Artemis Fowl and the Atantis Complex by Eoin Colfer

I do like Artemis Fowl. Actually, he’s not my favourite character in the series, that’s an honour reserved for Mulch Diggums, who is always called upon to use his rather unique talents to save the day, but as far as children’s/young adult literature goes, Artemis Fowl is up there with the best of them. I don’t read a lot of children’s books though, so I don’t have a lot to compare it to. This one is the seventh in the series, and the fact that I‘ve got that far is testament to how much I like them, because I don’t read much in the way of series either.

To anyone familiar with Artemis, this one is a little different. For a start, Artemis has summoned a meeting with his fairy contacts on a totally altruistic basis, to showcase his new idea to save the polar icecaps, which incidentally they are just as concerned about saving to protect their underground world. This in itself arouses suspicion in Captain Holly Short, who although she classes Artemis as her friend, is aware he rarely does something for nothing. Added to that is Artemis’s peculiar obsession with the number five, there needing to be five people at the meeting, and trying to construct sentences in multiples of five words whenever possible. And avoiding the number four, as that means death in Chinese! Compared to a usually uber- rational and never superstitious Artemis, it is not long before Holly spots the difference, and is sending concerned messages to Foaly, the genius, technical wizard of the party. Wirelessly, through communications devices far superior to human capability, obviously.

The end result is that between them they diagnose Atlantis Complex, more commonly known in human circles as multiple personality disorder. But this is best described by the Fairy encyclopaedia, Wicca-Pedia (this bit made me smile)

“Atlantis Complex is a psychosis common amongst guilt-ridden criminals first diagnosed by Dr E.Dypess of the Atlantis Brainology Clinic. Other symptoms include obsessive behaviour, paranoia, delusions and in extreme cases, multiple personality disorder. Dr E.Dypess is also known for his hit song ‘I’m in two minds about you’.
Holly thought that this last bit was probably Wicca-humour”

As usual, things do not go entirely to plan, and it is not long before a fairy spaceship of unknown origin comes crashing down on the group, nearly killing Artemis, and leading the group to sort out the mess, and save the fairy people once again. However, this time they must do it without Artemis, as the disaster has pushed him over the edge and left him as Orion, who is the total antithesis of Artemis and of virtually no use at all. For example his response to the crisis is:

“I have been taking stock of the situation from the rear seat as it were, and I suggest that we retire to a safe distance and construct some form of bivouac”

Although different in style slightly, this has all the trademarks of the previous books. And to be honest I’m surprised to see myself writing that, and saying I like the book. All the characters are there, they all play a part in saving the day, because obviously everything works out okay in the end, and the group save the day at the last moment. Even Orion/Artemis plays his part, complete with hilarious comments throughout. In fact Orion as Artemis sheds a little more light on the self awareness begun in Artemis in the last book, and since this one doesn’t really conclude the story of the icecaps, since the crash landing became of crucial importance, I wouldn’t mind betting that that’s where the next, and final book will go. But I’m probably wrong there!

To Bed with Grand Music by Marghanita Laski

For what is quite a short book, To Bed with Grand Music packs one hell of a punch. The tone of the book is set from the striking first sentence;

“Graham and Deborah Robertson lay in bed together and tried to say goodbye to each other”

Set during WWII, Graham is being posted to Cairo, all be it to a fairly cushy office job, and Deborah is being left behind in the country to look after their child and home. On this last evening together, Deborah promises complete fidelity, yet Graham will not be drawn into such a commitment, and will only go so far as to say that he will not fall in love with another woman, therefore ensuring his emotional fidelity to Deborah. Deborah however is not really the maternal type, and the limited opportunities of life in a village with her child soon begin to take their toll on her. With a gentle nudge from her mother, she decides that a job would be the right thing for her, and taking the bull by the horns, she finds one in London, moves in with an old college friend and leaves her son in the care of her housekeeper for the week, returning only at weekends to spend time with Timmy.

