Book Club: Katie and Judith read Stephen King's The Stand - Book 3

After spending over a month reading The Stand and not a lot else, I finally finished it at the weekend. It's been a wild ride. Fictional superflu. Actual flu. 2-person book club meetins at home, in the pub, in Costa and on the beach. My poor book is rather ragged-looking after just one read, and it's going to be a relief not having to carry that massive tome around with me everywhere. It's been the rare occasion when I've almost - almost - wished for an e-reader instead. 

Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers.

Loose Ends

• By the end of Book 2, it still felt as though there was an awful lot of plot to go; the narrative was racing towards a conclusion before it felt ready - despite having already invested over a thousand pages in the book. How on earth was Stephen King going to tie up all the loose ends in the last 300? (That's almost the length of an ordinary paperback novel, and yet it seemed pitifully small.)
• Well, one means he used was to simply cut off entire threads of story. The first few chapters see one character after another come to a sudden and brutal end, some before their stories really felt like they were beginning. Of the three spies sent to Randall Flagg's Las Vegas, two are dead within two chapters. Harold's story, too, is cut off suddenly; we are suddenly at the miserable end of his life, and see how he got there only in flashback. And Nadine. After years of grooming from Flagg to become his wife and the mother of monsters, one outburst and all his plans are thrown out of the window - literally!
• Narratively, this should be most unsatisfying. It breaks all the rules of storytelling. And yet, somehow it works. The sudden demises of Dayna and the Judge in the first chapters show how dangerous and terrifying an enemy Flagg is, how our heroes are ostensibly powerless against him, that he can thwart their schemes so quickly, and yet... he is not in control either. 
• One reason I was disappointed in Needful Things, one of King's other novels, was because it ended up in a bloodbath. Most of the characters ended up dead, and I stopped caring after a while. The Stand has a similar body count among the named cast, and yet it worked. The stakes were higher.

Sacrifice

• I could have kicked myself when he men from Boulder simply walked into Las Vegas and I finally realised what kind of story this was. How were four unarmed man going to do battle with Randall Flagg and his forces and live to tell the tale? They weren't meant to. That wasn't the plan. They were the sacrifice. And in retrospect it seemed obvious. The book is so full of Christian allegory - King even describes it as such in his introduction! Still, I shouted out in horror when I realised what Flagg had in store for the characters. 
• So why, if they just had to show up and die, did they have to walk instead of drive? If they'd taken a car, how much suffering might have been prevented? But the walk was important; a test of character and faith. And, as Judith pointed out, it was about timing. They arrived, Flagg's gathered everyone together to make a spectacle of them, and the Trashcan Man shows up with his nuclear bomb. And so the plot strands all come together. Brutal.

Stu

• Looking back over Mother Abagail's prophecy, I realised she didn't say that one character would die, she said that one would not reach the destination - and that was Stu. He falls in the desert and breaks his leg, and as his broken-hearted friends leave him behind, we learn that "they never saw Stu again." That was when I started to put the pieces together - because I was sure that Stu would survive, against all the odds. With the help of the dog, Kojak, and Tom Cullen, the surviving spy on his way home, Stu pulls through the impossible and heads back east towards Boulder.
• I actually found Stu's journey home the most suspenseful part of the entire book. We think the danger is over - and then he starts having nightmares about Frannie's baby, opening up new fears. No, no, it has to be all right! There aren't enough pages left to do the alternative justice. Small spoilers remind us that we haven't actually seen anything that's going on in Boulder since they left. 

The End:

• And then he arrives home to the worst news. The baby is alive - but it's got Captain Trips, the superflu that no one has ever survived. It's only a matter of time. But no. It can't die. Not this close to the end. Not after 1200 pages or so of waiting. And so I dared to hope that this child would have some sort of mutation that would allow it to throw off the disease - and when this turned out to be true I shouted "YES!" and punched the air. 
• Although, ultimately, there was no battle in the end (and how many epic fantasies don't have a battle? It's just taken for granted these days. Nice to mix up the expectations there!) the only survivors of the main cast are Frannie, Stu, and Tom Cullen. Apart from Harold's bomb, the Free Zone has been largely safe, though, most of the casualties happened in Vegas or on the way. The community is growing. Yet, even so, my prediction about starting again once more proved correct, if not in the way I expected. Because, despite the increasing growth of the Boulder community, people are moving away again. The system begins to show the same flaws and problems as in the previous America. The Free Zone is now full of anonymous strangers, and with anonymity comes loss of community. So Stu and Frannie, with their baby (and another on the way) decide to move away, start again, US history unwinding again. They're going back to the pioneer life, away from everyone, out into the unknown. Very Little House on the Prairie. I was even right about the book ending on Mother Abagail's farm with Stu, Frannie and the baby. Although I wasn't expecting the new society to be that small!
• Almost ending, I should say. The epilogue leaves us with a final glimpse of Randall Flagg, still out there, somewhere. And as I'm aware that there is some crossover with the Dark Tower series, of which I've only read the first two books, I'm wondering if that world is where he's ended up.

Ultimately, I found the ending a lot more satisfying than I'd expected to, based upon where book two left off. I've seen several people criticising the book for having a rushed ending, but I think there were good reasons for some storylines coming to a very sudden halt. Yes, The Stand has earned its place at the "good" end of King's work, and was definitely worth the time and emotional commitment invested into it. 

Book Club: Katie and Judith read Stephen King's The Stand - Book 2, Chapters 51-60.

This update is rather belated as I spent a week somewhat appropriately struck down with the flu. I never get flu - I think this is the second time in thirty years, and so the timing of this was rather hilarious.* In the second half of Book 2 of The Stand, all our good guys have come together and settled down in Boulder, Colorado, and are working together to form a new society, known as The Free Zone. Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, the evil Randall Flagg has got his own community.

Spoilers aplenty! Read on at your own risk!

Life in the Free Zone

• Judith got very annoyed that even after the world's been turned upside-down, there seems to be the old expectations of gender roles: the women (ie Frannie) do the housework, while the men go out and do manual labour. Of course, we only really see the domestic arrangements of a few families. But Stu seemed surprised at first to see Frannie washing and mending when there are stores full of clothes for the taking. But that's no way to live - chuck out clothes instead of washing them. Still, Stu is a Good Egg and promises to take turns hand-washing the laundry (at least until the power's back on and "Frannie" can use a washing machine again.
• And anyway, what are they doing with all the rubbish, all the empty food cans and waste? I didn't see any mention of bin men. Is the water still on? Do they have a plumber? These are the details we want to know!
• Judith's grumbles of last week were that the Free Zone residents appeared to be recreating the same old way of life as they were familiar with from the old America. But money is useless now. Ownership doesn't seem to matter. If what you need is available, it's there for the taking - if it isn't, improvise. 
• Of course, these resources won't last forever. For now, the Free Zone residents just want to survive the winter.

The Committee

• There are a lot of committee meetings in this part of the book! And sure enough, most of the named protagonists are on the committee - it does seem a little bit cliquey, and we didn't much like Glen Bateman's conversation with Stu in the previous section, which seems to be all about how to ensure that their in-crowd get nominated. 
• One of their tasks is to organise a team of spies to go over to Las Vegas against Flagg, and I didn't feel at all comfortable with the way that this group of seven took responsibility for picking out their "volunteers" in their absence, in full knowledge of their probable fates. For two of the spies, at least - the Judge and Dayna - they would at least get to make an informed decision, even if they can't very well feel able to decline. But the third was the mentally challenged Tom Cullen, and that just doesn't sit right with me. But, although Tom is "not playing with a full deck," it seems that he's got the rest of his cards stashed away in his subconscious, so if you hypnotise him, he's able to understand and consent to being sent off on his own into mortal danger, even if he doesn't remember it afterwards. No, this did not sit well with me at all.

