The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Publishing a novel in 2009 about the fictitious writing of a novel which exposes the injustice of the treatment of black women in the 1960’s was always going to cause mixed reviews, but particularly so given the controversy surrounding the author herself. Stockett is a white woman from the Southern states, imitating a cliched thick dialect of black-maid’s voices interspersed with a comparable version of a middle class Southern drawl. Add to this, the lawsuit she is currently battling from an ex-maid who insists that Stockett has unflatteringly stolen her own story for this novel and it is no wonder that Stockett’s debut novel was primarily rejected by 50 literary agents.  

The Help could be begrudgingly classified in my opinion as ‘chick-lit’. With its domestic setting, and femino-centric activity, I could not imagine that it would have much appeal to the average male. However, this novel is devoid of the traditional ‘chick-lit’ archetype of romantic interest, the men in this novel (however tactlessly so) are shown to beat their wives. Yet this novel was able to render in me a true emotional response; rather surprisingly both tears and genuine laughter. If I am entirely honest, I have never given much reflection or thought to domestic servitude nor do I still profess to know much about it. However Stockett is able to entirely immerse the reader into a foreign world of ‘Crisco’  and effectively achieves her outcome of constructing a profound interest in the reader for the characters that she introduces. 

Split into three first person accounts, the novel commences with the black maid Aibileen’s delineation ‘taking care a white babies. That’s what I do‘ and you realise that without these, perhaps at times insulting, narrative voices the novel would not truly be able to communicate this still recent repression in the Deep South. At times, the narration is almost farcical, with the continual dropping of the letter ‘g’. However it does produce a depth to the character due to the way that you truly hear Stockett’s characters. Aibileen is raising her seventeenth white child after the death of her own son, Minny whose sharp wit provokes an enemy in her former employer and necessary humour in the text and the white, educated writer Skeeter  who is curious to know why her beloved old maid, Constantine, has left the family home. So as to avoid racist accusations, Stockett is wise to use a striking difference in register which can be noted throughout each of the three perspectives so as not to merely segregate the characters by their race. 

The villain of the novel, Hilly, is a dramatic triumph; her friends fear her and her outcome is superbly designed and delivered. Hilly’s character epitomises the extreme prejudice of the Deep South and is introduced in the opening chapter by her mother, Miss Walters’, statement that ‘she’s upset cause the Nigra uses the inside bathroom and so do we’. This typical idea of the novel expresses the gravity of the accusations disgracefully branded onto these black people from birth. They are not only accused of stealing and blaspheme, but of being carrier pigeons of fatal disease, which are made further tangible by Hilly’s seemingly sweet nature, for example she chillingly asks Aibileen ‘how do you like your new [outside] bathroom?’ Hilly has an antithesis in Minny’s new employer, Miss Celia and Hilly’s intolerance of Miss Celia merely for being from a less desirable family with a provocative marilyn monroe-esque look, effectively intensifies her xenophobic attitude. 

To conclude, The Help successfully illustrates a world completely inconceivable to the average student from Surrey, with hilarious and almost heart breaking twists Stockett’s characters are able to show the injustice of their individual situations through their action. Perhaps however, this is a novel which is intended for and would appeal to a middle aged woman on her annual holiday as a tool to further transport her from her quotidian life, but Stockett is able to portray a deplorable truth to her reader with a worthy intention; ensuring that such reason discriminations are never forgotten nor left without reprimand. 

Harriet David-Wilkinson

Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn (2008)

Twilight. Ten years ago, the word mostly alluded to the time of day when we begin to start craving dinner. Now, with over five hundred million google results, the phenomenon of Stephenie Meyer’s series is almost impossible to escape.

Part of my aim in reading and reviewing the book was to ascertain whether my bitter, cynical sixteen-year-old self had missed something. Maybe, I thought, there was a deeper beauty in the book, and the series as a whole that I, in my contempt, had failed to comprehend. After all, I was young, and no sparkly vampires had ever swept me off my feet (a fact that, I should point out, has not changed since.) Though tempted to review The Twilight Saga as whole, I realised this would mean subjecting myself to the entire series again, and I was not sure my brittle student mind could handle that much pressure. So, like many a modern reader, I opted to skip to the end and jump right in at Breaking Dawn. Thankfully, I do recall the details of the earlier books from a brighter age, when, in a frantic effort not to be the only one of my friends who wasn’t madly in love with either a vampire or a werewolf, I was forced to read this series. Never mind smoking or drinking, this was the kind of peer pressure my parents should have warned me about.

