Sherlock Holmes & Count Dracula – by Christian Klaver

 

 

Sherlock Holmes & Count Dracula – by Christian Klaver.

 

This book title popped up with the usual feed - “you liked that so maybe you’ll like this…”. I rolled my eyes and dismissed it.

Of course, it popped up again. This time I took a little longer to click away, catching the words “The Classified Dossier Volume 1” on the cover. Volume 1…interesting.

The third time, I read the description in full. I don’t know what I expected but the comment “An exuberant, reverent mashup” caught me and I bought it.

We want more. We always want more. But sadly, Conan Doyle cannot supply us with more of the duo that we love. I had come to terms with this; I accepted that the adaptation of the stories with the perfection that is Jeremy Brett on television watched when I was a child would be the end of it. Then I was startled at the other re-incarnations of Sherlock and Watson and how much I enjoyed them. They weren’t Mr Brett but then he, also, is sadly unable to produce more for us. The title gives away that this is no ordinary foray into crime but into the classified, paranormal and taboo. I have to also confess to being a lover of the 007 series as re-imagined by Anthony Horowitz – Forever and a Day, Trigger Mortis and With a Mind To Kill, all of which perfectly satisfy the reader’s need for more. Horowitz’s novels on Sherlock and Watson delighted me, so why did I resist quite so much?

I had to admit to myself it was the inclusion of Dracula in the title - it put me off – he’s fictional! But of course, so is Holmes and Watson…

From the very first page I could hear Watsons voice. For me, that is it and I am hooked. You can feel the soot on your clothes, the damp cobbles underfoot and hear the cups and saucers on Mrs Hudson’s tray as she ascends the stairs.  The mannerisms are positively “Brettian” from Sherlock and every response from Watson is him.

The descriptions of London are lyrical and immersive; the use of the supernatural characters measured and so balanced to make them as believable as Sherlock. There is complexity of feeling, clash of Family loyalty and the plot line overflows with mystery. Nothing jarred. Nothing felt out of place or out of character. This felt like a classified dossier that had just come to light and could be argued over by experts.

Two-thirds of the way through I stopped reading. This lasted for seven days. It was not because the plot lost momentum or I lost interest; it’s something that happens (rarely with a new author) when I don’t want the book to end. I am enjoying running about in the world they have created or recreated and the end of the book is too near.

For this and for all the reasons above I will be eagerly awaiting the next Classified Dossier. A great romp, an adventure worthy of Holmes, Watson and Doyle.

Wolfbane by Michelle Paver - one year and one week on...

 

 

Michelle Pavers' Wolf Brother series has been a joy, adventure, education and a delight. From the start you are treated to seeing the world not only through the eyes of the mind of six thousand years ago but also within the mind of Wolf.

2004 and I was "haunted" by the reddish-brown cover of the first book - Wolf Brother - it seemed that everywhere I went there is was - shop window, bookshelf, magazin promotion. A childrens/YA book which drew my eye because of working on my Creative Writing degree with the Open College of the Arts (distance learning). I admired the cover - it caught my imagination - but only after seeing it three or four  times did I pick up the book and open to the first chapter. Three pages later, standing in the bookshop, my partner leaned in and said "Buy it!"

Since then I have walked, ran, swam and rested with the boy who can talk to Wolf - enjoyed and qualied in his world. I have loped in Wolf's paws along pine forest trails, across great ice-floes and swam in threatening oceans. Around this, are the clans, their traditions, skills and fears; the great beliefs which each clan adheres to and the Mages that interpret their existence. Each book in the nine book series takes you on a journey which you simply don't want to end.

Wolfbane is an emotional, terrifying and fittingly dramatic end to the series. I make no descriptions of the plot, only to say that as always the characters are fully rounded, driven and relateable. The writing is magical.

A fitting end to the series. I thought I would feel sad - I don't. I feel privileged to have found this series at the start and been through each of the nine books to the conclusion. This is one of the rare book series I will return to, to run and yelp and swim and tremble in a world so well rounded you can taste the cloudberries.

 

Skin Taker by Michelle Paver

 Book Review

I never rush these books. 

Since picking up the Wolf Brother in the year it was first published, describing it as “haunting me” because everywhere I went, this cover of burnt brown-orange with the figures of the youth and a wolf seemed to lurk, I have been a devotee of this world. I have always been willing to read each book slowly. Only the great writers make you want to linger on every word, every image, every chapter. 

Skin Taker arrived on the day of publication and since then I have fallen to my same pattern – first third of the book done in an evening or two. Then I begin to slow down, taking each scene, each convoluted plot twist with a lingering pleasure; also, a feeling of dread seeps in as the pages turn that you are nearing the end. The final third of each of the books I limit to a chapter or two on a Sunday morning.

In Skin Taker, Torak and Renn’s world is devastated by a disaster which strikes the Forest. It throws all the clans into turmoil, doubt and conflict. This is the Stone Age viewed through magic, spirits, ritual and nature. If you haven’t given this series to the young adult in your Family or just settled down and allowed yourself to be taken through this collection you have missed out. Michelle Paver has created a world which is coherent and, within the context of the environment, brutal, honest and realistic. The relationships are the things that shine through. She weaves loss, friendship, suspicion, emotion and acceptance which resonates honestly. The characters are believable and driven by their experiences, their environment and their prejudices.

Wolf and Torak’s friendship is the central character of the book in a beautifully woven binary dance of drives and motives. They are not perfect. They make mistakes, atone and apologise, always communicating through their bond of experience.

