While I'm on the subject...

...of beautifully crafted books they don’t come any more stunning than Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping. I’ve reviewed Gilead elsewhere on this blog. Housekeeping is an earlier (in fast her first novel. It’s a little bit a coming of age kind of book (not totally different in some ways from Black Swan Green, see below).

The principle characters, Lucille and Ruth, are orphan sisters, coming to terms with the disturbed minds of both family members who have gone and the succession of guardians who remain.

But mostly this is a novel of place. The place is Fingerbone, a small town in the vast emptiness of northwest America. The images are wintry and dark and the whole feel of Fingerbone, with its vast lake and mountains is that human habitation is a fragile lodger which could be turfed out at any moment.

I was moved by the might of the scenery – and made to reflect again on the temporary and precarious nature of human existence. The characters in the novel are intensely aware, perhaps too much so for their own good, of the endless depths of the lake and the light hold we have upon life. Most of us though, most of the time, are their mirror images. We construct an illusion of solidity and permanence in our lives which bears no relation to the fact that, as God tells us, we are like grass....

Moving to happier subjects...
Black Swan Green is a hilarious, though at times quite profound, romp through a year in the life of a 13 year old boy. But not just any year. It’s 1982. The whole novel revels in the sights, sounds, TV, films, music and gadgets of the early 1980s. It’s not just about bullying, divorce, snogging and sisters – it’s about bullying, divorce, snogging and sisters in 1982.
Undoubtedly with elements of autobiography from author David Mitchell, if you loved the 1980s – or if you’re too young but want to know what they were like for a teenager this is a book for you. Brilliant!