On her first exploratory visit to London, Deborah immediately compromised the vow of fidelity she made to Graham, leaving the next morning disgusted with herself and determined to stay at home and be a good wife and mother and wait for Graham to return. However, when a job almost lands in her lap, it doesn’t take long for Deborah to justify returning to London, even managing to use Timmy’s well being as justification for the necessity for her to go.

“Then, she said, there’s the question of Timmy. I rather think ones got to take the long view. Of course it would be nicer for him, and for me too, to stay together, but one’s got to consider what’s best for him, not what’s nicest. It’s no good bringing him up to a comfortable dependent security that certainly doesn’t exist nowadays and isn’t likely to in the world he’ll grow up in. Surely, however much it may hurt me, I owe it to my child to make him strong enough to face all knocks of life rather than to protect him against them?”

Justifying her actions, usually only moments after she has stated how wrong they are, is something Deborah makes a bit of a habit of throughout her time in London. At first, she does make an effort to stay away from all forms of socialising, rebutting all attempts by her socialite flatmate to include her in her partying, but it is not long before she is involved in a relationship with an American officer, who is also married, but has promised his wife he will only philander with someone he respects as much as her. From this point Deborah moves from man to man, soon getting to a point where she is never without a lover, even asking one of her beaus to teach her how to be a good mistress, with which he duly obliges.

Deborah is the sole focus of this book character wise, as Graham departs in the first few pages, and is just the absent husband all the way through the novel. And it left me in a bit of a quandary about my reaction to her. I honestly have to say I didn’t like Deborah very much. All the justification and the seemingly materialistic concerns which led to her descent into promiscuity did not compel her to me very much at all. Obviously, this book is set in a different time, when it was very much the norm that women married and stayed faithful, yet men seemed to have to promise no such thing. It was not expected of them. I do feel I can understand Deborah’s frustrations with the restrictions on her life, particularly since they are restrictions that Graham, from his letters, does not seem to be suffering. For more than half of the book, I did feel like I could sympathise with her plight, although not empathise, yet there came a point where within a couple of pages she composes a letter to her husband requesting he increase her allowance to fund her lifestyle (although obviously she does not tell him this), and then makes a passing comment that really changed my opinion of her.

“Well, darling, thts just one of the things I’ve really thought out for myself and I know it’s better to be happy than unhappy, and not only for me but for my baby as well. I like this sort of life, in fact, I love it, and seeing as how I’m hurting no-one and doing myself quite a lot of good, I rather think I’ll carry on with it. I’ve come to the conclusion that conventional morals were invented by a lot of unattractive bitches to make themselves feel good.”

However, although at this point I lost sympathy for Deborah, and to be honest, she doesn’t do much to redeem herself in my estimation, particularly with her actions at the very end of the book, I did finish the novel wondering about what it meant to be a woman left behind during the war. This story paints a very different picture to the common wartime images of women at home, digging for victory and such, that it is impossible not to finish it thinking about possible alternative lifestyles women may have led. If the truth behind this book is to be believed, then there was a whole subculture (I’m aware that word would not have been used then, but it just seems to fit), of women taking up independent lives for themselves, and part of me wants to say ‘who can blame them’. Especially with the double standards between the expectations of men and women. It does make me think that my reaction to Deborah should not be as cut and dry as it is, but I just can’t get over her constant justification of her lifestyle and more than that, her virtual abandonment of her child to further her own desires.

Despite my dislike of the main character, I did love this book. All credit to the author for creating such a dislikeable character, but a book that I love! I haven’t really been compiling a favourites list for this year, either physically or mentally, but if I had, this would be on it. It was very thought provoking, and above all left me grateful for being born in a time where I can, within reason, do as I choose, and not ever really be put in a position where I would have to make the kind of decisions Deborah had to make, however much I disliked the reasoning behind her making those choices.

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

I was prompted to read No Country for Old Men after reading this post about another McCarthy novel here, and realising that since loving The Road, I hadn’t read any more despite having two on the shelf. And I loved this one almost as much as The Road, so heres hoping it’s not too long until I read another.