To sum up the plot of Breaking Dawn as swiftly as possible, the novel is about a teenage girl finding her one true love, marrying him and having a baby. There are complications, however: the man of her dreams is a vampire; she is still being perused by a lupine shape-shifter and her baby is slowly devouring her from the inside. And this is only the first part.

The second part of the novel is arguably the least deplorable. Meyer decides to be bold and approaches the middle section from the perspective of Jacob, the shape-shifter who, though fairly nauseating, is almost likeable. Moreover, this section contains rather less cliché and admittedly amusing chapter titles, such as Waiting For The Damn Fight To Start Already, a sentiment I shared throughout the novel. Though I have yet to see it, I believe the conclusion of this part is where the first Breaking Dawn film ends, as the baby Renesmee (an absurd portmanteau of the two mothers’ names, ‘Renee’ and ‘Esme’, proving once and for all that teenage parents should not be allowed to name their own children,) is born, and our favourite wolf “imprints” on her. This process means eventually Jacob and Renesmee are going to get married and have their own little puppies. Meyer decides it is a good idea to give the child accelerated aging so that Jacob does not have to wait as long, allowing him instead to be able to pursue her romantically when she is fully aged at six years old. This storyline extends further than the scope of the book, but I expect there is a sequel brewing.

Thus, we are brought to the conclusion of this novel, or for those watching the movies, the big fight scene. Unfortunately, we are earlier told that the antagonists of the series, The Volturi, are planning to kill Bella’s daughter, for several rather nonsensical reasons that would be easily solved with a nice chat over a cup of blood. Instead, our heroes decide to gather an army of their own to meet what we are led to believe is a group of the deadliest vampires you can imagine. This, you say, is where it is bound to pick up. Here we will finally have that epic battle that will make the novel worth reading. Not so. Instead, after all that effort, the enemies march up to the heroes, are repelled by Bella’s new power (a force field that makes little sense due to its shoddy explanation) and proceed to listen as the Good Guys explain the reasons behind the whole predicament. Naturally, being reasonable vampires, The Volturi ignore them, and decide to kill the child anyway, but thankfully another Good Guy swoops in and saves the day with a crucial piece of evidence that had not been hinted at even once throughout this 700 page novel. We are left awed by the lack of climax and wonder why exactly there could not have been a fight scene. Is Meyer simply inept at writing them? Or perhaps the moral lesson of this book, besides ‘don’t have sex before marriage’ and ‘don’t sleep with werewolves unless they were previously in love with your mother and are twenty years older than you,’ is that violence is simply not the only option. Of course, this all seems a little hypocritical coming from a group of people who hunt down and tear apart forest animals with their bare hands for food.

But this is all on a general note. It is very easy to mock Twilight as a whole on account of its film, fanbase and amusing plot holes. What I want to look at now is why this particular book fails to meet even the low standards I set out.

On a very basic level, it is the lack of conflict that makes the story mundane, which is perhaps ironic considering Meyer herself stated 'Stories need conflict.'^[1] Breaking Dawn is, if you will excuse the vulgarity, like very unsatisfying sex; all foreplay and no climax. There is the suggestion of conflict, but it is usually resolved before the reader gets a chance to fully emotionally react. Examples of this are scattered around the book, culminating most evidently in that “final battle,” which instead becomes an anticlimactic peace treaty. But here we look at the very first chapter, Engaged. Bella is faced with what she views as the most horrifying of situations, yet one so amusing that her father ‘busted into loud guffaws’: she has to tell her mother about her and Edward’s engagement (thus, the inventive chapter name.) The reader begins to have an emotional response of anxiety whilst we wonder what consequences will arise. Will Renee reject Edward as a suitor for Bella, or will she refuse to come to the wedding as an act of defiance? Unfortunately, no. Instead, the reader is shot down; Renee is happy for her teenager daughter and reassures both her and the reader that Bella is beyond the scope of age and most certainly not a teenager. Possibly this Meyer’s way of justifying Bella marrying a ninety year old to her young and impressionable audience. Like so many other instances in the book, Meyer gives herself the scope and premise for a believable conflict that amounts only to a painful, unrealistic anticlimax. Perhaps the people who keep reading are those who truly believe that Stephenie Meyer will, at some point, deliver. Those of you who have not actually read the book will be shocked to discover she doesn’t.

