Historical: January 2006 Archives

Taking the legendary green children of Woolpit as its inspiration, Whispers in the Woods deftly takes its child protagonists Fern and Hickory on a quest for ultimate self-knowledge and acceptance. What is so admirable in this is the way the tale captures the mood, music, movement and motions of medieval English life whilst covertly questioning issues of nurture and nature in the two children’s development.

The gentle narration and the endearing depiction of Fern and Hickory make this a likeable and comforting story. That is not to say the tale is not also resonant. The children’s persecution by witchfinder Silas of Wickham draws parallels with race issues of the present day. Similarly, the children’s relationship with nature stimulates thinking about our contemporary relationship with the environment. Interwoven into the tale are legends, folk-lore, a brief grounding in the origins of surnames and etymology, and an overview of mediaeval castle life.

On a purely practical level, production values on some of the illustrations are low, preventing them from properly complementing the text. The inclusion of a glossary is useful in providing an understanding of some of the more specialised language.

The ambivalence that surrounds much of the criticism about John Boyne’s first novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, seems to arise from an inability to suspend one’s disbelief. As Kellaway asserts in the Observer, ‘(t)he Holocaust as a subject insists on respect, precludes criticism, prefers silence.’ The danger here is respectful silence has an unnerving ability to marginalise the Holocaust from mainstream historical discourse. This can be evidenced by BBC research findings that less than 40% of young people had heard of Auschwitz. Research on the streets of Minsk resulted in similar findings: “I think Auschwitz is a type of hoofed animal”.

Clearly historical treatment of the Holocaust for young people in the main has not resulted in even basic comprehension. The question arises then as to whether fiction has a role to play here and it can easily be argued that it does… Successful fiction captures the imagination, it allows us to live lives that are extraordinary to us. The story of Bruno and Shmuel within “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” does exactly that, through it we gain a fresh and new perspective on the Holocaust allowing us to invest our emotional economies, should we divest our interaction with history of this then historiography becomes the realm of arbitrary facts and figures.

This novel is one whose success is grounded within the naivety of its voice. To criticise that and to dismiss Bruno as ‘thick and unobservant’ as Saunders does within The Times is to radically misalign the premise upon which “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” operates. As publisher David Fickling comments, ‘This is a book about innocence walking into darkness’, the at-once emotional and artistic impact of the book occurs as the reader moves through from disbelief to an awareness of the true capacity for humanity to dispossess itself from all respect and compassion. This is not, as Saunders suggests, a novel of ‘absolutely blush-making vulgarity’, neither is it as Kellaway claims ‘the first novel ever written for children about the Holocaust’, it is a novel whose ending remains with readers long after the paper pages are finished, it is a novel that inspires thought and difference of opinion, it is a book that deserves to be read, to be discussed, to be held close to the heart…

It is easy to see how this novel could have been both unique and superb. Throughout the narrative trots along at a steady pace and in places it picks up speed and truly begins to gallop. This works best when Chance and Jacquetta are together feeling the winds of freedom and liberation rush through their respective manes and hair, the power of the writing at such times sweeps the reader along and makes the book a genuine pleasure. The marrying of a fairly traditional equine-focused tale together with the American civil war is not wholly comfortable however. Despite a somewhat sentimental scene whereby Jacquetta learns of the death of her brother Marcus, for a large portion of the novel the impact of war’s emotional focus is directed most heavily upon horses. As such the reader is left with an after-taste that the story would perhaps have felt more satisfactory had it not have placed the mortality of human kind and horses together.

Cyrano explains how the pair ended up in this situation. It’s the story of how Roxane was seduced by Christian’s words both written and spoken and how de Bergerac wrote those enticing entreaties to win the heart of the woman he loved for another.

Add in Cyrano’s embarrassment about his rather prominent protuberance, dashing heroism and a sneaky rival in the shape of the Comte de Guiche and all the elements are in place for a classic historical romance.

This is not a tale that has hidden its light under a bushel. Movies in the shape of Cyrano, staring Gérard Depardieu, and Roxanne, Steve Martin, have brought this story to life in traditional and updated environments.

Geraldine McCaughrean’s version is based on the original play by Edmond Rostand and opts for the traditional setting of seventeenth France. It has all the lyrical richness that the tale demands, Cyrano’s swagger is admirably conveyed, Christian is suitably eager and dumb.

The machinations of the Comte provide a darker background for some of the more pantomime moments and everything floats along effortlessly.

It is also book that opens up the debate about the merits of retelling a classic tale: is such a work more valuable than the more “full-on” challenge of inventing your own characters, setting and plot? Is it merely a buswoman’s holiday for McCaughrean?

The marketing team at Oxford University Press won’t care about such writerly concerns, however. They will simply be delighted with the January publication date.