Book Review: The Positively Last Performance (2013) by Geraldine McCaughrean

If the writing game was anything like kung fu films, Geraldine McCraughrean would be the serene, peaceful-looking elder with long white hair who mops the floor with legions of cocky writers who think that no one who uses YA-style kung fu could possibly defeat their literary fiction-style kung fu. McCaughrean, as I've said in every review I've done of her other novels, is a masterful writer; it would be very hard to think of a contemporary writer from any genre who has her skill with metaphors and similes. Reading one of her novels is a reminder that there are always new ways to describe the world and human emotions.

Having said all these wonderful things I have to admit that this novel is a tiny bit of a letdown. McCaughrean's writing is up to par, but there's a sentimental streak that's been absent from her other books. The novel's main character is Gracie, an eleven-year-old girl who come to the English coastal town of Seashaw with her parents, who want to take over the shuttered and decaying Royal theatre. The old theatre is in terrible shape and comes complete with a motley collection of ghosts that only Gracie can see. The ghosts come from all walks of life and from different eras, and seem to have ended up in the theatre the way floating debris is caught in an eddy. The ghosts are shocked that Gracie can see them, and thanks to her prodding they reveal something of their lives and how they died. The ghosts also have to deal with a plot by a property developer to burn the theatre down.

As is usually the case with McCaughrean's novels the character-building and descriptive writing are top-notch. She has a Dickens-like ability to churn out sharply-defined, cliche-free characters, and her eye for the telling detail is unmatched. She even adds an interesting wrinkle to the ghost genre with her explanation of why the spirits of the dead linger on. All that's to the good, but unlike her previous novels there's a tweeness and softness around the edges here that's a bit unfortunate. McCaughrean is light years away from being hard-boiled in any way, but her writing normally has a bit of an edge, enough to throw the profound humanity of her writing into greater relief. With one exception all the characters are lovely people with lovely life (and death) stories to tell, and that sameness is a bit disappointing. And the threat posed to the theatre, which is the backbone of the story, is a tired plot device and McCaughrean doesn't find any way to freshen it up.

Even though this novel isn't up to McCaughrean's usual standards, it's still head and shoulders above what other people are doing in the field, and if you've never read one of her books, read this one and bask in the knowledge that you've discovered one of contemporary fiction's great prose stylists, and then rush out and get your hands on The Death Defying Pepper Roux or Not the End of the World or Lovesong. Satisfaction guaranteed.

Book Review: Lovesong (1996) by Geraldine McCaughrean

I've read four of McCaughrean's novels so far this year and at this point I'm just going to declare that she's the best living writer I can think of. Her writerly talents are, well, obscene. She can toss off more brilliant metaphors and similes on a single page than most writers can muster in an entire novel, and her storytelling imagination is fully the equal of her other skills. She's so good I actually find it a bit odd that she hasn't attracted more critical attention. One possible reason is that most of her output has been for the kids' lit and young adult market, and I think big time reviewers and critics are probably loath to take heed of someone who doesn't write for the grownups. Jealousy may also be part of the equation. I barely count as a writer, but I'm jealous that one individual should be so supremely gifted, so I can only imagine what the average professional writer thinks of a person who can apparently toss off sublime prose every time she puts her fingers on a keyboard.

Lovesong is one of a handful of adult novels McCaughrean has written. It's set in France and the Middle East during the last half of the 12th century and is described as a novel of "courtly love," which is rather like calling The Iliad a story about a package tour to Turkey. The French nobility in the 12th century was in the throes of an obsession with knight-troubadours and the formalities and demands of courtly love. As McCaughrean makes clear, it was a highly ritualized game or cult that was neither courtly nor loving. Her main characters are Amaury and Foulque, knight-troubadours; Oriole, a jongleur (a poet) in the employ of Amaury; and Ouallada, Oriole's daughter who eventually becomes a jongleuse. The story covers everything from the Crusades to tragic love affairs to mad nobles to the slaughter of the Cathars, and there are healthy helpings of violence, intrigue, sex, exotic locales, and lots of stomach-churning detail about the grimness of life in the Middle Ages.

The heart of the novel is the long and tortured relationship between Foulque and Ouallada. The sub-plots that spin off from their relationship are multitudinous, but to keep things simple just imagine Foulque as Mr Rochester and Ouallada as Jane Eyre. But don't let that comparison make you think that this novel is basically a historical romance. McCaughrean tackles some weighty themes in Lovesong, chiefly the idea that love and faith are blind. She doesn't, however, take a sentimental view of this kind of faith . Blind love and faith in this world leads to harrowing examples of violence and betrayal. McCaughrean would explore the idea of blind faith even more thoroughly in Not the End of the World (2004), a young adult book that takes a hyper-realistic look at the Noah's Ark myth. In Lovesong, religion and the informal institution of courtly love are used as pretexts for astonishing crimes; for furthering the interests of the ruling classes; and for asserting the dominance of men over women.

As excellent as Lovesong is, it does go on just a tad too long. Ouallada and Foulque get kicked in the shins by Fate and History so many times it's a wonder they can walk, and the fact that it takes Foulque forever to notice that Ouallada is in love with him defies logic. Similarly, Foulque's infatuation with Aude, a shallow but beautiful noble, really only makes sense as a plot device. Even with these minor deficiencies Lovesong is still one of the very best historical novels you'll ever find.

Related posts:

Book Review: Not the End of the World
Book Review: Pull Out All the Stops!
Book Review: The Death Defying Pepper Roux