This brings me to the deduction that the whole of Breaking Dawn is no more than a very long, convoluted deus ex machina, only with sparkly vampires. As soon as a problem arises, the readers worry for several chapters, only for it to be solved with often illogical solutions. The heroine has an unwanted love interest? No worries, he will later magically imprint on someone else, despite earlier stating how uncommon this phenomenon is and how ridiculous it would be. The heroes are going to war with the most dangerous group of vampires in the world? It’s fine, because the heroine will develop powers that just so happen to be their only weakness. The bad guys want to kill the child anyway? No problem, that character we have not seen for a few chapters is going to appear with concrete proof that the child is not dangerous. In fact, the entire conflict of the first three books is that Bella did not want to become a vampire for two reasons: she would not be able to have children, and she would become a soulless, bloodthirsty monster. Conveniently, both of these problems are solved in Breaking Dawn.

Why then, are Breaking Dawn and its series so popular? In 2008 alone, the book sold over six-million copies, and the recently released film was trumped only by the final Harry Potter in box-office ratings. It seems that Twilight has excelled in the art of communication with its target audience. Whilst many a reader may be put off by the clunky prose and repetitive style, perhaps this is exactly what appeals to this audience. Take this passage as an example:

The story would be tragic – Bella lost in a horrible accident. Victim of a mugging gone wrong. Choking to death at dinner. A car accident, like my mom. So common. Happened all the time.

                                                                        Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn

Here, Jacob contemplates how Bella and Edward plan to fake their deaths, so they can avoid telling Bella’s father the truth, thus leaving her minus any familial ties besides the Cullens. This, too is a conflict that is resolved without climax: upon Bella’s pregnancy, they decide to tell her father the whole story. Jacob’s narrative is both simple and repetitive, with short, snappy sentences and a catty sarcastic tone that, whilst possibly irritating to a lot of readers, appeals to the modern day teenager. The immediacy of the style offers instant gratification and effortless reading that is more akin to watching a film than reading.

On the other hand, perhaps I am being a little harsh. There are upsides to the phenomenon that is Twilight. Like Harry Potter (loath as I am to compare the two, since Stephen King already did that so wonderfully,) this series reaches out to a mass of pre-teens who are glued to their Nintendo DS or Wiis and encourages them to read. Much like cannabis, I suppose that Twilight could work as a gate-way book, and that after getting a glimpse into this edgy new concept of reading, said pre-teens may in fact pick up another novel. Hopefully, a better novel. Either way, if Stephenie Meyer can reduce the number of teenagers who cannot understand the difference between ‘you’re’ and ‘your’, then I am happy to give her due credit. Of course, teenagers could just attend their English lessons, but let’s be realistic here.

           - By Camilla Masterson

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^[1] Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn FAQ at stepheniemeyer.com. Retrieved 03/11/11

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

    The Wind-up Bird Chronicle was written by Haruki Murakami in 1995 and was first translated and published in English by Jay Rubin in 1997.

    The Novel follows the story of Toru Okada, a man whose life epitomizes the word banal. A casually-lovable character, he spends his days cooking and eating, listening to music and ironing when he’s stressed. He left his job ‘because he wanted to’ and is happy to let his wife take over the role of breadwinner while he plays house-husband for the small period before he needs to find another job. In Okada, Murakami crafts the type of character whose steadiness and acceptance of the situations he finds himself in makes us part-envy and part-admire him.

    He is the readers’ point of access in an otherwise baffling (to both us and himself) world. The other characters that come and go are slightly bewildering, and their motives are often clouded, but rather than making the story inaccessible, it mirrors reality, where other’s actions and stories are mostly unknown to us. We recognise ourselves in Okada and invest in his character.

    As the story opens, Okada’s days are becoming increasingly disturbed; first when his cat, Noboru Wataya (named for Okada’s brother-in-law) goes missing and Okada has to abandon his commitment-free day to search for it, and later with mysterious and increasingly explicit phone calls. As the novel progresses, we see the threads of Okada’s blissfully-dull life weave themselves together and tie a knot around him from which he can’t escape. Many of the seemingly steady notes of his life slowly crescendo to become something dark and out of place. The juxtaposition of the disturbing secrets which are unearthed in the book with the casual attitude of the story makes them perhaps even more poignant than they would otherwise be, and Okada’s patient and resolute attitude to fixing what he can fills the reader with empathy and perhaps a small amount of second-hand pride.

    The craftsmanship of the story is highly elegant. Simple, beautiful and effective, Murakami plays Rumplestiltskin, spinning the straw of unadorned description into beautiful gold threads of the unexpected. Even in the title, we see the use of simple language that has been re-worked into description that gives a powerful and clear image of the writer’s intent.  This also is cause for the translator’s praise for not falling into habits of English clichés. Somehow the novel keeps a flavour of its original language, while still being accessible to us.

