Teen/YA: September 2006 Archives

“For those who want to believe, no proof is needed. But for those who can’t believe, no evidence is enough.”

The furthest fathoms and deepest depths of the lake at Moutonby are matched by the probing philosophical enquiries as to the roles belief is able to play within modern civilisation. Is all belief now made blind by technological advance and the possibility of scientific verification?

The atmosphere of the novel crackles with a flaring, electrostatic energy that juxtaposes with the harsh unredeeming landscape of Moutonby. Favourable comparison to the celebrated works of Alan Garner is easily justified.

Underpinning village life in Moutonby - a small bleak assemblage of habitations clustered along the banks of the lake - is a dark legend about a beast that lurks in the depths of the water, the Mourn. Modern times have seen the village divided between those who believe in the Mourn – termed the Fearful, their lives being driven and dictated by custom and ritual as they endeavour to assuage the beast’s fury – and those who reject the legend believing it a pseudo-feudal means via which the Milmullen family have been able to dominate the village through false fear and hysteria.

Son and heir, Tim Milmullen, grows up alongside this and is expected to assume the role of the Mourner on his fast-approaching sixteenth birthday. This mantle is one his forefathers have held before him, making ritualistic sacrifices to the Mourn, securing the protection of the villagers through so doing. Tim is unsure as to his belief, a fact brought into rapid relief by his twin sister’s own fervently held beliefs. The questions surrounding the Mourn isolate Tim from his family and from the community who increasingly come to depend on him for their future.

A particular achievement in the novel, alongside the means by which belief is charted against fear of that which is not easily understood and which is seemingly senseless, is the constant challenges that twins Tim and Jenny pose to traditional belief. This emphasises that regardless as to the polar extremes the two’s views take, both are founded on their own level of experience, of thought and consideration of stimuli that their lives have been presented with. These questions and indeed the eventual resolve arrived at is an important facet of their growth and development, one that in a world that is increasingly geared to the materialistic, is oft neglected yet deserving of careful consideration. Even disbelief is a belief that must be arrived upon through experience, if it is a standpoint arrived at responsively...

This is a dense, thoughtful and thought-provoking novel that demands careful reading providing ample reward through its sociological and implicit religious comment as well as its lithe determination to avoid the condemnation of any systems of belief or world views.

Readers are made privy to a series of discursive vignettes that constitute the life of Justin. This is achieved in an assured and lively manner. The imagination and eccentricity of Justin make him an immensely agreeable if not at times a worryingly breakable individual whose fears, feelings and frighteningly fatalistic outlook on life isolate him from the society that orbits around him.

Justin’s personality is one of extremes, the love he harbours for Agnes who becomes ensnared by Justin’s vitality and his web-like neediness, fast becomes all-consuming leaving him incomplete amidst a mire of uncertainty. The gradual corrosion of the influences of logic, reason and rationale in lesser hands could become dirge-like and dull, that the prose here is iridescent, teeming with differing philosophies of perspective and perspective, makes for a strikingly life-affirming read that is not easily forgotten.

“I don’t hate you. What are you? Fathers, mothers, two children on holiday. No, I don’t hate you. I hate what you stand for. Not tourism. I am proud of my country. I want to share it with others. Our people share their history and their pain and their struggle. We are used to sharing. No, I hate the dollars economy you bring, which makes our pesos, our once proud pesos – now defaced with Quitano’s ugly face all over them – almost worthless.”

Martin, his mother and father are holidaying on Santa Clara an island whose intrinsic beauty and resources have been exploited and where political insurgence is now rife following the development of nickel mining that ravages the country’s natural resources and its people.

In a desperate and dramatic attempt to highlight the plight of the islanders, El Taino, Rafael and Eduardo capture Martin and his family together with French tourist,s Louise and her family, intending to make a plea for a national enquiry to be made into the nickel mine that brings the scourge upon their country.

The story is complex and web-like, whilst it is told primarily from the dual viewpoints of Martin’s father’s diary entries and Martin’s own account of the shocking, unnecessary and surprising death of Louise, there is more than a passing empathy with the plight of the islanders who make this desperate bid to remove the blight that has been forced upon their land.

Judgement is never easily arrived at in this novel and it is difficult not to feel pulled in two quite distinct directions. Far from being a criticism, this is one of the great accomplishments of the book, that in failing to impose a resolute judgement as to where moral rectitude truly lies it coaxes the conscience to consider the standpoints of all.

“You mean Stacey? You don’t forget a face like hers. She could have been a model if she’d played her cards right. But Stacey was a mess. She always chose the wrong guys.”

The lack of parental control, discipline and most importantly care in Stacey’s life coerces her into the ever-tightening enclaves of Simone’s gang. Amidst her quest for acceptance, Stacey is assimilated into systems of ethics distinct from her own, a choice that leads her, albeit unwittingly, to diminish her life-chances.

Increasingly unable to play to her own strengths, Stacey’s behaviour becomes ever more extreme, documented in the first-person and with strength of emotion and moral resolve by Kev, who is seduced by Stacey’s physical appearance.

Lacking in similar resolve, Stacey who already has an ASBO is fed drugs by her boyfriend whose combined intimidation together with the peer pressure of Simone’s gang sees Stacey spiral from stealing cans of lagers to taking part in a large scale jewellery theft. This is a well executed cautionary tale told through explorations of the types of people we can all too easily become when circumstances and our circle of friends conspire against us.