Nadine, Harold - and Larry

• It's a very black-and-white world: there are the good guys and there are Flagg's people. Nadine and Larry are on the line - they could go either way. One decision shapes both of their fates: when Nadine tries to seduce Larry, but he's having none of it. It seems quite rare in fiction for a character to actually resist temptation! So, good for Larry. It's just a shame bad consequences came of him making the right decision...
• Yet, as Judith pointed out, Larry cannot be held responsible for Nadine's actions, and if it was the moment that marked Nadine's downfall, Larry's choice of loyalty to Lucy over lust was the moment that marked his redemption. If he'd gone with Nadine, would he have been able to save her - or would she have dragged him down with her? (I see parallels of abusive relationships where one person thinks they can change another.)
• Instead, Nadine turns to Harold, and this is where his nastiness, his martyr complex and his venomous hatred turn his loyalties over to Flagg once and for all. I was still shocked by what happened next...

Wasted Characters?

• I was Most Displeased by the death of Nick Andros in Harold's explosion. Nick had been my favourite protagonist in the first book of The Stand. but once he arrived at Boulder he seemed to disappear somewhat. Sure, he sat on the committee, and his connection to Tom was a key plot point, but it felt rather as though King didn't know what to do with him, so got him blown up, instead! As Judith pointed out, his lack of a voice meant that he kind of got lost in the crowd once Boulder began filling up with people.
• Similarly, Mother Abagail, who was such a strong force for good, just vanished halfway through the book, returning to bring prophecies and then die. Her role seemed to be as a catalyst for plot events, rather than as an actual character.

Predictions for Book 3:

• That the focus will shift to the four remaining white (probably) male able-bodied members of the committee as they trek out to Las Vegas to confront Randall Flagg somehow.
• Somehow the four of them: Stu, Larry. Glen Bateman and Ralph (who we don't really know very well) have to take on Randall Flagg and his entire company. It seems like a doomed mission of foolishness, and I just don't know how they can hope to win in whatever battle is coming up. I'm sure they will defeat - if not destroy - Flagg, but King's got his work cut out to impress me with whatever deus ex machina he'll use to make this a battle and not a suicide mission.**
• Mother Abagail predicted that one member of the group will die. That seems to fit Larry's journey of character growth: redemption equals death. 
• Judith reckons that the book might end with the beginning of the battle.
• I think that whatever happens, the population will suffer even more great losses, and will end up starting another new society from scratch, with a very small and simple community. Perhaps it will end, after all, in Mother Abagail's farm.
• I'm pretty sure Stu and Frannie will survive, and we've had so much invested in Frannie's baby that I really hope that it will live too. As a family, they'll be a symbol of hope for the future in a broken world. Also I feel like Tom Cullen has a charmed aura of Author Protection. Despite all the odds, he'll be okay.

*Not hilarious.

Book Club: Katie and Judith read Stephen King's The Stand - Book 2, Chapters 43-50.

Spoiler alert: This post goes into a lot more detail than a general review. My literature-brain is at work.

Book one of The Stand saw most of the world's population killed by a super-deadly, weaponised version of the 'flu, engineered by the US military, and accidentally released into its own population. The few survivors are scattered and wandering, a few of them teaming up while looking for somewhere to go, something to do, now the world as they know it has come crashing down. They are being haunted by strange dreams and dark nightmares, seeming to call to them from across the country...

Introducing...

• Book one let us get to know the main cast of The Stand: Larry and Stu, Frannie and Nick, with glimpses into the lives of a couple of the bad guys, and brief sightings of the Dark Man, Randall Flagg, and an old lady called Mother Abagail, who seems to be his opposite number. Now we've figured them out, it's time to bring in a new supporting cast, to replace all the friends-and-relations wiped out by the virus.
• The problem I found is that the new characters do not yet feel as fully-formed as those we've already spent time befriending (or whatever the opposite is.) All the groups of travellers are getting bigger, but with each chapter bringing in a new point-of-view, both Judith and I found ourselves needing to take a little time reminding ourselves of which newcomers were travelling with which old faces. 
• We both found the narrative's treatment of the women newbies a little troubling. Nick, the Generally Good Egg, meets Julie, but as soon as she is introduced to his other companion, the simple-minded Tom Cullen, she stirs up trouble between them and Nick's dismissal of her (but not until after he's slept with her because of course) seems uncharacteristically brutal. I get that she was a troublemaker, I didn't like her right from the start, and obviously he's meant to have seen something inside her that is dangerous, but... I dunno. She felt very much like a lazy use of the "evil seductress" trope rather than a real person, and it didn't quite sit right with me. 
• And Judith was bothered by Larry's treatment of Lucy. He's "in love with" Nadine, but not so much that if he can't get together with her, he won't make do with Lucy as second best. Lucy, too, seemed like a trope, rather than a character: the woman who is with a man who doesn't love her, because she doesn't expect any better. Judith's read a lot of bad sci-fi ("or good sci-fi by men who know nothing about women") and is so familiar with and so tired of that kind of two-dimensional character.
• Of all the new characters, though, Nadine is the most interesting. I didn't trust her, right from the start; sneaking around behind Larry, rather than introducing herself to him. But on the surface, she seems decent enough: she loves children, doesn't believe in violence, is a virgin well into her thirties. And then it turns out she and the dark man go way back... Oh, she's never met him, as far as I can tell, but she's been dreaming of him since long before Captain Trips. Like Larry, she's walking the fine line between good and evil, but where Larry seems bad but will probably end up a hero, I have a very bad feeling about Nadine's plotline. I do not think it will end well at all.  

Doubles and contrasts

• My English Literature brain has noticed a lot of pairs, doubles and contrasts throughout this page. You've got the people dreaming of both Abagail and Flagg, with their heaven-and-hell symbolism, and I've just highlighted how I can see Nadine acting as a dark mirror for Larry's character development. Then we've got Tom Cullen and the Trashcan Man - both a little broken, but one all goodness and one all bad.

Apocalypse

• The Stand is not the first "post-Apocalyptic" book I've read; there do seem to be a lot of them about, but this is unusual in really living up to the description. It's surprisingly religious in some ways, with a good-versus-evil battle for souls, and a lot of biblical imagery. And we've had Pestilence, or Plague, and Death. War is coming, and Judith has a bad feeling about their preparations against Famine.
• Early on in the book, two characters discuss the weird phenomenon of trains and planes involved in accidents not being full to capacity, with a consistently higher no-show rate than those vehicles that reach their destinations OK. I'd heard a lot of stories about people who should have been on the trains and bus bombed in London in 2005, and Judith confirmed this: both her sister and her aunt ought to have been on the same train. One was early, the other late!
• Boulder, Colorado, where the good guys eventually settle was a lot emptier than most of the towns the protagonists have passed through. Maybe the inhabitants thought they could escape the plague. But the plague was everywhere by the end. It seems very convenient for our guys, not to have so many bodies to bury. But maybe it is also foreshadowing another disaster approaching. (The very nature of this book tells us another disaster is approaching. But what will be the catalyst?)
• War is coming, and Flagg has the advantage so far, with our heroes spending most of their time travelling and settling into their new city. Flagg has an arsenal of weapons, and, if Bateman is to be believed, most of the technical people. What on earth is Stephen King trying to say here? Computer nerds are evil, or technology is? Is he advocating an ending similar to the finale of the most recent version of Battlestar Galactica? It seems like a very harsh and simplistic judgement!

Location

• I asked if there was any significance to the locations where people have congregated. Neither Judith nor I have been to America, so we can't go from personal experience, but Las Vegas has a rather garish reputation of debauchery (and I'm sure it's lovely in real life. Well...) Also, it's surrounded by desert, so there's nowhere to run.
• Abagail's farm in Nebraska seemed idyllic, all fertile and wholesome and old-fashioned. But it's not big enough for all the people flocking towards them, so they had to find a new place: Boulder, Colorado, a deserted city (as are they all, now, but this one has fewer corpses ruining the aesthetic.) But there does seem to be a sort of exiled-from-paradise theme here, too. 