    For both the casual reader and one looking for a stimulating and engaging read alike, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle offers itself up completely to be consumed how and when the reader wishes. The narrative is light and engaging, the main character is accessible and it is impossible to not invest in and empathise with him, the story is full of mystery but we do not become frustrated by our unenlightened state, rather we are compelled to keep reading and discover the answers. In all, Murakami has created a novel which pays back every moment invested in reading both dextrously and engagingly.

By Briony Millman

Write Every Day

Here's an interesting article: it's from a blog written by a PhD candidate, but what it says translates pretty straightforwardly into writing fiction (or poetry, or plays).  The nub is: write every day.

£400,000 Book Deal

Following on from today's class, read this Guardian article to see which second-year English undergraduate from the London area has just been given a £400,000 advance for a one-book deal.  There are some other writers named in that article as having recently got big book-deal advances. See if you can see what they all have in common.

'House of Leaves' by Mark Danielewski

Part horror story, part love story, part academic paper, part erringly powerful rambling, part insanity, part unfathomable footnote labyrinth, part meta novel – and abundantly mysterious and magnificent, House of Leaves is one of the most thought provoking and spine-chilling books I’ve ever had the fortune to read.

House of Leaves is a thoroughly weird and unique attraction: bizarre layout; double narrative; streams of consciousness; unbelievable depth; interesting and complicated typography; codes; extensive footnotes, lots and lots of footnotes, footnotes that have footnotes, and then footnotes that have footnotes that have footnotes. It is very clever, and scary, in an eerie, calculated way; there are pages where there are only a few words on each page, slowly cranking up the tension, in a way that a good horror story should.

Perhaps the most memorable feature of House of Leaves, is that of the typography. The text is arranged on the pages in such a way that the method of reading the words often mimics the situations or feelings of the characters. At times the words are upside down, or position to be read up the page when the character is climbing a ladder, text that grows and shrinks in size mimicking the characters travel through different sized tunnels. The text is flipped upside-down when the character becomes disorientated, this creates an interesting situation for the reader when they are trying to read House of Leaves in a public location.

The core discourse is that of a house which changes and grows on the inside but remains unchanged on the outside. The seemingly alive house grows, shrinks, consumes, horrifies and psychologically devours its residents. The house's occupant, Navidson, makes a documentary about the house called The Navidson Record, this provides one of the main narratives of the book. The thrust of the narrative is a drawn out essay by the now-deceased viewer of Navidsons record, Zampanò. This essay, and narrative, is further edited and commentated on by its finder, Johnny Truant, who is seemingly attempting to piece together the stories of both Navidson and Zampano. However his editing also produces a third major narrative: that of the complex life and the deterioration Truant very messed up psyche. All of which is told in the footnotes.

The Navidson record provides a solid and interesting Narrative, exploring without subtlety but with a great deal of complexity, the characters and their relationships.

Danielewski does a noteworthy job in contrasting the careful academic writing of Zampano with the nonsensical, rambling of Truant. Truant, on multiple occasions admits to be dishonest and simply making stuff up. This makes him a much needed and light-hearted remedy to the formal academic lexis of his counterpart, Zampano. Nevertheless, the drug induced narrative of a compulsive liar is always destined to be an incoherent mess, bordering on annoyance. Whilst this adds powerful character development, its deviation and incoherence makes it unbelievably hard to read.

As a student, perhaps the most fearsome, horrific and unnerving inclusion, was that of footnotes. Aside from annihilating the last remaining segments of my psyche where self-belief – in regards to referencing – was still prevalent, it has the uncanny ability to make one question their own reality; faux-quotes from faux-interviews entwined with real quotes from real interviews (as is the life of a student).

House of Leaves is weird, and I mean David Lynch type of weird. The more one unravels the various narratives concealed throughout the novel, the more one can’t help but feel like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole yet somehow landing up in Twin Peaks; a Dali designed house of horrors ride, a nonsensical environment with an unsettling tone.

For all the discussion regarding the unconventional nature of this book, one can be excused for feeling that the main theme is being overlooked. The typography, various codes within the book, colouring of certain words, the intentionally incorrect index, the unusual elements of House of Leaves indisputably effects the story. However, whilst this may sound like a criticism, it isn’t a simple matter of ‘narrative vs. story?’ as the story could easily stand alone in its genre as a fine piece of literature. It will frighten you, corner you, and loiter in your mind without gimmicks or narrative tricks.

