ann Monk, who was a refreshing addition to the usual cast and brightened the book up no end whenever she made an appearance. I’d happily read a book just about her to be honest as I thought she made such a strong and intriguing character.

I’m usually pretty good at working out who the murderer is but I didn’t actually guess the Ripper’s identity until much the same time as Sherlock did, which was good as if there is one thing I hate, it is being a couple of steps ahead of Mr Holmes because, well, that’s just WRONG isn’t it? You’re supposed to have absolute faith in Sherlock Holmes’ sagacity and intellectual infallibility and that just isn’t possible if you’ve guessed the murderer four chapters before him.

In summary, this was a pretty good read if you’re in the market for a book about either Jack the Ripper or Sherlock Holmes or both and is perfect reading material for gloomy winter nights.

The Pleasures of Men – Kate Williams

22 Jan

‘Catherine Sorgeiul lives with her Uncle in a rambling house in London’s East End. She has few companions and little to occupy the days beyond her own colourful imagination.

But then a murderer strikes, ripping open the chests of young girls and stuffing hair into their mouths to resemble a beak, leading the press to christen him The Man of Crows. And as Catherine devours the news, she finds she can channel the voices of the dead, and comes to believe she will eventually channel The Man of Crows himself.

But the murders continue to panic the city and Catherine gradually realizes she is snared in a deadly trap, where nothing is as it first appears.
And lurking behind the lies Catherine has been told are secrets more deadly and devastating than anything her imagination can conjure …‘

The Victorians were really keen on microcosm paintings, panoramic views of their society crammed full of faces, stories and activity like so many over dressed ants all busying themselves at the same time. William Powell Frith’s amazing sprawling The Derby Day and The Railway Station are perfect examples of this particularly Victorian genre, where the viewer is invited to greedily observe everything, their eyes scanning the myriad of different faces, pausing here and there to ponder what their story is.

In recent years, the ‘Victoriana’ novel has gained popularity and almost become a genre in its own right. Like the microcosm paintings of Frith, there are rules to this genre, certain period set pieces that must be included, descriptions and observations of a more contemporary nature that must be made and they are invariably populated by a vast cast of characters, mostly incidental but who must be described in great and lurid detail.

The Pleasures of Men by Kate Williams is one such book. I was very much looking forward to reading it, anticipating something akin to Michel Faber’s brilliant The Crimson Petal and the White. Now, The Pleasures of Men is very similar to The Crimson Petal but only in so far as most other ‘Victoriana’ novels are – there’s the usual description of dirt, decay and damp. The wails of unfortunate babies follow the characters wherever they venture. People drink gin like it’s about to run out. There’s an awful lot of prostitutes.

There are other similarities – like Faber’s Sugar, Catherine, the heroine of The Pleasures of Men is damaged by her past and keen on feverishly writing down fantasies that involve violence, death, murder and destruction. Fascinated by a serial killer, known as The Man of Crows, she writes lurid accounts of his murders and eventually decides to venture out into the city at night to walk in his footsteps, believing herself ‘protected’ by the evil that she has always been told dwells inside her.

This was a complex and often deeply unpleasant book. I’ve seen complaints that it is over written and I’d be inclined to agree with that assessment but I believe that it is intentionally so. The writing is full blown, lavish, feverish and often over wrought, creating a really horrible, almost suffocatingly intense atmosphere of heat, dust and dirt as observed by a sexually obsessed, disturbed Victorian teenager who has spent time in a lunatic asylum.

The narrowness of a young Victorian girl’s life is well described here – not just that of Catherine with her peculiar circumstances but those of her over dressed acquaintances, who sexually torment their maids and fantasise about serial killers while slyly keeping watch for suitable young men.

At times though, the plot, which when you think about it isn’t really all that complicated (you’ll be disappointed when you discover the identity of the Man of Crows) veers not so much into confusion as into vague slapdashness, almost as if the writer herself lost interest about a hundred pages before the end (which was a bit of a damp squib all things considered) and decided that she didn’t care who the Man of Crows was or who he murdered any more. I can’t blame her for that – I didn’t really care either.

Would I recommend this book? Well, yes and no. If you are in the mood for a dip into the revolting iniquity of London’s east end in the 1840s and have a thing for Victorian asylums and the deranged meanderings of cooped up young girls as well as splendid Victorian set pieces like visits to pie shops, trips to gin dens and a splendidly disastrous visit to the vaudeville theatre then you’ll almost certainly love this. Otherwise you’ll probably start to feel a bit queasy and long for something a bit less histrionic.

