GRETEL AND THE DARK

TITLE: GRETEL AND THE DARK

AUTHOR: ELIZA GRANVILLE

Pages: 358

Date: 06/02/2014

Grade: 5+

Details: Received from Hamish Hamilton

            Through Nudge

Own

“‘Yes, life is hard,’ whispers Erika, ‘but knowing about other people, other civilizations, other ways of living, other places – that’s your escape route, a magical journey. Once you know about these things, no matter what happens, your mind can create stories to take you anywhere you want to go.’”

Vienna, 1899. When Benjamin finds a thin, naked and injured young woman he brings her to his employer, the celebrated psychoanalyst Joseph Breuer. The girl claims to have no name and no feelings. In fact she insists she is an automaton without feelings, on a mission to kill a monster before it grows too big. Dr. Breuer is intrigued and decides to find out who the girl is and how she ended up in the dishevelled state she was found in. It is a mission that will put young Benjamin in terrible danger.

Years later in Germany young Krysta is trying to make sense of her life. Her mother has killed herself and when her father is ordered to work in an infirmary with the ‘animal people’ she finds herself all but abandoned by everybody who has ever cared for her. When her father dies as well, Krysta is dropped into a nightmare. Her only escape comes in the form of stories and fairytales; those she’s been told over the years, those she tells herself and those she hears from the people she’s forced to live among now. It is Krysta’s imagination that gives her the strength to keep going; that will make survival possible for her and Daniel, the boy she meets in the middle of hell.

Two stories that appear to have little or nothing to do with each other until suddenly they do and create a magical ending.

This is one of those breathtaking books that have you wondering what it is you are reading until the moment when all is revealed and you know you’ve just read something amazing. This is a truly original story that will break your heart only to put it back together again and leave you feeling uplifted and enchanted.

When I’d read the first 100 pages in this book I still had absolutely no idea what exactly the story was about or where it might be going. I was also completely engrossed in the narrative. The writing is smooth and very descriptive and draws the reader into a world that doesn’t appear to be real and yet is painted so clearly it almost glows off the pages. It is like seeing something from the corner of your eye only to have it disappear when you turn to look at it straight on.

It is impossible not to get caught up in the two stories. Poor Krysta’s life is so filled with pain, loss and lack of compassion it breaks your heart and makes you want to cheer for the bad mannered girl who refuses to allow the uncaring adults around her to bully her. The story of the girl found in Vienna on the other hand, feels more like a fairytale; a magical but rather dark fantasy.

There are recognisable connections between the two stories almost from the start, but nothing prepared me for the revelation of how they were connected. For me, it was nothing short of brilliant. And that is all I can say about it without spoiling the extra-ordinary reading experience this book gives the reader.

For me personally this book holds an added bonus. Some of the books described in ‘Gretel and the Dark’ are titles I recognise from when I grew up in Holland. I devoured the Winnetou and Old Shatterhand stories by Karl May when I was a teenager and the book of instructional tales for children described here is one that could be found on the shelves in my childhood home. I’ll never forget that story about the girl who played with matches and was surprised and delighted to find it referenced here.

This is a book about stories and fairytales. About the power of words and the magic that allows us to use our fantasy to deal with the things life will throw at us. This is a story about love and what it is capable of. This book will enthral you long before you know what the story is about and will keep you thinking for days after you’ve finished reading it. This is a book for everybody who loves stories and reading.

‘Gretel and the Dark’ is nothing short of an amazing reading experience.

THE PRINCESS BRIDE

TITLE: THE PRINCESS BRIDE

AUTHOR: WILLIAM GOLDMAN

Pages: 400

Date: 26/12/2013

Grade: 5

Details: 25^th Anniversary Edition

Library

The blurb:        

“What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince of all time and he turns out to be...well...a lot less than the man of her dreams?

As a boy, William Goldman claims, he loved to hear his father read the S. Morgenstern classic, The Princess Bride. But as a grown-up he discovered that the boring parts were left out of good old Dad's recitation, and only the "good parts" reached his ears.

Now Goldman does Dad one better. He's reconstructed the "Good Parts Version" to delight wise kids and wide-eyed grownups everywhere.

What's it about? Fencing. Fighting. True Love. Strong Hate. Harsh Revenge. A Few Giants. Lots of Bad Men. Lots of Good Men. Five or Six Beautiful Women. Beasties Monstrous and Gentle. Some Swell Escapes and Captures. Death, Lies, Truth, Miracles, and a Little Sex.

In short, it's about everything”

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I’ve finished this book a while ago and although I’ve been thinking about it, I still don’t know what to say about it. I could tell you it is like no book I have read before, and that would be true; it would also tell you next to nothing.

I can’t help feeling that if there are hard and fast rules novels are supposed to be written by, this book breaks every single one of them. The reader is dealing with a narrator interrupting the story at the most heart-stopping moments. And that’s the least of it. That same narrator insists on giving future plot developments away, objecting to what happens in the story, trying to inject his own ideas of what the story should be like into the narrative and leaving whole sections out because he found them boring as a child.

Here’s the idea behind the story.

When the narrator got struck down with pneumonia as a boy his father helped him kill the boring hours in bed by reading him a story called ‘The Princess Bride’ as written by S. Morgenstern. The story enthralled the boy to such an extent that years later he moves heaven and earth to  find a copy of it for his own son. It is only when his son mentions that he found the book unreadable that he narrator discovers that his own father left whole sections out when he read the story out loud. The narrator then decides to publish a readable version of ‘The Princess Bride’ for kids like his son. This readable version is the book the reader gets to enjoy.

This in itself is a big scam. With the narrator of the story being William Goldman, who is a very real author and screenwriter, it is very tempting to assume that there really is such a book as ‘The Princess Bride’ written by a man called S. Morgenstern. The way in which Mr. Goldman tells his story makes this illusion stronger; he inserts enough details of a personal nature to make the reader believe that he was indeed bedridden by pneumonia and listening to his father reading a story to him. The way in which he puts his personal opinions and experiences into the story strengthens that illusion. In fact, the illusion got so strong that I had to keep on reminding myself that all of this book was the product of William Goldman’s imagination. And that in and off itself makes this book a work of genius.

The actual story within the story - The Princess Bride – is no less brilliant. On the surface it is a rather standard fairytale in which the most beautiful girl in the world falls in love with a poor boy only to think she’s lost him forever and consent to marry an evil prince. What follows is one long adventure in which some of the bad guys turn out to be good, other bad guys proof themselves more evil than they at first appear and love conquers all, even that which can’t be conquered, even by love.

However, even comparing this book to a fairytale isn’t quite right. Fairytales ultimately are about good conquering evil and that evil being punished. The Princess Bride doesn’t always deliver when it comes to those expectations, which makes this one of the most surprising and unpredictable books I’ve ever read. The funny thing is that there were times while reading the book that I wasn’t at all sure whether or not I was enjoying myself; I would get angry with the narrator for interrupting the story or upset about what was happening in the story. It was only after I finished the whole book, including the extra chapter called ‘Buttercup’s Baby’ that I realised how incredibly clever, funny and innovative this book actually was.

All I know for sure right now is that:

1. I’ll need to watch the movie (even though I almost never watch movies), and
2. I will have to re-read this book in the not too distant future because I’m sure there are quite a few nuances I have missed (even though I rarely re-read books).

What I have found is not just a book that appears to break all the rules, but also a book that makes me break all my own rules. And that in and of itself makes it worth every single one of the five stars I’m giving it.