Wednesday 10 January 2018

Read in 2018 - 1: Elmet

Elmet
by Fiona Mozley

This was a Christmas present from my sister, who often despairs at my bad reading habits and tries to make sure I read a good book at least every now and then. This one certainly fits her requirements.

Told from the perspective of 14-year-old Daniel, the story is about a family on the fringe of society: John, a giant of a man and gentle father who makes his living mostly from illegal fights, moves with his children Daniel and Cathy to a small copse where he builds them a house with his own hands.
For one year, the three of them live there almost unbothered by human society, entirely satisfied with their own company, living off what their vegetable patch and chicken coop yield, hunting with bow and arrow for small animals in the copse and picking berries in the hedgerows.

Every now and then, Daniel tells the reader of their life before they moved to the copse. The children went to school (never really fitting in) and were cared for by their Grandma, with their father often being away, sometimes for days or weeks on end.
It takes until chapter 8 before the reader learns anything about their mother. Daniel never really knew what was the matter with her, and describes things from his perspective as a child, but she was never around for long before she disappeared again until one day a phone call informs them that she won't be coming back.

The copse and the house are not officially owned by the family, and it is only a question of time until the landowner turns up and suggests a way to settle things between them. 

The drama unfolds slowly, but the reader can see how it all leads to an inevitably terrible end. When that terrible end is finally there in the last chapter, it makes for hard reading - at least it did for me. Things turn brutal, but are still told in Daniel's style; he is matter-of-fact with an eye for poetic detail even in the most horrible scene. The final outcome is not made entirely clear; the reader doesn't know for sure whether Daniel is the lone surviving member of his family or not.


The setting of the book is rural Yorkshire, with farming and former mining villages dotting the countryside around the copse. I loved the descriptions of the woods and fields, and of the self-contained daily life of the unusual family. Like I said, the last chapter was tough, but not surprising, so I was mentally prepared for it.


Definitely a book I recommend; my sister has not yet read it, and I hope she will enjoy it, too. In parts, it reminded me of Claire Fuller's "Our Endless Numbered Days", which I read last year; you can find my review here. Both books centre around characters who live apart from "the rest of us", so to speak; either by choice or because they were made to. Both books have a young person as their narrator, and there is death and tragedy in them as well; they are both written in a language that is unpretentious and capturing.





"Elmet" is Fiona Mozley's first novel. Her home page is here; it contains a mini bio.  Click here for a more thorough review I found on the Guardian's website.

13 comments:

  1. Sounds like an amazing book to start the new year with Meike - I read another review from an English newspaper and it certainly was in line with your excellent take on this novel. I've added it to my Amazon 'wish list'.

    Warming up a bit here at last - the lengthy freeze broke records for our area.
    Mary -

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    1. It is an amazing book, Mary, and I hope you'll enjoy reading it when you get round to it.

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  2. I remember this book, it was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2017. I remember the author because it said she worked in a book shop in Yorkshire and I thought of you and your English family!
    (Lincoln In The Bardo...that was the book that won, just looked it up!)
    Anyway, I remember thinking that you would like the book by Fiona Mozley!

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    1. Yes, she was shortlisted for the Booker Prize - not bad for a first novel, is it! She still works in a book shop in York while working on her thesis at uni.
      And you were right in thinking I would like it!

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  3. I think I downloaded a sample of this on my Nook over Christmas but I swear I can't remember a single thing about it! (Too much stress going on at the time to read much of anything). It sounds pretty good, so I may have another go at it, after I read The Nightingale, which is my book club's January selection. We meet a week from today, so I need to start it immediately!

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    1. I understand very well about not reading much (or, even if you did read, not remembering) under the circumstances you were in. Now that you have had such great news about Gregg, and life is getting back to normal, I hope you'll be in the right mind for enjoying a good book again.

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  4. Might be a possible one to recommend for my Book Club.

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    1. Yes, why not; I'd like to know what you think of it when/if you read it, Pat.

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  5. Why is this a 'good' book and not your other choices?

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    1. Well... many of the books I read were free kindle downloads, and some of them are... how shall I put it... not to my sister's liking. A bit like junk food: cheap, not very well prepared, not substantial.
      Often enough, I am aware of my reading material being a little on the junky side, and I usually say in my reviews that I either do not recommend the book or you can easily give it a pass without missing out on anything.
      But I have come across some good and nice books this way, too, and would even say I have discovered a few gems among them. An ebook being available for free does not necessarily mean it is not a "good" book - see all the Edith Nesbit ones, and so many other classic books or by long-forgotten authors from the 1800s and early 1900s.
      I definitely do not always share my sister's approach to reading; it does not have to be high-brow for me in order to enjoy it.
      Just one example: She would never read any of the Christmas books I have read, while I really enjoy this kind of seasonal reading.

      Actually, this is a topic that easily can fill its own blog post... Thank you for having me given the idea!

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  6. Not feeling tempted to put it on my reading list just now - but who knows... ;)

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    1. I really recommend it, Monica, but I can understand it won't be to everybody's taste.

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