The underlying story is strong enough, that if House of Leaves had been written as a conventional novel it would've still done very well. It is both strange and superb. This book is unlike any other that I have ever read, it is also the most time consuming book I have ever read. The longer I read the further my mind became lost within the house, and perhaps most interestingly, the longer I read, the more I wanted to become lost, even though I was scared of its creepily addictive power; the sign of a successful novel.

No amount of simile or metaphor can give justice to the sheer depth of this book. Not only is the core plot an exciting one, Danielewski’s novel structurally mirrors the labyrinth of the house. Whilst the subsequent exploration is genuinely thrilling. the challenge it creates would even trouble Theseus, when you finally complete this book, you will most likely be as lost as those live in The House of Leaves.

 By Andrew Sperrin

My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult (2004)

Do children have the legal right to determine their own destiny without parental consent? Jodi Picoult embraces this controversial question with boldness and grace as her novel examines the ethical and moral consequences that arise from genetic engineering, an unnatural process of genetic modification for creating babies.  Anna Fitzgerald, the most conflicting character, defines herself as a “designer baby”, conceived merely in order to provide a perfect donor match for her sister, Kate, to undergo a bone marrow transplant.  The ambiguous boundary between what is morally right and wrong is fiercely debated by each family member’s struggle with the tragedy of having to deal with Kate’s Acute Promyelocytic leukemia, a rare form of cancer.

In keeping with the pattern of the vast majority of Picoult’s works (The Pact, Perfect Match) a substantial portion of the novel is written from a single viewpoint, in this instance Sara Fitzgerald, the former attorney and present stay-at-home Mother. The first person narrative enables the reader to have an increased emotional appreciation of her obsessed focus on keeping Kate alive. However, the authoress’s extended use of flashbacks depicts varied viewpoints of each family member, which adds further dimensions to the novel.  Although the present day events, surrounding the trial for Anna’s medical emancipation from her parents, take place within two weeks, the flashbacks reveal the most pivotal moments of the last thirteen years, showing the deterioration of Kate’s health and its subsequent affects on family dynamics. The use of a legal dispute is another one of Picoult’s commonly used themes. Unfortunately, the pace of the novel is dramatically slowed by the implementation of the court scenes, which are necessary but dull at times. Nonetheless, Picoult’s unconventional writing style is a refreshing change because it adds a realistic tone to the novel.  This reality is enhanced by the knowledge that the authoress’ own child suffered from a tumour as a young boy and that she no doubt drew upon the emotions she felt during this period.  Consequently, her pain is reflected in the extreme actions that Sara takes.

Central to the novel is the debate between science and humanity; the perception of what is right and what is wrong, both morally and legally. I found it difficult to be entirely sympathetic towards Sara because I struggle to comprehend the situation in which she finds herself. It is conceivable to argue that without experiencing the bond between a Mother and her daughter from the converse viewpoint, it is unfathomable to appreciate why she places Anna’s quality of life at stake for the sake of Kate’s survival. Her lack of empathy towards the struggles of her youngest daughter for undergoing painful procedures and blood transfusions is harrowing. Picoult explores the respective rights of Anna’s appeal for medical emancipation in order to have control over her own body and the counter-arguments of Sara. The argument is made more complex by the fact that Anna is still a minor and that Kate has secretly asked her sister to claim emancipation to help end her suffering, as she is tired of waiting for her inevitable death. Picoult successfully attempts to discuss the rights of the terminally ill through the medium of the court case and the use of medical witnesses. This is best surmised by Judge DeSalvo’s following speech: ‘The answer is that there is no good answer. So as parents, as doctors, as judges, and as a society, we fumble through and make decisions that allow us to sleep at night—because morals are more important than ethics, and love is more important than law’. The court case further highlights the question of whether keeping Kate alive justifies the pain that Anna subsequently suffers.

The novel’s conclusion offers an unexpected twist that entitles the reader to feel almost betrayed. There is an upsetting irony that having won the lawsuit and thus been granted the medical emancipation she sought, Anna dies in a car crash before she is able to fulfil her sister’s wish. Ironically, Anna’s kidney is then given to Kate who begins to regain her health.   Although the majority of the novel’s conflict surrounds Kate’s terminal illness, she remains silent in the background until her prominent first-person narration of the epilogue, which is set six years in the future.  Overall, Picoult convincingly illustrates the delicate nature of human life whilst demonstrating the lack of control we have over our fates. 

Brittany Ray