Politics

• The bit that made Judith the angriest in this section was Bateman's discussion of having to reinstate a political system in the free zone of Boulder. And, of course, it has to be the same old way of doing things as before: a hierarchy, a democracy, sure, but let's make sure that it's the sort of democracy that he and his people want. They'll have Mother Abagail as the nominal head, because she's the one the people have come to find, but really Bateman and his carefully-selected committee will be in charge. Stick to what is tried, tested, and not entirely broken, but for goodness' sake, don't try anything new.
• Although Judith liked Bateman upon first meeting him, now she can't stand him, finding him manipulative and sly.
• Politics, I think, is where the new utopian society will start to come apart.
• But what's the alternative? In Las Vegas, where Randall Flagg is setting up his own domain, it is a democracy, ruled by fear. And Flagg may have called all the dark hearts towards him, but he is ruthless in disposing of anyone who is not "useful" to him.

Dreams

• So, as has already been mentioned, the characters have all been dreaming of Randall Flagg and Mother Abagail. Up to a point, fair enough. But their dreams are starting to shape too much of the plot. They're going to places because of dreams. They're getting valuable information from their dreams. And it's starting to nag at me that this feels like cheating. Sure, if everyone's having the same dreams, they'd say "hmm, that's weird," and "maybe there's something going on here," but it's bothering me how much trust they're putting in them, and it feels like lazy storytelling to me.

Harold

• When Larry arrived at the free zone, he revealed that he'd been following a trail set by Harold Lauder. He had a far higher opinion of Harold than either Frannie or Judith and I did. It set me to wondering who had the more accurate impression of the guy. Larry judged him only by his actions, unprejudiced by Harold's age, personality or appearance. Is he ignorant or wise?
• We discussed last week that Harold felt like a dangerously unhinged "protector" of Frannie. When he described Stu as "that guy," with all his preconceived ideas of the stereotype jock figure, I was thinking, no, Harold is the "that guy" of today's world, the self-described "nice guy" who makes a martyr of himself, whining about being "friendzoned" whenever a girl doesn't fancy him, and feeling all hard-done-by and entitled to another person's affections. Not a nice guy at all. 
• As such, he seemed far too cheerful about Frannie and Stu becoming an item. He took it too well, and, after Fran's reflections after discussing Harold with Larry, you could almost wonder if, after all, Harold was more mature than we'd given him credit for. Then you remember he's spied on them together, stolen Frannie's diary, and generally acted much younger than his age, and it's all thrown into doubt. In the last couple of pages of chapter 50, we see Harold's perspective, and no, it is all an act. 
• I never had a high opinion of Harold, but I was still shocked to see him plotting to actually go to Flagg and betray his fellow-survivors. All because he didn't get the girl. It seems that everyone who goes bad, ends up with Flagg. There's no grey areas. I'm not sure whether I like that or not. I suppose Harold's story shows the mundane sort of evil born of jealousy or selfishness or so on. Not all of the bad guys are the murderers and robbers and rapists. Some start off quite ordinary folk, with a weakness, and where there's a weakness, there's a vulnerability to the dark side.

Conclusion:

So, what's to come? Now we've got all our main good guys together in Boulder, they've got to start building a community once more. There's a meeting been called to discuss leadership, politics and a legal system. Judith is concerned that no one's mentioned farming yet. Canned foods won't last forever, and people need fresh vegetables. They need doctors, surgeons - even appendicitis has proven fatal, now. Frannie'll need a midwife. Meanwhile, we know trouble is coming. War is coming, and they are unprepared. But before Flagg launches his assault on Boulder, in whatever form that will take, I think it will start corroding from within. ("Things fall apart; the centre does not hold.) Nadine is dangerous. Harold is dangerous. Larry is a risk. I think good will prevail, ultimately, but at a great cost, and Randall Flagg will not be utterly destroyed. I rather suspect that there will be yet another great collapse, and that the book will end with the last survivors having to start afresh yet again. Perhaps back at Mother Abagail's farm in Nebraska - but she will not be there. She's a hundred and eight. She will not survive the book.

Book Club: Katie and Judith read Stephen King's The Stand - Book 1.

After finishing reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell at the beginning of March, you'd think I'd whizz through a load of the shorter books on my to-read shelf. But instead, I launched almost immediately into one of the biggest novels in any bookshop, Stephen King's epic The Stand. But not alone. This time I'm reading in company, with my best friend Judith (who beat me to the one and only copy in the library, so I had to buy my own. It was free on Waterstone's points, though, so I'm not complaining.) From time to time, Judith and I hold our own two-person book club, and this time I've made enough notes to share with you, you lucky, lucky people.

Spoiler warning: As a multi-part discussion, this will contain a lot more detail than a normal review.

Expectations and Surprises:

• I knew very little about The Stand when I started reading it. All I knew was that it was a post-apocalyptic novel set after a super-flu wipes out most of the world's populations, and that its villain, Randall Flagg, is one of Stephen King's biggest baddies, and that he pops up in several other of King's novels in different guises, and also that there is some crossover with the Dark Tower series, of which I've read the first two books. As such, I won't be surprised if I see him there later on - and am not certain he hasn't already been mentioned.
• I had images in my head of desert wasteland, of lots of people walking, of ravens and crows.
• Judith has read The Stand before, probably at least ten years ago, and she was surprised at how long it took to set the scene; she had forgotten that we see so much of what the world was like before the flu virus, nicknamed "Captain Trips" set in. We get through the length of an ordinary book (about 400 pages) introducing the protagonists in their ordinary or not-so-ordinary lives, going about their business and facing their own challenges, big and little, before the virus breaks in and disrupts everything. I found myself so engrossed in the characters' stories that I'd almost forget about the main plot until King would remind us at the end of a chapter, and show how the virus is spreading from one person, across the country and to the entire world.

The characters

• The designated protagonists are the survivors from each of the different subplots: Stu, one of the first to come into contact with "Captain Trips," Frannie, a college student who has just found out she's expecting a baby, Larry, a rock star with one hit record who has found himself in financial trouble, and Nick, a deaf and mute wanderer who had just found a place for himself, when the flu came to town, leaving him the last survivor. He was our favourite character, a guy who's had a bad lot in life, but who has made the best of things. A thoroughly Good Egg. (Great. He's going to die, isn't he? Probably in some kind of heroic sacrifice to save the world. He's that sort of character.)
• Then there's Lloyd, who is simply repulsive, a criminal who has got mixed up in robbery and murder, and who found himself quite pleased with his new bad-guy image in jail... right up to the point at which he discovers he's facing the death sentence. It's difficult to feel sorry for Lloyd, and yet, once the flu hits and he's left alone in his cell, you wouldn't wish that onto anyone. Then Randall Flagg turns up. "Pleased to meet you!" he says, and I don't think it's a coincidence that I had already jotted down that very line (followed by "hope you've guessed my name") after reading the first couple of pages featuring Flagg. 
• Nick might be my favourite character, and Judith's, but Larry Underwood seems the most complex, with the biggest "journey" ahead of him. He's not a good man, and deep inside, he knows that. He's weak-willed, selfish, often unkind. His own mother described him as a "taker." She loved him dearly, could see there was good inside him - but wished he'd do more to get in touch with that goodness. Already, The Stand is shaping up to have a big Good vs Evil conflict going on, with some characters falling each side of the divide. Larry could go either way. I predict that, ultimately, he'll be on the "good" side, but it'll be a long hard struggle for him.
• Towards the end of book 1, the survivors are just starting to meet up with others, and we've got the beginnings of a new secondary cast. Frannie travels with her late best friend's little brother, Harold Lauder. He's a weird kid, pompous and nerdy, an intelligent teenager, a weird mixture of child and man. But at the end of part one, he shows some worrying, rather creepy tendencies. It's clear he's got a crush on Frannie, who is five years his senior, and feels protective towards her, but that protectiveness shows itself in a worrying, potentially dangerous way, when they meet up with Stu, betraying his feelings as a possessiveness that Judith described as thoroughly repulsive.