The other characters, Dark, Renn’s half-brother, Fin-Kedinn, leader and adopted Father figure to Torak are wonderfully three dimensional; so much so that they join the main characters in the front of your mind while reading through every adventure and quest.

The storytelling is vivid, immersive and gripping. You can smell the pine trees in the ice-covered Forest, feel the change of equilibrium in the world devastated by sudden change and yearn for the struggle to recover, and understand the need for Clan animals and ritual.

I am not an expert but this book could be the best-timed young adult book in one hundred years coming as it does when the world is struggling through its own devastation, comprehension, acceptance and recovery.

I am not a parent but I am an Uncle/Great Uncle and this series, and especially this book, is a lesson-narrative.

It also has an environmental message – one of taking what you need, respect and balance – this is strung through the entire series and becomes such a natural part of the narrative that it's second nature not only with the characters depiction of day to day existence but in the reader. That could be the great triumph of these YA books.

As with all Michelle Paver’s books, I came to the end to read that the ninth book in the series would be out 2022 and then my heart sank a little that it’s the last of the series. I cannot wait for Wolfbane, will be sad to come to end of Torak and Wolf’s adventures, but accept that with all great stories there has to be an ending.

 

 The little pipe bowl, without stem, I think is the oldest my Dad owned. On the metal cuff it says K&P Petersons with a hallmark which suggests silver but is in fact nickel - with  three nickel-mount markings of Shamrock, Wolf Hound and Round Tower.

It has a burnt smell, not of tobacco but of scorched old wood. It is burred and surprisingly unmarked. This must be one of my Dad's early pipes. He gave up smoking pipe tobacco around the late nineties when even pipe smokers couldn't argue that it's effects were conjecture. It was also because of his grandchildren being born and the second hand smoke evidence.

The laying pipe has the single word "Plumb" on the plastic stem. The stem is still turned to the side showing the position it was left in by him and betraying how he would smoke it at the side of his mouth; so he could speak and continue to puff. This has a wider bowl. I remember this being a quick hit pipe. A little moment pipe - when you need a smoke, but have other things looming. I presume the wider bowl means that the nicotine comes more quickly rather than a long, slow draw. the wood is dull, unpolished by palm.

The pipe on the left is another Petersons with the additional word Kinsale. There is no silver or nickel. The bowl is shiny, but that is the finish and not because of my Dad's large hairy hands. There are dinks, and dents but these are small and only seen when you hold it up to the light. Within the bowl, at the very depths, there are tobacco strands; I tap lightly and a few fall out. My Dad smoked these - the loss is suddenly raw and present. A memory of him with his pocket knife probing and scraping the remnants of a good smoke out before repacking and re-layering then embarking on another, what seemed to my young mind, an almost endless, languid pleasure. The stem is pale and grimy - the tip knarled a little by my Dads false teeth. This click and clamp comes back to me over the sound of my radio five years after he has passed.

The right one has no markings. This has the dullness of greasy hands, dust and time. It too has a bowl of burnt, fossilized tobacco. The stem is faded. This one is the mid-term one, the one most used, the long smoke, one with a deep bowl where great care would be taken. Dads thick fingers would push down the leaves, sometimes while they were alight to really pack them down. I can see  him, his eyes on the television, a cup of steaming tea on the coffee table, sitting on the settee watching a movie or sporting event; something he could lose himself in.

When he gave up pipe tobacco, he treated himself to an "occasional cigar" but this was rare. The smell of pipe tobacco or a good quality cigar caught on a street corner or near a pub brings those memories back to me.  He would stride across the fields like an organic steam engine, puffing slowly. The pipe would hang at the side of his mouth, gripped by jaw muscles, holding my mothers hand, the dogs loping out into the meadow and returning to check on them while we trailed behind.

How close are those shadows and memories that they can be retrieved with stale tobacco and old pipes.

4 July 2019 Diary Entry

Peter Wilfred Vallance, my Uncle and second Dad, passed away peacefully in his sleep at 3.30am in room 37, third floor of Queen Charlotte Nursing Home with Barbara and Alison with him.

At 5am Barbara and Alison woke Craig and I to give us the news.

We have all felt an overwhelming sense of relief that this gentleman and gentle man, passed peacefully, without pain and with his two champions with him.

The previous night of the 3^rd I spent five hours or so with him. It was clear that nothing would rouse him and his pain was completely under control. Despite this, I spent most of the time watching him breathe; but only once did he take a deep breath and that was as he heard Barbara’s voice. He then settled back into a slow, deep, rhythm.

After getting home, I said to Craig that I hoped he went when the girls were there because they had been with him, defending and caring for him all the way from the first to the last. I could not imagine how my Sister and Sister in Law would feel if they were not there to comfort him in his last moments before the infinite.

The sense of relief is replaced very quickly with guilt and then grief. But no matter how much this pains the living, the fact that he passed without distress and with loved ones around him says it all and will always be our comfort.

In the last year, our lives changed radically. From his first illness, diagnosis and then the Home, we have learned more about his illnesses, the care system and the inevitability of life and death than we ever wanted to. I have always said we were “managing a slow-motion car-crash” and that is what we have done; supporting the two drivers, Barbara and Alison with as much energy and love and patience as we could.

I will miss my Uncle Peter. I will not miss the last year of his life or the distress his dementia and cancer burdened him with and which we tried to shoulder as a Family. It has taught me how strong we are as a Family, how compassionate, how bloody minded and how tolerant and forgiving we are. We have used muscles we never knew we had at our command. Those strengths were given to us by the very Family around us during our whole lives.