Vietnam War veteran Llewellyn Moss stumbles across a failed drug convoy comprising numerous shot up vehicles, even more dead bodies, the drugs, and a case containing two million dollars. Almost instantaneously deciding to take the money, he returns home, packs his young wife off to her mother’s, and makes a run for it with the cash. Hot on his heels is a professional hit man with his own moral code, unusual execution methods, and a penchant for deciding I someone lives or dies by a coin toss. Also chasing him is Sherriff Bell, who knows exactly what Chigurh is capable of, and that he will stop at nothing to get his man. Through alternating storylines we see the actions and whereabouts of Moss, Chigurh and Bell. As Chigurh gets closer to Moss he is prepared to annihilate everyone that lies in his way, which is in effect everyone he comes into contact with, so the book is littered with dead bodies.

Although I can’t shake the feeling that Moss brought a lot of what follows on himself, he is a likeable character, and I was rooting for him all the way. It’s a side issue, and doesn’t detract from how I felt about this book, but really, why take the money? He obviously knew what he was getting into, to send his wife away, and go on the run. And Sherriff Bell is an officer about to retire who just wants to see out his last days in office peacefully and retire to spend time with his wife. In terms of personal feelings and past history we know more about Bell than any other character, mainly because each chapter is preceded by his musings, mainly on the state of the nation today, and how corruption and violence is widespread, and it is easy to see his despair both for the job he loved, and the nation he calls home.

“I read the papers every mornin. Mostly I suppose just to try and figure out what might be headed this way. Not that I’ve done all that good a job at headin it off. It just keeps getting harder. Here a while back they was two boys run into one another and one of em was from California and one from Florida. And they met somewheres or other in between. And then they set out together travelin around the country killing people. I forget how many they did kill. Now what are the chances of s thing like that? Them two had never laid eyes on one another. There can’t be that many of em. I don’t think. Well, we don’t know. Here the other day they was a woman put her baby in a trash compactor. Who would think of such a thing?”

Sherriff Bell’s narrative gives a framework to the whole chase story, and adds another level to what would already be a very good story anyway. His monologues give a sense of the destruction that crime in general, and specifically drug crime is having on the country, and particularly on Bell’s sense of hs ability to do his job. Throughout the book, it emerges that both Bell and Moss are affected by a pervading sense of guilt for their actions in Vietnam, which they both feel a sense of shame for, and although I felt this was an undercurrent, rather than a main plotline, it does bind the two men together, against the incredibly chilling Chigurh.

Chigurh is something else altogether, and it would be easy to characterise him as pure evil, killing anyone in sight, almost for the fun of it. In my opinion, he is, in fact pure evil, but he does live by a moral code, all be it a very strange one, one of his own devising. I think that makes him all the more frightening. Chigurh very simply believes in a form of destiny. If it is your time to die, then there is nothing you can do to stop it, and pleading with him is pointless, he is just the bringer of the inevitable. Someone with this belief would be a very scary person to meet, and deadly to cross. His worldview, and his ability to carry this out, is really all we know about Chigurh. This lack of any knowledge about his past, or his motivations for thinking like this just serves to make him more frightening. And some of his speech is truly chilling.

“I had no say in the matter. Every moment in your life is a turning and everyone a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person’s path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning.”

This passage doesn’t come until close to the end of the book, but viewed as a microcosm of the whole novel, it can be seen that actions at the start are inevitable, and even with the faint glimmer of hope that permeated my reading experience, it should have been obvious from the start how this would all pan out.

I think part of the intensity of this novel comes from the sparseness of the language. McCarthy is very economical with his language, and there are no superfluous words in this story. In fact, most of the progression is achieved through dialogue between characters, without punctuation, so the whole thing flows very quickly, as a normal conversation would. This seems to add to the tense atmosphere and the pace and chaos of the characters interactions becomes real. With no punctuation, it is hard not to read quickly, adding a sense of breathlessness and urgency to the action happening on the pages. In contrast, although Chigurh, who is the calmest character in the book, still has no punctuation in his speech, he tends to have longer passages, and he never seems to use slang, so his clarity of mind comes across as our reading naturally slows down. It’s a brilliant way of actually using the words on the page to enhance the story.