Morality:

• When Frannie comes home to tell her parents about her pregnancy, her mother and father show two very different approaches to morality in life. Her mother is very religious, with a rigid moral code - and utterly loveless, a very nasty woman. By contrast, her father is a gentle sort of man, who does not like to contradict his wife, but prefers a peaceful life. He lives his life by logic, science, reason. Yet, when it comes to Frannie's baby, he is surprised that his opinions are driven not by logic, or by generations of rules and laws, but by his emotions. I pondered on what kind of moral code will be of more use when building a new civilisation from scratch.
• Judith's example was of a train heading towards five people on the railway track. If you had the power to flick a switch and save them, but by doing so, kill one person on the siding, would you do that? The logical answer is that one person dying is better than five, that, to quote Spock, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." But, according to a book she'd been reading (she did not name it) that is a psychopath's answer; most people's consciences would feel worse about killing one person by one's actions, even to save five, than to let them die through one's inaction, because they would die anyway. (And I decided that I didn't like either option, and that I'd just shout "GET OFF THE LINE!" because, to use another Wrath of Khan quote, "I don't believe in no-win scenarios.") But as for what sort of moral code will be the foundation of a new civilisation, and its strengths and weaknesses, we'll have to wait and see.

The Collapse of Civilisation

• I chose the wrong time to read The Stand; when a vicious strain of flu and colds was doing its rounds, making me feel quite uneasy. But I also wondered about whether The Stand could be viewed as an allegory, or a warning, of anything else that might cause society to collapse. I looked up the poem that some of the characters discussed, W. B. Yeats' "The Second Coming," which was written after the First World War, or could also refer to the political situation of Ireland at the time. It's full of end-of-the-world imagery, and I felt that it sets the tone for the entire book. In the middle of the 20th century, people feared nuclear war could bring about the end of life as we know it, and I even thought about the UK of the moment, with the government making cuts upon cuts upon cuts, to the health service, to welfare for the disabled, the poor, the young, the old. Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. How much more can this go on?
• And Judith has been reading about all the old lost civilisations, where the top ends have grown more and more prosperous, the gulf between rich and poor grown wider and wider, until  -Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.
• Bateman, one of the people met along the way, serves as Mr Exposition, predicting a rather pessimistic future of small societies destroying each other. 
• The most horrifying thing about The Stand is that the "Captain Trips" virus was entirely man-made, a biologically-engineered weapon. And the question raised is why? Who would be stupid enough to make something that would practically wipe out the entire world - and make no antidote? Yet it's entirely believable. Always, nations are making bigger and more horrifying weapons that they never expect to use, just to prove to actual and potential enemies that they're not to be messed with. But in this case, all it takes is one person getting out and doing the natural thing of running for it.
• And what is worse: "Rome falls." They've got agents with phials of the germ all over the world. When it's too late for America, the whole world is going down too. I just don't understand that. Is it an attempt to stop anyone asking questions, to preserve the American military's reputation, even though they're too dead to care about the rest of the world's judgement? Horrific.

The Dreams:

• The main characters have all started to have nightmares of Randall Flagg in a high place, most clearly in Nick's dream of being offered his hearing and a voice. It's an obvious biblical reference to Satan tempting Jesus in the wilderness. 
• By contrast, Nick has also dreamed of a ripe cornfield in Nebraska, and an old lady known as Mother Abagail. Judith was a bit confused by the cornfield, as she was sure it was supposed to symbolise innocence, nostalgia, simpler times - but, despite living on an Island with lots of farmland, it didn't have any personal associations for her. For me, the fertile farmland was set up as a contrast to the desert: life instead of death, good instead of evil.

In Conclusion:

By the end of book one, only a couple of the many characters introduced so far have met up, and they are all wandering fairly aimlessly. Nick is heading for Nebraska, Fran, Harold and Stu heading for Vermont, and I think Larry's in the same state, but has not met up with the rest. They are coming closer, but still in small clusters of people, nowhere near forming a society. I'd had the idea that The Stand would form one community, or maybe two (one good, one evil) but if so, it's still a good way into the future. Maybe, instead, it's an epic along the lines of Game of Thrones with the characters scattered all across the continent. I kind of wish I'd got a map where I could mark out all the characters' journeys, and where they are in relation to each other. 400-odd pages in, and we're at the point where I'd imagined the book to begin! Not that I mind; what I like best about Stephen King's good works is that he does take time just getting to know the characters, setting them up and drawing you in, making you care before throwing everything he's got at them. 

If you've read The Stand you're very welcome to add any thoughts to the comments below. I'll be posting our thoughts on the first half of Book 2 on Friday.

Perdido Street Station - China Mieville

May contain spoilers

I'd been intending to read China Miéville's Perdido Street Station for so long that I've completely forgotten who recommended it to me in the first place. At over 860 pages, it's rather an intimidating tome, but when I found a second copy in a charity shop to give to my friend, we decided to make a book club of it. I enjoyed Miéville's shorter novel, The City and the City when I read it earlier this year, which was a gritty police procedural set in an alternative but not quite fantastical universe. Judith had read some of his more science-fiction books. Perdido Street Station is epic fantasy, but as you've never seen it before. There are no wizards or elves to be found in the city-state of New Crobuzon, nor is it interchangeable with medieval England or Europe. New Crobuzon is a steampunk or clockpunk ciry, grim and grubby, a melting pot of communities. Alongside the human residents live the khepri (insect-people), cactus-people, vodyanoi (water-dwellers) and a few garuda (bird-folk.) Gangs of criminals and drug-dealers run New Crobuzon's underworld, while the government is ruthless. Horrifying tortures for punishments fitting the crime mean that the city is also filled with "Remade" mutants. New Crobuzon is not a pleasant place to live. 

Our heroes are Isaac and Lin, an inter-species couple - quite the taboo, though they mingle in more open-minded and bohemian circles. Isaac is a scientist (with a bit of what is never called magic thrown into the mix) while Lin, a khepri, is an artist. Both are commissioned with secret projects, and the opening part of the book kept me hooked.I was intrigued to see how the characters would rise to these seemingly impossible challenges. Though not science fiction, Perdido Street Station still came across as very scientific fantasy. As a science dunce, I found the pseudoscientific explanations and mathematical finale almost, if not quite, made sense to me. I would have loved to have kept on reading these storylines, but it was not to be. As part of Isaac's studies, he inadvertantly raises a giant killer moth from a caterpillar, and the story turns into a massive monster-hunt as he and his friends try to track down and destroy these insect-dementors with hypnotic powers that have been set loose on the city. Some of the creatures enlisted in the fight against the slake-moths are fascinating, while others are grotesque. The Weaver is a sort of giant spider-creature, who acts not out of morality but to manipulate the universe into patterns only it can see. Then, of course, there is the sentient hoover, which turns out to be part of a giant machine seeking omnipotence. But overall, I found the moth-battle far less interesting than the "commissions" plot in the first few parts. 

After a couple of hundred verbose and action-packed but overwhelming pages, I found Perdido Street Station became much more readable once we were reintroduced to a character who had been believed to be killed off earlier on. Even though I didn't think I favoured one character over another, it seemed that this person provided an emotional core to the story, something that kept me involved in the story, and their absence made me feel like a spectator rather than in the midst of the action.

Perdido Street Station came to a bittersweet ending and ultimately revealed some of the more interesting plotlines to be shaggy-dog stories. I felt quite betrayed by a character who I'd felt the most curiosity and sympathy towards throughout the novel, but who in the end I could not forgive. It's not an altogether satisfying finale, but it was never going to have a neat little happy-ever-after. Some of my reading suggests that Miéville prefers a story to pan out more like messy real life than into a tidy narrative shape. I think the ending suited the tone of the novel, even if I did find it frustrating. I went from loving the novel to struggling with it, but in the end Miéville left me wanting to know more. Overall, I'd say that is a successful outcome.

Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

It is unusual, but not unheard-of for me to watch a film before having read the book it was based upon, but unfortunately I ran out of reading time before Les Miserables hit the UK cinemas, and I was impatient to see this epic musical. I hope my readers will excuse the inevitable comparisons with the later, and therefore obviously inferior, version of the tale. (I say this with some flippancy, assuming the unbreakable truth that "the book is always better." Certainly Victor Hugo's novel has the higher claim of being "the real thing," but does it follow that it is necessarily is the best?)

Well, it is certainly the most thorough! At 1200 pages, Les Miserables has the luxury of being able to spend plenty of focus time on each of the important characters and events, which, though important appear but briefly in the musical adaptation. Hugo also had a disconcerting habit of leaving the story to discourse freely and at length upon any subject that even slightly tied in with the novel's setting, giving chapters upon chapters of historical context for a single scene, and passing judgement upon it all. It verges upon the ridiculous, and I do not think I am alone from thinking that Les Miserables could benefit from a ruthless editor without having to lose its nickname of "The Brick." The most heinous examples are the forty-one pages of the Battle of Waterloo, twenty-five detailing life inside a convent (and an additional twelve pages have been cut from my translation to appear as an appendix) and fifteen all about the sewers of Paris. Don't get me wrong, all these make interesting reading - who, after all, can fail to be entranced by fifteen pages about poo? - but I'd rather read these digressions when Jean Valjean's fate is not in question.

Each member of Les Amis de l'ABC (ABC Society in this translation) the student revolutionary group, has a name, character and history: the fearless leader Enjolras, shy poet Jean Prouvaire, philosopher Combeferre, charismatic Courfeyrac, and cynical drunkard Grantaire. And then, not of them but with them, is young Gavroche, the kinder French cousin to the Artful Dodger. Maybe ten or eleven years old, this young urchin is a scoundrel with a heart of gold, the terror of the respectable folk, but generous to the unfortunate. He provides some delicious heartwarming and comic moments in this heavy tome - "I'm on my way to fetch the doctor for my wife, who's in labour!" But he will break your heart, too. If I can guarantee nothing else, I guarantee that.

Fantine, who appears so briefly if beautifully in the musical, has an entire history as Hugo chronicles her fall from innocence to despair: her friends and lover who deserted her as a sick idea of a joke, her sink from poverty to utter destitution and desperation. I wonder whether Les Miserables may have caused a stir when it was first published, for Hugo's insistance that a woman can be pure and virtuous of heart even when driven to prostitution. After all, didn't even Oliver Twist's Nancy cause outrage in Victorian Britain for being allowed to redeem herself? But Hugo's central message seems to be that good and evil are equally spread across the entire human race, and that desperate circumstances can lead to desperate acts. Justice is not merely the keeping of the law and punishment of crime, but compassion and forgiveness.

Of course the failure to grasp this truth is where Inspector Javert falls down. The policeman is an unambiguously unsympathetic character in his first introduction, a fact which may surprise fans of the film and show. "The Asturian peasants believe that in every wolf-litter there is a dog-whelp which the mother kills, because otherwise it will devour the rest of her young. Endow this dog with a human face and you have Javert." As far as Javert is concerned, the law must be upheld at all costs, as it is absolutely infallible, and law-breakers are utterly irredeemable. Once a criminal, always a criminal, and incapable of doing anything good. Hugo unequivocally condemns Javert's idea of righteousness untempered with mercy. My first impression was of a grotesque, a caricature, far from the tormented individual of the musical. But Javert is not without his strengths - he has a snarky sense of humour, for one, applies his rigid standards to himself as well as to others, and shows a great deal of courage. And we come to feel his anguish as Jean Valjean brings his worldview crashing down around him. Were it not for that first introduction, Javert could be seen as a tragic figure with a fatal flaw.

Hero Jean Valjean is portrayed as an almost messianic figure in the movie adaptation, but here in the novel, his goodness is at times swayed by flaws of character or judgement, particularly when concerning his adopted daughter Cosette. I was rather surprised by the lack of jealousy in the movie at his discovery of Cosette's having a suitor - or, rather, that he does not let his jealousy get the better of him. Somehow, I felt that it would be a critical part of the story, and so it is in the novel - a believable,  understandable, if not admirable trait. I could not help feeling that his withdrawal from Cosette's life after her marriage, doubtlessly intended by the author to be an act of selflessness, was actually rather a petulant and self-martyring act that helped no one and hurt a lot of people.

In Cosette we see her loving, sweet-natured mother Fantine once more, but with her fortunes reversed, rescued by Jean Valjean out of squalor, raised in humble but respectable circumstances by a foster-father who adores her, and ending up both happily married and wealthy. Her story is as happy as her mother's was wretched.

Ah, but the love story. I expressed confidence that Marius' and Cosette's romance had to be better depicted than the film's rushed version. Alas, I was mistaken. Yes, their courtship has more time devoted to it than the movie's two glances and one love song - but sadly more time and page space does not  necessarily mean more substance. Victor Hugo was doubtlessly a believer in love at first sight, but I found such a concept ridiculous. Instead of Marius dripping all over the stage singing, "Black! My world if she's not there!" immediately after seeing this pretty girl for a few seconds, he follows her regularly to the park - never speaking, mind you, only watching her like everyone's favourite romantic stalker - and then spends months putting his life on hold in favour of moping. And when they do finally start holding secret trysts, instead of, y'know, getting to know each other, they just seem to spend the whole time telling each other how in love they are with each other and how pretty the butterflies are when you're in love. (Of course, it is possible that there is nothing to tell, for neither of them seem to have any personality.)

So, in short, is Les Miserables worth reading? My answer is yes, absolutely - once. It gives so much depth and life to the story that is somewhat rushed in the musical, and making the characters much more rounded (even Marius, if not pretty little Cosette.) It is a huge book, not just in size, but in scope - Hugo included everything, and for the most part this is a great achievement. Between the book, the movie (which I have now seen twice) and the soundtrack (which I have been playing on repeat for the past three weeks) Les Miserables has proven to be one of those stories which takes over my head for a little while.

But I think in this case there is no shame in cheating, if you feel the need: skip the discourse chapters, or even read an abridgement. I don't know whether I will read Les Miserables from cover-to-cover again, at least for a good long time, but I will hold on to the book. I can't part with it after the times we've had, and I feel quite sure it will be one I'll want to refer to again and again.

Note: I read the 1976 translation by Norman Denny.

Book to Film: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

This is going to be a looooong one. Spoilers for the film, but not later on in the book.

It's always risky adapting a beloved film for the big screen. They say that no two people read the same book; everybody has their own ideas about how it should look, sound and feel. Even Peter Jackson, whose adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was widely acclaimed, was not guaranteed to repeat his success upon his return to Middle-Earth. One could be forgiven for thinking that after the sprawling three-volume epic, The Hobbit should be a piece of cake, but the smaller novel provides its own challenges. In effect, it has to be two different stories simultaneously: the simple fairy-tale that Tolkien started writing while marking exam papers, and a part of an entire world of mythology that culminated in the Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit's reviews have been very mixed, and those negative reviews that are not primarily concerned with Jackson's experiments with frame-rates, seem to fall in one of two camps. Some complain that The Hobbit is too much like Lord of the Rings, too epic and complex, when it ought to be a Narnia-esque kids' adventure. Others think that it is too simple and childish - not enough like LotR. 

Me? I couldn't be happier. As far as I'm concerned, Jackson got the balance just right, keeping the world of The Hobbit consistent with the existing cinematic Middle-Earth, but retaining the story's unique flavour. At first I had my doubts about the wisdom and necessity of turning The Hobbit into two films, let alone three, but after reading the book I realised just how much happens, how many people Bilbo, Thorin and co meet, and how many places they visit, rushed through at a chapter per location, character or incident. It would be a very long film to do each one justice. Jackson and co have also turned to the back end of LotR's appendices and other writings to give an added depth to The Hobbit.