Personally, although I did, I think, rather enjoy myself while reading it (and also feel slightly alarmed as I have written about similar themes in my own Victorian effort), I went off and had a long bath when I’d finished reading and splashed the water about a bit while muttering ‘A MILLION POUND ADVANCE? A. MILLION. POUNDS?’ over and over again until I felt like booking myself in for a nice restorative stay at Catherine’s lunatic asylum, the lovely sounding Lavenderfields.

Having said that, I fully expect this to be made into a film at some point in the near future…

Ps. Where is the woman’s right hand in the cover photograph? Haha, now that I have made you look, you will never be able to UNSEE.

Snakes and Bastards – I love you, Agatha Raisin

22 Jan

I have decided that from now on SUNDAY is BOOK REVIEW DAY here on my blog. I give it a week before I forget this resolution but let’s just roll with it while I am still all pumped up with enthusiasm, shall we?

Several people over the years have noted that my continued insistence upon using the word ‘shall’ is a bit odd, not to mention antiquated. Is it? Is it REALLY? No, of course not.

Let’s move on.

My love for Agatha Raisin began quite by accident. In that I liked the look of one of the covers and had also simultaneously come to the dismaying discovery that I am a bit too keen on what are dismissively known as ‘cosy mysteries’. You know the sort of thing – Rosemary and Thyme is a prime example of this genre as is, possibly, Murder She Wrote, although that can get a bit hectic at times, can’t it?

Unfortunately, being an INNOVATOR, I rather stupidly opted to read the most recent Agatha Raisin book first, scorning the notion that as it is a series and presumably in some chronological order, I ought to begin at the BEGINNING.

I regret this perfidy now, of course, but the damage has been done and I would urge you, dearest and in some cases not so dear, reader to BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING if you intend to read the Agatha Raisin series. It’s not a hardship, really – the first book is about her leaving her pressured job in London, taking early retirement and moving to the Cotswolds where in an attempt to ingratiate herself with the locals she decides to cheat in the local Quiche Making Competition. When someone is murdered with her quiche, it swiftly becomes clear that being suspected of murder by the villagers is far more preferable to them knowing that she cheated with *gasp* SHOP BOUGHT QUICHE…

I just typed ‘quiche’ so often that it has somehow managed to lose all meaning.

In my last post I absolutely URGED you all to add me on Goodreads and if you had done so you will have seen that over the course of the month between the 11th of December 2011 and the 12th of January 2012, I read FIFTEEN Agatha Raisin books.

I think it is fair to say that I rather enjoy them. I didn’t at first though. No. I was flummoxed by Agatha herself with her brusque manner, jealousies, vanity and bitchiness. What, I found myself wondering, are ‘bear eyes’ and how old is she meant to be, exactly? I came to love her though. She’s just so HORRIBLE and yet so sweet at the same time with her non existant social skills, embarrassment about her lack of cultural education and reliance on microwaved ready meals.

If you’re anything like me, which I sincerely hope you aren’t, then you will absolutely ADORE books with horrible characters in. The only reason I struggle through Jane Austen’s paen to the miserable existence of the dependent female, Mansfield Park, is for the sheer JOY of Mrs Norris. Likewise, Mrs Elton in Emma. Anyway, if you ARE like me then you will love the Agatha Raisin series as with only a few exceptions (the vicar’s lovely wife and the adorable Bill Wong), EVERYONE in these books is downright unpleasant. EVERYONE. It’s just glorious.

The most unpleasant of all to my mind are the men in Agatha’s life, who manifest like the most dreary and hideous game of Snog/Marry/Avoid ever. Seriously, her taste in men is DREADFUL. You find yourself wanting to reach through the page and soundly slap her while shouting ‘DON’T DO IT, AGATHA! THE GUY IS A PRIZE PLUM AND I SHOULD KNOW.’

You won’t find yourself taxed by the crimes being solved in these murder mysteries, but that doesn’t matter as what is on offer here is instead a smorgasboard of the divine Agatha and a bunch of really unrelentingly awful people. It seems to me like a collision between Midsomer Murders and Mapp and Lucia with surreal tinges of Joanna Trollope thrown in for good measure, which is just my sort of thing.

Anyway, if that sounds like your sort of thing too then I’d definitely recommend giving these a try. Personally I can’t wait for the next one to come out this September…

Kidneys, Thieves and Donne.