I‘m not sure I could say I enjoyed this book, as I don’t think it was altogether a pleasant reading experience. It was harrowing in places, tense in places, depressing in places and thought provoking most of the way through. I was gripped, and read it quickly, and totally absorbed in the cat and mouse chase between the three main protagonists. Yet, when that abruptly stopped, and the book turned into something else, I was just as gripped. This book paints a pretty damning picture of drug running underworld, but more than that, it presents a clear and simple picture of how one ill thought out act can change a life irrevocably, and that of many other people.

Fantastic book, fantastic author and I definitely need to read more. I think I may need to read this again too.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Flowers for Algernon is one of the saddest books I’ve read in a long time. It’s also one of the very few that has actually made me cry. It’s not often that happens! The central character is Charlie, a thirty-nine year old mentally disabled man, with an IQ of 68. He works as a janitor in a bakery, and attends adult learning evening classes in an attempt to improve his basic literacy and numeracy. Nearby, at the local university, research is underway on a procedure to develop and accelerate intelligence. After seemingly successful results on mice, specifically a particular mouse, Algernon, the search begins for a human volunteer, which is where Charlie fits in. Through Alice Kinnear, his teacher at the adult education classes, Charlie is recommended as a suitable candidate and the process of mental assessment begins.

The whole story is told in the form of progress reports written by Charlie himself, and the narrative starts once Charlie has been chosen, and is in the final stages of preparation for the operation. Charlie is a brilliantly portrayed and extremely likeable character. At least initially, the operation is successful and Charlie sees his intelligence increase drastically, and his narration reflects that change. Obviously, when Charlie first begins to write his reports he is writing with his low intelligence, hence the spelling, grammar and syntax are all wrong, and actually quite difficult to read and understand in his ‘Progris Riports’, yet after his operation, as his intelligence accelerates rapidly he becomes more literate, and this development is portrayed very well throughout his writings. Looking back on the book as a whole, it is easy to track Charlie’s development, and even to spot where he is on the IQ scale, almost by picking a page at random in the book.

It is not all good news for Charlie though. Yes, his intelligence increases (finally reaching 190), but some of the realisations this brings about in him are not pleasant for him to deal with. When he worked at the bakery, he believed he had friends, didn’t realise that people were laughing at him, not with him.

“Their all my good frends and we have lots of jokes and laffs here. Some times somebody will say hey lookit Frank or Joe or even Gimpy. He really pulled a Charlie Gordon that time. I dont know why they say it but they always laff and I laff too. This morning Gimpy hes the head baker and he has a bad foot and he limps and he used my name when he shouted at Ernie because Ernie losst a birthday cake. He said Ernie for godsake you trying to be a Charlie Gordon. I don’t know why he said that. I never lost any packiges.”

And a few pages later

“I think it’s a good thing finding out how everyone laughs at me. I thought about it a lot. It’s because I’m so dumb and I don’t even know when I’m doing something dumb. People think its funny when a dumb person can’t do things the same way they can.”

I think that that encapsulates what this novel is about perfectly. It is looking with a very critical eye at the treatment and attitude towards mentally disabled people in society, and this is seen with the utmost clarity as seen through the eyes of someone who has been on both sides of the fence. Although when Charlie has the low IQ, he understands little of what it means, throughout the novel his increasing intelligence leads to dreams and memories of repressed incidents from his past, both with his peers and his parents, and the sadness it causes him to feel is heartbreaking. The realisation that the people he believed to be his friends are just making fun of him is compounded by the understanding that all his life he has been laughed at, hidden away and generally thought worthless. When this all becomes clear to him, he says what I would consider to be the crux of this entire story

“I’m a human being, a person-with parents and memories and a history-and I was before you ever wheeled me in to that operating room”

The book is raising some very serious questions about how we categorise and react to mentally disabled people, and the way we view their place in the world. Although written in 1966 (slightly earlier for the original short story I think) and some of the terminology used reflects this, it’s still an important concern today, and although we’re getting better, we are nowhere near where we should be. At least, not in my experience working in special needs education.