The film opens with a prologue, slotting it nicely into the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring, by showing Bilbo Baggins as an old Hobbit, and a cameo from Frodo. Perhaps this is a little forced, but it rekindles that homey feeling of Bag End, and was probably put in as an excuse to show Bilbo writing and narrating those immortal words:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Corny set-up or not, those words would have been missed if they had not been there. The entire Bag End scenes which follow are practically flawless. Martin Freeman truly is the young Bilbo Baggins. I fear Mr Freeman may be in danger of being typecast as an ordinary Englishman (or hobbit of the Shire) who finds himself caught up in extraordinary adventures against his will - see Sherlock's Dr Watson, or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's Arthur Dent. But he plays these roles so beautifully! Bilbo and Gandalf's first interaction walked straight off the page and onto the screen, a lighter comedy than in even the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring, and laying to rest my anxieties that this would be more Lord of the Rings: The Prequel than The Hobbit. After this very strange encounter with a wizard who seem to know more about Mr Baggins than he ought, poor Bilbo finds his house swarming with Dwarves, with muddy boots, sharp swords and huge appetites, completely clearing out his pantry and threatening to trash his kitchen. (Spoiler alert: Yes, the washing-up song is in there - one of my favourite moments in the entire film.)

J.R.R. Tolkien didn't give the Dwarves a lot of personality, with the exception of the king, Thorin Oakenshield. Balin is kind, Dori is "a decent fellow," Fili and Kili are young, cheerful and a bit reckless, and Bombur is overweight - that's about all we know. For the film, each of the thirteen has his own look and personality trait. Fili and Kili are shaping up to be fan favourites - especially among the female fans, perhaps for obvious reasons.

May I here point out that they were always my favourites, years before they were cast? Fili, Kili and Balin, who is depicted in the film as a gentle soul but a seasoned warrior, a loyal follower of Thorin, but one filled with doubts about the wisdom of their quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain of Erebor.

An unexpected favourite from the movie adaptation turned out to be Bofur (played by James Nesbitt) who has been expanded from one of the Interchangeable Backup Dwarves to quite a character. He starts off as quite a lovable rascal with a Northern Irish accent and a twinkle in his eye, tormenting Bilbo in his home and sparing no details about exactly how it would feel to run into the business end of Smaug* the dragon. Yet, a moving scene later on in the film proves that he is made up entirely of charm and loveliness.

Reading the book, I never found Dwarven king Thorin Oakenshield to be a very likeable character, surly at best and a complete jerk at worst, but, again, the movie rounds him out a little by showing flashbacks to his past. After showing the devastation of Erebor and the awful aftermath of battles, his quest comes across as more than filling his pockets with gold. I still wanted to shout "Oh, shut up Thorin!" a couple of times, but not as often as when reading the book.

Like Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit uses long, panning shots of breathtaking New Zealand countryside that made me want to pack up my bags and hop on a plane to go on long treks across the mountains. Howard Shore returned to compose the score, keeping in the heartachingly familiar Concerning Hobbits theme, and giving it a jaunty and adventurous twist in keeping with Bilbo's character. As well as other familiar leitmotifs, Shore has introduced some new tunes, most notably the solemn, proud, Dwarf theme (the same tune used in the "Misty Mountains" song which reduced many a Tolkien fan to tears in the first Hobbit trailer last year.) The soundtrack and scenery help to ground this story in the same Middle-Earth as Rings, leaving me feeling as though I'd never left.

It is interesting to compare the perspectives of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings quests. LotR focused upon the human civilisations and the Elves, whose glory days were coming to an end, and the beauty of their kingdoms in Rivendell and Lothlorien, but the only Dwarf, Gimli, was mainly used for comic relief. We return once more to Rivendell, but somehow it doesn't feel like the same idyllic haven that it was before. In the company of Dwarves, we see through their eyes, and I felt that Jackson excelled in subtly giving the same place a sense that something was slightly off-kilter in this golden leafy paradise. The Elves do not sing "tra-la-la-lally," (thank goodness!) but there is a tra-la-la-lally feel to their music, that is at odds with the solid, earthy Dwarves. That being said, I enjoyed seeing another side to Elrond: riding home exhilarated from battling goblins, not the care-worn, frowning leader bearing responsibility for the whole world as well as his wayward daughter.

But it was in Rivendell that I had the closest thing to a criticism of the film: the role of Galadriel. My quibble was not with anything explicitly said or done, so much as the veneration with which Galadriel was treated. Yes, she is one of the wisest beings on Middle-Earth, and, though she is not mentioned in the book of The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings and Unfinished Tales establish her as being a key member of the White Council. But she is still an Elf. The film adaptation implied in its treatment that she ranked higher even than Gandalf, but the wizards of Middle-Earth are in fact closer to angels than humans or Elves. Still, if these suggestions and insinuations are my only cause for complaint - and "complaint" is far too strong a word, really - then The Hobbit fares better than both The Two Towers and Return of the King, which in turn are nearly flawless despite each containing a moment that makes me shout at the TV every time. + 

Galadriel is not the only character to be moved to The Hobbit from Tolkien's works. For the first time, we are introduced to Radagast the Brown, a third member of the order of Istari (commonly known as wizards.) Sylvester McCoy (familiar to many as the Seventh Doctor) portrays Radagast as a rather dotty character, with a darling little pet hedgehog named Sebastian - not a name that you could derive from any of Tolkien's languages, but one which suits the hedgehog perfectly. But I digress. Hidden beneath Radagast's silly exterior which earns ridicule from the haughty Saruman and certain critics, are strength, wisdom and courage equal to that of his peers. "Is he a great wizard?" Bilbo asks Gandalf, "Or is he more like you?" "I think he is a very great wizard," is Gandalf's answer, and I think I would prefer to take Gandalf's side on this matter than Saruman's. Power corrupts absolutely, as is proven by Saruman later on in Lord of the Rings, but there is an innate innocence to Radagast that prevents this in his case.

The great enemy of The Hobbit is, of course, Smaug the dragon, but he barely makes an appearance in the first part of the film - just flashes of stamping feet, swooshing tail and a single golden eye. But there are other foes that Bilbo and the Dwarves must face in the form of the trolls and goblins. These seem to jar a little in comparison to the evil creatures we have previously encountered in Middle-Earth, and it was very strange to watch the trolls sitting around the campfire grumbling and talking. The Great Goblin is quite jolly in a nasty sort of way, even singing a happy little song about how he intends to send the Dwarves to a gruesome fate. Such moments remind us that The Hobbit is a children's story, and yet at the same time, the villains are more complex than the Lord of the Rings orcs, with distinct personalities (albeit not particularly pleasant ones) which may cause a bit of a twinge of disconcerting pity when they get killed. There is a poignant moment when the blue glow of Bilbo's sword, an alert to the presence of goblins, fades away, the goblin having been killed by Gollum. It is strange and unsettling to feel pity for the orcs - battles against them were simple and straightforwardly good-versus-evil in the more "grown-up" Lord of the Rings. Yet that moment of pity foreshadows the critical turning-point in the entire Ring saga: when Bilbo Baggins did not kill Gollum.

It is not only the Hobbit's monsters' characters that seem a little out of place with how we've seen them so far in the cinematic Middle-Earth, but also their appearance. It is apparent that a lot more CGI has been used in the creation of the goblins, and perhaps also the trolls, than in Lord of the Rings. LotR was, of course, a big turning point in computer graphics in the movies, with Gollum a pioneer in motion capture technology. But whereas Gollum fits right at home among the other cast, thanks to the character's design and Andy Serkis' extraordinary acting skills, some of the Hobbit's CGI antagonists don't look as real as the old-style orcs which were actors in prosthetics. I thought that there was something slightly off about the Pale Orc, Azog, but it wasn't until my second viewing that I realised why. It was not merely that computer graphics look less solid than the real thing, but Azog, as well as one or two of the other creatures, looked like they had wandered off the set of Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth - probably no coincidence, as Del Toro also worked on The Hobbit.

