A Way with the Fairies
May. 11th, 2014 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselSep 2013
Some Kind of Fairy Tale - Graham Joyce - Gollancz, 2012
* * * *
The only other Graham Joyce book I have read is The Tooth Fairy, an enjoyably twisted take on the titular being with a Ramsey Campbell-like streak of psychological horror. This is a similar modernisation of a traditional fairy tale that asks what would really happen if a mortal lost in the world of the fae were to return after many years. It is very well written, but like his previous book, I now have difficulty remembering the details of the plot which suggests that its emotional strength isn't as great as it could be.
The woman concerned, Tara, turns up on Christmas Day after a 20 year absence. Her parents Dell and Mary are delighted, her brother Peter considerably less so. He feels that Tara has been completely irresponsible - her sudden disappearance caused her boyfriend Richie to be arrested for murder - and he thinks her story about being kidnapped by fairies is a sign of mental illness (the notes of Vivian Underwood, the psychiatrist she ends up seeing, become part of the narrative, allowing Tara to continue her story after Peter stops listening). But Tara looks no older now than she did when she disappeared, and her presence has a disturbing effect both on Peter's family and on Richie.
What I really liked about this book was its emotional complexity and realism. Peter's reaction seemed entirely understandable (and characteristic of an older brother), and Underwood's notes provide some plausible pyschological explanations for Tara's tale. The realism allows Joyce to suggest the supernatural with minor yet subtly disturbing details. Everything can be rationally explained - even Tara's youthful appearance could be hypopituitarism - but nothing is cut and dried. The multi-viewpoint narrative, with its lack of an authoritative authorial core, also acts to disrupt the reader's sense of what is real. It's all very cleverly done.
Perhaps a bit too clever. The subtlety makes the actual events feel a bit flat compared to what the reader anticipates will happen and perhaps prevents it lingering in the mind as much as it should. But I am not that sensitive to emotional atmospheres so others may find that it has a considerably greater effect than it did on me.
Some Kind of Fairy Tale - Graham Joyce - Gollancz, 2012
* * * *
The only other Graham Joyce book I have read is The Tooth Fairy, an enjoyably twisted take on the titular being with a Ramsey Campbell-like streak of psychological horror. This is a similar modernisation of a traditional fairy tale that asks what would really happen if a mortal lost in the world of the fae were to return after many years. It is very well written, but like his previous book, I now have difficulty remembering the details of the plot which suggests that its emotional strength isn't as great as it could be.
The woman concerned, Tara, turns up on Christmas Day after a 20 year absence. Her parents Dell and Mary are delighted, her brother Peter considerably less so. He feels that Tara has been completely irresponsible - her sudden disappearance caused her boyfriend Richie to be arrested for murder - and he thinks her story about being kidnapped by fairies is a sign of mental illness (the notes of Vivian Underwood, the psychiatrist she ends up seeing, become part of the narrative, allowing Tara to continue her story after Peter stops listening). But Tara looks no older now than she did when she disappeared, and her presence has a disturbing effect both on Peter's family and on Richie.
What I really liked about this book was its emotional complexity and realism. Peter's reaction seemed entirely understandable (and characteristic of an older brother), and Underwood's notes provide some plausible pyschological explanations for Tara's tale. The realism allows Joyce to suggest the supernatural with minor yet subtly disturbing details. Everything can be rationally explained - even Tara's youthful appearance could be hypopituitarism - but nothing is cut and dried. The multi-viewpoint narrative, with its lack of an authoritative authorial core, also acts to disrupt the reader's sense of what is real. It's all very cleverly done.
Perhaps a bit too clever. The subtlety makes the actual events feel a bit flat compared to what the reader anticipates will happen and perhaps prevents it lingering in the mind as much as it should. But I am not that sensitive to emotional atmospheres so others may find that it has a considerably greater effect than it did on me.
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Date: 2014-05-12 12:52 pm (UTC)Sadly none of his other books appears to be worth reading.