I think the other central theme of this book can again be summed up succinctly with a quotation from quite near the start of the book. At one point, his doctor says

“Your intellectual growth is going to outstrip your emotional growth”

This is a problem that hounds Charlie throughout the book. Relating to people on a personal level is virtually impossible for him, and it is more difficult, the more emotionally attached he feels to the person. It is a problem at he never really comes to terms with, and is never really resolved within the story. What is obvious, however, is that his inability to relate to people on their own level becomes a major stumbling block for him, and seriously hinders his attempts to find happiness. Charlie always believed he could be happy if only he could be smart, but in reality this is not the case, and I finished the book wondering whether Charlie would have been happier, if he had been left alone, if he hadn’t felt the pressure of society to be smart as the only way of being worth something.

I loved this book, just as I loved Charlie. Charlie is so central to the story, and is really the only character with any depth that the two are synonymous anyway. He wasn’t always likeable, in fact there were points where I felt he became quite obnoxious, but that was always balanced with the knowledge that none of this was his fault, and he was struggling with his emotions, his past, and the uncertainty about his future.

Up the Junction by Nell Dunn

This was an odd little book, recommended to me by my mum, during a rare moment discussing her youth. It was a library copy, as she doesn’t own the book any more, although she apparently vividly remembers reading it! She doesn’t remember how old she was when she read it, but I doubt very much it was on publication, as she’d have been thirteen in 1963.

Not really a novel, more a series of short sketches in the lives of three young women living in South London during the sixties; it was most interesting to me as an insight into how different women’s lives were in the early sixties to now. From reading this book, it seems women were just beginning to get some freedom, although this is a long way from any major feminist movement. They go out weekend evenings, yet they seem to have to fit into the already established male social scene, drinking brown ale, and waiting to be asked to parties and gatherings by various, sometimes random men. In fact, finding men, attracting men and sleeping with men seems to be a major focus of these women’s lives.

“We stand, the three of us, me, Sylvie and Rube, pressed up against the soon door, brown ales clutched in our hands. Rube, neck stiff so as not to shake her beehive, stares sultrily around the packed pub. Sylvie eyes the boy hunched over the mike and shifts her gaze down to her breasts snug in her new pink jumper. ‘Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!’ he screams. Three blokes beckon us over to their table.”

Their personal lives can sometimes go very awry though, and details are not spared in this book. There is a horribly descriptive story of a back street abortion, and its dramatic conclusion. The language was plain and straightforward but, it was the imagery it brought about that was so powerful.

“Finally the ambulance arrived. They took Rube away, but they left behind the baby, which had now grown cold. Later Sylvie took him, wrapped in the Daily Mirror, and threw him down the toilet.”

However, as well as the personal lives of these young women, we see their day to day lives in many of the vignettes. They live their lives for the weekend, working hard at the sweet factory, but these tales include moments of life that are completely alien to me, writing in the 21st century. There are two stories involving someone called a Tally-man, which was a totally new concept to me. Goods sold door to door, at exorbitant prices and then paid for weekly. And now I’ve written that, it occurs to me that it sounds similar to catalogue shopping so perhaps not such a strange concept after all. But as described in this book, definitely a much more malicious and conniving system, described in detail, as a particularly unpleasant man details how he keeps his customers constantly in debt, and makes them believe they have a good deal. In fact, money, or more specifically a lack of it, permeate all the stories, with people only really earning enough to get by, and discovering ingenious ways to make it stretch, or have what they can’t really afford. The start of the credit nation perhaps?

“’Shall we go up the Pay-as-You-Wear and choose a couple of frocks?’

‘I thought you were skint?’

‘Pay as you wear, berk! You only have to put down bout fifteen bob deposit.’