Gollum, of course, stole the show, and I was saddened at the end of the film to remember that he only featured in the single chapter of the book and would not be seen again until Lord of the Rings. He is, as ever, alternately hilarious, cute and pathetic, but my friend and I agreed that we also got more of a sense of menace from him than in his previous appearances. Frodo, of course, knew of Gollum before their first meeting, but Bilbo was unprepared, alone and terrified, and he first sees Gollum violently killing a goblin twice his size. Freeman's and Serkis' acting in their game of riddles is marvellous, bringing the book to life in a bit of light relief but with an undercurrent of tension beneath.

"If Baggins loses, then we eat it whole?" 

"...Fair enough."

When Gollum discovers the loss of his "precious," the light relief is gone. The Ring is Gollum's sole reason for being, and its loss seems unendurable. But Gollum will go on hunting it for the next sixty years - or seventy-seven if you go by the book's chronology. Gollum's agony is heartbreaking, and the expressions changing from terror to compassion on Bilbo's face will stay with me for a long, long time. The entire saga depends on that single moment, and it could not have been done better. It was perfection itself.

I still don't care for 3D, though. I'm unsure whether the edition I watched on Friday 14th was the infamous double-frame-rate version of the film or not (I'm no expert in that sort of thing, being more concerned about the story, scripting and acting) but I did find it difficult to focus during the busy action scenes. The 3D is certainly well done, but I found it to be more of a distraction than an enhancement. There was one notable moment when I thought that a member of the audience had stood up in the aisle and blocked the screen, until I realised that it was a 3D character on the edge of the shot.

After Lord of the Rings, I hadn't been too excited about the possibility of a Hobbit film, and doubted the necessity of making more than one - after all, it is shorter than any one LotR volume. Yet despite its simplicity, it is a very full book, as I realised on my recent reread. Are three films really necessary? Well, I've no doubt that there are parts of An Unexpected Journey that could be trimmed with little detriment to the finished result, and I would have estimated that Jackson could probably have made two decent movies without sacrificing any plot. Yet if parts two and three are up to this standard, then as far as I'm concerned, the more Hobbit film there is, the better. (Bring on the Extended DVD!) An Unexpected Journey was an absolute joy to watch - though I strongly advise you to avoid drinking anything before or while watching it. I have already seen the movie twice, and expect to see it at least one more time. Probably more.

*I've been pronouncing it "Smorg" all these years, but apparently the "au" makes an "ow" sound. Similarly, the film rhymes "Thorin" with "Florin" but I've always called him "Thor-in."


+the Faramir-fail and the Sam-go-home-fail, if you're interested.

1Q84, Haruki Murakami

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. In this world, the fates of two people, Tengo and Aomame, are closely entwined. They are each, in their own way, doing something very dangerous. And in this world, there seems no way to save them both. Something extraordinary is starting.

This review could be considering spoilery, if the above book blurb is all you have to go on.

1Q84 follows the lives of two characters, Aomame and Tengo, who are living very different lives in Tokyo. Aomame is a fitness trainer who doubles as an assassin, and who finds her world ever so slightly but significantly wrong after taking a shortcut off the expressway when running late for an "appointment. Tengo is an aspiring writer with a part-time job as a mathematics teacher at a girls' school. When offered the morally dubious task of rewriting a fantasy novel by an enigmatic child prodigy for a literary competition, Tengo finds himself embroiled deeper and deeper in trouble that has little to do with the legal ramifications of fraud. To his dismay, he starts to realise that this extraordinary tale of "Little People," who spin air chrysalises to hatch - essentially - changelings, a secretive cult, and a world with two moons, is not fantasy at all, but autobiography. And the Little People did not want to be written about.

Murakami keeps you guessing about how Tengo and Aomame's stories fit together, as they spend much of the book going about their lives without any kind of interaction or indication that they have ever met. Their worlds don't fit together neatly at first, and in fact I wondered at least once whether they even inhabited the same reality. There are parallels between the two characters' lives, and I would be just on the verge of thinking I knew how they worked when a small detail would seem to throw me off the scent again. The world, or worlds, of 1Q84 shifted and were just a little off-kilter for a while, before Murakami began to answer the questions raised.

The influence of Murakami's "Little People" can be felt throughout the novel, though they are rarely seen and never explained. Are they malevolent fairies or demons? When we do actually meet them, it is in a haunting, surreal scene that unsettles the mind for a long time afterwards. Despite the vagueness of the "Little People," they seemed more vivid and real than any other part of the story - it felt impossible to me that the human mind could make this up. In a New York Times interview, Murakami explained that "The Little People came suddenly. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know what it means. I was a prisoner of the story. I had no choice. They came, and I described it. That is my work." An unsettling thing to read, considering the catastrophic consequences of writing about the Little People in 1Q84. Within the book, Murakami blurred the lines between fiction and reality so well that it even spills into the mind of the reader.

The world of 1Q84 really held my imagination for a long time after I finished reading it, but the story itself was far from flawless. In three volumes, it is too long, with a lot of unnecessary exposition - book 3 introduces a character whose main role is to discover all the things the reader already knows. The characters often don't act or think like real people at all, but are quite clearly doing what they have to in order to fit the plot, rather than the plot evolving naturally from the characters' actions, and the leaps of logic with which characters solve mysteries are ridiculous. Tengo has a memory of Aomame, as a child, looking at the moon, and takes this thought as a message that he needs to look at the moon - and wait! There are two moons! Which automatically means a lot of other things are instantly to be taken as fact, not fiction. Characters somehow arrive at unlikely but true conclusions with very little reason to lead them there, and Aomame "just knows" an impossible thing can only be caused by another, specific, impossible thing.

And, though I can believe in Little People, parallel universes and two moons, I cannot suspend my disbelief enough to be convinced that two people, who interacted precisely once, twenty years ago, in fifth grade, can have a "connection" that means that they are each other's lost love, destined to be together.

All in all, I had a love-hate relationship with 1Q84. It began and ended well, and was full of   extraordinary moments. I felt a thrill every time Aomame noticed something not-quite-right about her new world, and the Little People were among the weirdest things I've read in recent times. But ultimately, the questions were more satisfying to see asked than answered, and the fantasy world was more interesting than the characters or the story itself.

A Feast for Crows–George. R. R. Martin

Spoilers for previous volumes, may include minor spoilers for this one.

After the rollercoaster of shocks and plot twists that was A Storm of Swords, book four of A Song of Ice and Fire is a quieter, more contemplative instalment. I understand that in his planning of the series, Martin originally intended to skip straight to five years later. It shows. Most of A Feast For Crows concentrates on the reactions to the events of the previous volume, introducing characters who will presumably become key players in the game of thrones, and moving people to where they need to be. Politics feature prominently, but most of the people we’ve been following have been killed off and replaced with new, unfamiliar names that are hard to keep track of.

For the first time, there are chapters titled with more than just a character’s name: “The Prophet,” for example and “The Reaver*” These chapters are for the most part focused upon new settings: The kingdom of Dorne (where Princess Myrcella is being fostered) and the Iron Islands which we have seen briefly from Theon’s point of view in Clash of Kings (which reminds me – what has happened to Theon?) This ambiguous titling seems to be testing that readers have been paying attention.

Several of the main characters from earlier in the series are not even featured in A Feast For Crows – Tyrion is absent, as is Daenerys, Jon Snow is only seen briefly in passing, while Arya and Sansa only get a few chapters each. Both of these girls have taken on new identities, and the book itself has started to refer to them by their new names, as if to indicate that their old lives as members of the Stark family are being erased.