21 Jan

Hello! I hope you all enjoyed the plethora of scheduled posts that I arranged for this month so that I could sneak off and attend to some Serious Writing. They’ve run out now though so I’m back again, in body as well as spirit.

Before I continue, I’d just like to say a very profound and also gleeful THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who bought a copy of Before the Storm in its launch demi-week. It’s been selling brilliantly and the feedback I have had so far has been extremely encouraging! As you can imagine, bringing out a book is more than a bit nerve wracking but you’ve all been so kind, which has made the experience so much less hideous than it might otherwise have been. All it needs now are some reviews on Amazon and Goodreads… *hint hint*

Oh wait, reviews have appeared! Bless your hearts!

You can all add me on Goodreads by the way. If you WANT to, that is. Don’t feel like you HAVE to or anything. Did I sound a bit peremptory there? I do hope not.

Anyway! I have been busy writing, writing, WRITING this month (and also getting my hair cut, parenting, reading, KNITTING a Kindle case and possibly arranging getting at least one if not two kittens) about Henrietta and also my poor girls from 1888 and it’s been pretty good. I’ve bitterly resented the bits where I have had to attend to my actual day job but as I work from home it hasn’t been as bad as it could have been – especially as my smallest boy started pre-school at the start of the year which means I now get THREE BLESSED HOURS to myself every weekday morning. I’ve been ripping out chapters, adding extra bits and killing off characters before they’ve had a chance to let out so much as a strangulated squeak. Poor things.

Two things have happened anyway:

1. The seventeenth century novel is now just about Henrietta Stuart, who is, as an aside, my most delightful heroine to date. She’s just so darn sparky. I’m giving in to my love of metaphysical poetry with this one and have had people quoting Donne, which never fails to make my heart sing. I love Donne, don’t you? He wrote my favourite poem, you know.

2. I find that I am not very good at writing murder mysteries so have made the decision that the 1888 book is not going to be a whodunnit. Is it possible to write about Jack the Ripper without a bit of sleuthing? Well, we will see. I have already written the last two paragraphs where all or nothing is revealed and now have to kind of rush headlong towards that point. Isn’t that what Agatha Christie used to do? The book has the working title ‘Whitechapel‘, but somewhere along the line it decided that it wanted to be called ‘The Secret Keeper‘. I’m in the dark about what this actually MEANS but the book, as always, knows best, I’m sure.

RESEARCH is the thing that I love the best though. RESEARCH. I like to be hands on and actually GO to places (remember the incident with Pulteney Bridge when I was writing Before the Storm? Actually making an effort to visit the places that you are writing about avoids all manner of embarrassments) which means that I have to make some trips to London and Paris this year. Oh hardship. One of the trips is to see Hampton Court, which has been facilitated somewhat by an invitation to the press launch of their new exhibition about degenerate seventeenth century courtiers. I’ll also be at the press day for the reopening of Kensington Palace, which will be rather marvellous.

I also appear to have bought a ticket late last night to the 2012 Jack the Ripper Conference, which is being held in York. I know, I know. WHY is it not being held in Whitechapel? I grumbled a bit about this on Twitter and Facebook and seem to have aroused the ire of various York sorts, who didn’t realise that I wasn’t so much grumbling about WHERE it was being held but where it WASN’T.

Anyway, yes, on the anniversary of the Double Event, I will be at a formal dinner in York and surrounded by my fellow Ripperologists. It’s like the start of a particularly lively episode of Morse isn’t it? Except in York not Oxford, of course.

I also have to spend a bit of time in Whitechapel. This will probably involve booking a hotel near the Market and then staying up all night swigging gin, wandering around alleyways and taking photographs. It’s lucky that I have NERVES OF STEEL, isn’t it? I used to do that sort of thing rather a lot when I lived in London, slinking around alleyways and inhaling the sickly sweet scent of decay, bubblegummy joss sticks and spices…

Mmm, poignant decay.

Right, I should be off now to write some more while listening to Kidney Thieves ‘Before I’m Dead‘ on repeat because that, apparently, is how I roll. Or write. Or something.

I love insane lip synching fan videos on YouTube.

Oh wait, did I tell you all that I am going to see Emilie Autumn again this March? I did? Oh well. That constitutes research as well, right? I’m already planning my outfit…

Before the Storm, my homage to Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers is available for Kindle and its associated apps from Amazon UK and Amazon US for less than the price of a pint of GIN or an aspirational magazine or a REALLY nice tub of ice cream.

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