‘And then you pay the rest off weekly’”

There are numerous events in this book that are just the women going about their daily lives and witnessing things happen, speaking to people about things that have happened, or just discussing events between themselves. Combine that with the fact that it is mainly dialogue, and colloquial dialogue at that, it was easy to feel the characters emotions and feeling about what was happening, and their emotional commitment to each other shone through their own language. .

I said at the start this was an odd book, and I spent a lot of time trying to pin down what I thought was odd about it. I finally came to the conclusion that it is the lack of any character definition. The three girls, Lily, Sylvie and Rube are indistinguishable from each other a lot of the time and it is often difficult to tell which is speaking, but somehow this doesn’t seem to be a problem. I think that is where the oddness came from. The characters are so indistinct, yet I still enjoyed the book, and I wanted to keep reading. It seems to have a universality (for the time), and it is precisely this blurring of the characters which gives the book its character. These women could be any working class women, their experiences will all be very similar, or they would at least have known other women who had been through similar experiences. At least, that it is the impression I came out of reading this book with.

I did enjoy this book. It was interesting to read, the lives of these women were so different and the options open to them so much more limited, yet it wasn’t that long ago. Obviously reading this now I can old this view, but what was running through my mind most when I read it was how it would have seemed to women reading this soon after publication. Would it have been scandalous, or exaggerated, or just plainly and simply describing their lives. I’d love to know.

Lying in Bed by Polly Samson

Lying in Bed is a collection of slightly odd, but moving short stories. Some of them made me laugh, some made me smile, and some almost made me cry. Concerned mainly with human emotions, the stories really do seem to get to the heart of an issue, and as all good short stories do, finish with a twist, that sometimes elicited a gasp from me. Most of them definitely had a twist, sometimes even worthy of Roald Dahl. I loved nearly all of these stories, and there are some that will stay with me for a long time.

The first story, Wasted Time, managed to induce giggles, smiles and sadness in me, all in the space of fourteen pages. It was my favourite story in the collection. It starts with a young girl asking her mother why she doesn’t have any brothers and sisters, and given an explanation, this is her considered response;

“Now this was all very well, thought the girl, but if they made love as often as her mother claimed, then why did she not have brothers and sisters. It was all highly suspicious, just like that ‘twinkle in your father’s eye’ stuff before.”

That little bit made me smile, but this story soon takes a much more ominous tone, as the true mental state of the mother is revealed, leading to the realisation of how lonely this child is, and the lengths she goes to to find ’friends’, and force her parents to provide siblings. It is in fact quite a horrific story, and it is impossible not to feel for the child as the realities of her life are revealed.

Inner feelings and emotions are a central theme of the stories in his collection. In fact the events themselves are always quite ordinary (except in that first story), but the author manages to shift all of the focus to the characters feelings, thoughts and emotions. The true extent of what is going on is never revealed at the start. At first the stories are just describing a scene, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but always with a deep emotional impact for at least one of the characters by the conclusion of the story. It also seems to be distressed women in the majority of the stories. We watch a woman who doesn’t know who the father of her baby is inform her current partner of her pregnancy, then see her move from a state of fear to total love for her daughter. In another story we see that same woman’s friend dealing with the lack of children in her life, mainly because her husband doesn’t feel the need to bring children into the world.

This particular story really emphasises the theme running through many of the stories of the difference between outward impressions of relationships, and the inner reality. To all concerned, the couple have an ideal relationship, they really seem to enjoy spending time together and have a comfortable lifestyle including a nice home and lots of holidays. On one such holiday, their friend says to Clara

“You and Robert are the only couple I know who are actually quite nice to each other”

But personally Clara is feeling there is something missing from her life, and there always will be.

“It was the pain in her head more than menstrual cramps….the relief each month of her teenage years (thank you God!), that in Clara’s case extended into the first ten years of married life, were now replaced by a vacuous sorrow. A nebulous grief for someone who didn’t exist. A few more years and this monthly reminder would cease. She felt like she was becoming extinct”

It was this gradual peeling back of the layers in each story to reveal the truth of what was going on that I found so fascinating in these stories. That combines with the fact that all the characters were so ordinary, and so well drawn that they were easily identifiable with. They could live up the road, or round the corner from you. They were brilliant, shocking and emotionally raw. And definitely worth reading.