The main focus of the story is on Cersei Lannister, ruling as Queen Regent as her son Tommen is only eight years old. Cersei’s development as a character has been well-handled, really interesting but unpleasant. She started off as an Ice Queen, later revealed to be a pawn first of her husband, then of her father and even her teenaged son. With all three of these now dead, and with her relationship with her twin brother Jaime growing more and more fraught, Cersei has finally reached the position of absolute power that she’s always dreamed of. For the first time we see from her point of view, and it becomes abundantly clear that she does not have the first clue about ruling a kingdom. I suppose that, being a woman, she was never expected or intended to hold such power, nor taught the game of thrones as a player. Instead of ruling, she spends most of her time obsessed with engineering the destruction of her daughter-in-law Margaery Tyrell. As a girl, Cersei heard a prophecy that she would be replaced by a younger, prettier Queen, and as such she will go to extreme lengths to rid herself of Margaery. And yet, surely it is clear to the reader that this young Queen of prophecy is Daenerys Targaryen, not Margaery at all.

Next up: A Dance With Dragons, which is another book split into two volumes for the paperback. I understand it returns to the characters who were not featured in this book – hurrah for the return of Tyrion, Daenerys et al. I wonder if there will be any mention of those who featured but briefly in Feast For Crows, or if I have to wait for book 6 to be published. So many of the characters’ stories ended on unsatisfactory notes – I want to know what happens next!


*The word “Reaver” made the Browncoat in me run away screaming. It’s a strange word to see out of the Firefly ‘Verse.

A Storm of Swords part 2: Blood and Gold - George R R Martin

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Seriously, if you plan to read this book, don't read on any further. This will be a very spoilery review. 

Instead, watch this video and try to get the song out of your head afterwards. (Good luck.)

I realise I've probably sent away most of my readers, but I'd like to use this space to talk about what I just read. So if anyone is still reading this: hello.

I put up these warnings, because I was spoiled on some of the details of this book that made me foresee what should otherwise have been a massive shocking incident in A Storm of Swords. I would rather not have even known that there was a massice shocking incident because that knowledge in itself prepared me - and in turn I was not so shocked.

Two weddings and a whole lot of funerals.

All I knew about this book before I read it was that there was a major event known as "The Red Wedding" that was a shocking game-changer for the series. All through volume one, as King's Landing prepared for King Joffrey's wedding, I supposed that this would be the wedding in question - that it may take place in the Red Keep, and would turn to massacre. Then volume 2 opened with the preparations for another wedding, that of Edmure Tully (uncle to King Robb Stark) to a daughter of Walder Frey - to make amends to Frey when Robb married someone else when he ought to have been marrying a Frey girl. And Walder Frey is not someone you want to offend.

The Song of Ice and Fire novels are noted for containing many, many characters' stories, all across the continent of Westeros and beyond. So I noticed when Martin spent a few chapters switching between Catelyn, at the wedding, and Arya, who was travelling towards the wedding venue, and thought this is leading up to something big. And the wedding feast scenes were packed full of foreboding: the bride's evident fear that seemed so much more than of the wedding night, the discordant clashing of badly-played music, the absence of minor characters who ought to be there - all came together to create an atmosphere of something not being quite right. Although I wasn't surprised when it culminated in the murders of two important characters - and a whole host of extras - instead I took time to notice how Martin built up the feeling of dread and horror through everything being a little bit off.

It seemed to me that somehow Robb knew what awaited him - his naming Jon Snow as his heir, and his staying in his seat instead of escorting the bridal couple to the honeymoon suite, and some other things he said and did, all seemed to point towards him preparing for his own death - though why this might be, for a young man still in his teens, I can't say. 

Though unsurprised by the Red Wedding scene, there was so much in this book that did catch me by surprise. Martin has won me over to this series by now - he is a master storyteller by not making the story do what you think it will. Daenerys (she of the dragons) has been mustering an army to take over Westeros and regain the Iron Throne for the House of Targaryen - and instead, after liberating three slave cities, she has decided to stay where she is, and rule there instead. Will she never come to Westeros at all? Her story has always been apart from everyone else's, being on another continent, but it seemed that they would come together. If she stays where she is, how does her part fit into the story as a whole? We shall have to wait and see.

The Red Wedding is not the only wedding of note in this volume, however. King Joffrey's wedding is quite as eventful, if with a lower body count. Still, when the corpse is the groom, it's quite a significant body count nonetheless - and I wonder if anyone will grieve him save his mother? I certainly rejoiced for a moment.

But only for a moment. The times of rejoicing are given only to make the next blow harder - I'd barely caught my breath from Joffrey is dead - and good riddance! before Tyrion, my favourite character, is arrested for the crime. And this storyline is so full of twists and shocks and revelations that I almost got whiplash! Ever since we met the character of Shae, Tyrion's mistress, my best friend and I have been predicting a brutal death for her as a result of her liasons with Tyrion. Yes, and no - but we'll come to that in a moment. Perhaps to others it was obvious, but I wanted to believe in Shae - and she betrayed Tyrion, testifying falsely against him in his trial and breaking his heart, a heart that he tried so hard not to get attached to her. Then, trial by combat (in which Tyrion's champion reminded me of nothing so much as The Princess Bride's Inigo Montoya) turns against him at the last moment - and finally, Tyrion is rescued from his cell by his brother Jaime. But Jaime confesses a cruel lie he told a teenage Tyrion, which reveals a crueler truth. Tyrion responds by taking brutal revenge on those who betrayed him in one tragic and awful scene, followed by one that is both horrible and awesome at the same time. And despite committing terrible acts, I didn't think any less of his character.

In my review of part one, I wondered how Jon would make it back to his post as a Night's Watchman on the Wall, defending the "civilised" world from the attack of the wildlings and "Others." But, after all, he managed it, in between volumes. (One thing that slightly irritates me about this series is how Martin only shows half the story, while the rest happens off the page, and only later does he fill us in about how a character got from A to B.) The Night's Watch has been fighting a seemingly impossible battle while all the kings have been bickering between themselves, oblivious to the danger they're in - that if they don't unite, there will be no kingdom for them to rule even if they do survive. But now one of the kings has come himself: the dour and self-righteous Stannis Baratheon.

I'd had no liking for Stannis before this point. He claimed to have no particular desire for the throne, but would fight for it because it was his "by right." He's either a huge hypocrite, or someone who really, devoutly believes that he is the chosen one and that all he do is what is best all around. His red priestess Melisandre supports this view and butters him up, while Davos (no R) the Onion Knight, is the voice of reason in Stannis's council.

Meanwhile Jon Snow has been offered two great opportunities: to be Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, or to rebuild and rule Winterfell as Ned Stark's son and heir. He doesn't even know that he has also been named Robb's heir. Ever his father's son,* he chooses his duties and oaths with the Night's Watch - but will he, too, be drawn into the game of thrones?

The game continues, but with two major players removed - Robb Stark and Joffrey Baratheon. Joffrey is easily replaced by his small brother Tommen - who will be a mascot king while the Lannisters carry on their merry way plotting and scheming. Others may put forward his sister Myrcella and set the siblings against each other to be their political puppets. And with his march against the Wildlings and Others, Stannis may prove to be a more prominent player. But with Robb out of the picture, Jon oblivious to his potential role and Daenerys staying the other side of the ocean, I don't know whose side I'm supposed to be on any more. It's not straightforward.

Though I thought I was prepared, this story was full of twists I'd never foreseen, and it has been thrilling seeing the story unfold before my eyes wondering just what would happen next. But one thing, the least likely of all my predictions, turned out to be correct - though as with everything else, it did not happen as I had expected.

Catelyn Stark really, truly, came back as a zombie.

* I've been thinking about it, and wondering whether Jon really is Ned Stark's son at all - or his nephew, son of Ned's deceased sister.