Rupture by Simon Lelic

Rupture is such an apt title for this book. It’s about the huge rupture caused when a supposedly mild mannered history teacher walks into his school assembly armed with a gun and shoots three pupils, a colleague and then himself. This isn’t giving anything away as this is all revealed within the first chapter; the rest of the book is concerned with the reasons why Samuel Szajkowski did this, what drove him to such a radical act.

In the sense that there is a lead detective assigned to the case, this would appear to be a straightforward police procedural type story. But since there is no mystery as to who committed the crime, there is no apparent case to solve. The whole school witnessed the shooting, and it is apparent fairly early on that Louisa May, the investigator, is expected to wrap up the case fairly swiftly, leaving the press and public to declare what a horrific tragedy it was, and vilify the perpetrator of the crime. I don’t think it gives too much away to say that she doesn’t see it that way, and risks her career to pursue the idea that there may be other factors to consider when apportioning blame for the crime, and unearths a lot of other issues in the process. The book itself doesn’t actually present a definite answer, although I think there was a slight bias towards one side of the argument than the other, but does raise a number of issues worthy of thought. However, the brilliance of this book is in the telling, specifically in the way the events preceding the tragedy are revealed.

Some of the chapters are straight linear narratives of what Louisa is doing, thinking and the way the ideas are developing in her mind. But her thought processes are guided by the interviews she conducted with key witnesses in the school, and these transcripts are provided in full which makes for a very interesting reading experience. As readers, we almost come to the same conclusions as Louisa, at the same time, making this a very interactive read. It is also interesting to see the different character’s attitudes to the incident, and in what appear to be quite in-depth investigations, see their reactions to the slightly odd-ball, and mild mannered history teacher from the moment he joined the school. For example, it is clear from her discussion with the school headmaster that he is not an altogether pleasant man;

“He asks for a glass of water. I have not offered but he asks for one anyway. I have Janet bring one in and he thanks her, rather obsequiously. He takes a swig and then seems unsure of what to do with the glass He makes a motion towards my desk but then changes his mind. In the end he just clutches it in his lap. I can tell he regrets asking for it but I do not offer to take it from him. I do not see why I should have to.”

In fact, although this is only a short book, with a reasonably large array of characters, the author does a fantastic job of giving them all their own personalities and traits even though we only hear from each of them once, with casual references to them in other peoples conversations. Curiously, Samuel is the most discussed person in the book, yet he seems to be the person we know least about.

With the main theme of the book being whether anyone else can be culpable when such a horrific tragedy occurs, it is amazing how many other issues the author manages to pack into just over three hundred pages. Through the development of the story, it is clear that bullying is a major issue, both staff bullying staff, pupils bullying pupils, and even pupils bullying staff. And Louisa herself appears to be the victim of workplace bullying by her colleagues (mainly male). How much bullying should be tolerated in a community environment, and exactly when somebody should step in is an issue prominent throughout the book. I think at the end of the book, we do have a little more insight into why Samuel did what he did, although I still find it difficult to understand. I did appreciate the way this book gives a whole background to such a tragic event, and queries the natural reaction to just vilify the perpetrator, whilst all the time questioning the institutions that assist in this, both as organisations and the individual people concerned. There some very unpleasant authority figures in this book, and their actions are very hard to justify.

I think it’s fairly obvious by now that I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the structure more than anything else, and I think it is a really interesting way to tell a story. At times events or incidents were mentioned which as readers we had no knowledge about, and although they were explained fairly soon, the slight tension created whilst waiting for an explanation was what kept me reading. I think a quote that comes very early in the book sums it up quite nicely;

“History is what it is. It can’t predict the future, but it can hep us understand who we are, where we’re from. History is all about context, he says, and without context, all meaning is lost.”