And the Cat Came Back...

I can't believe it's over a month since I last blogged.  And I was doing so well!  So what's stopped me?  Christmas shopping?  Internet problems?  Or maybe I was just too scared to revisit the superlative 'Pet Sematary' by the master horror writer Stephen King.

'Pet Sematary' by Stephen King
(Hodder and Stoughton, 1989)

Dr Louis Creed has left behind the rough and tumble of the city for a chance at the peaceful, rural idyll in Maine. Louis, his wife Rachel, children Ellie and Gage, with cat Church, think they've found the perfect family home and move in eager to begin a new life together.  Creed soon bonds with elderly neighbour Jud Crandall, a man full of stories about the town who can't help sharing news of a notable local landmark through the woods behind the house.  Beyond the fields where Creed hoped his children would play lies a pet 'sematary' where local youngsters have buried their beloved animals for decades.  At first Louis likes the eccentric charm of the place, but it's not long before death raises its ugly head and he discovers that the secrets of the cemetery cast a very long shadow indeed...

I've read a number of Stephen King books before ('Christine', 'Different Seasons', 'Carrie' and 'The Green Mile'), but none of them are any where near as impressive as this one.  King himself says that this is the most frightening book he's written and it's easy to see why.  It deals with powerful, universal themes and fears including family, grief and anxiety about our loved ones and helped me finally see why Mr King is popular worldwide.  This book deals with the worst of everyday fears and what ifs, then pushes further, forcing you to consider how far you would go in the name of familial love.

Louis Creed is a completely relatable, flawed yet optimistic human being and was so expertly written that I had to find out what happened to him.  He does so many things wrong, but completely understandably, and I just couldn't leave him on his own or shake the hope that someone, anyone, would help him pull back from the brink.  This is the first time that I can remember screaming 'No, don't do it!' at a book!  Mr King's descriptions of every physical exertion, every rogue thought, every painful emotion kept the novel tense right to the very last pages and my heart ached as I had to stand by and watch his life torn apart by the opposing forces of love and the cemetery.

This book is horrific in a very specific sense of the word.  It's not about cheap gore and even cheaper thrills, it touches a much more fundamental nerve that I still find tremors several weeks after finishing the novel.  I have no doubt that 'Pet Sematary' will stay with me for a long time to come, a credit to an incredible author who is clearly full of surprises.

'Pet Sematary' is about family and how far you'll go to protect them.  If you think you already know, then read this book.  It might change your mind.

Good Knight, Sir Terry

This year is the 800th anniversary of King John's barons forcing him to accept the Magna Carta, a document which aimed to curb his tyrannical rule. Magna Carta is undeniably significant in the development of ideas of law, justice and human rights, so 2015 has seen many events aimed at encouraging people to learn more about it and its relevance to the modern world.

This week, I had the pleasure of visiting Salisbury Cathedral, which is hosting 25 of the Baron's Charter statues before they're auctioned off this Thursday in aid of the Trussell Trust. These incredible, life-sized noblemen were designed by local artists to reflect a range of historic and local themes.

One of the most popular - one which I hope will raise a great deal of money for the charity - was a tribute to the late Sir Terry Pratchett, who lived near Salisbury.  Created by Paul Kidby, the talented artist who has been illustrating Sir Terry's Discworld books since 2002, it featured a portrait of the author and a myriad of his famous characters.

If you're feeling flush, don't miss the auction at 6.30pm in Salisbury Cathedral on Thursday 1st October 2015. If not, there's still time to get face-to-face with this brilliant baron and his brethren before they go under the hammer.  Visit the Baron's Charter website to find out more.

 

 

  

Related Links

Paul Kidby's website
The Baron's Charter website
The Magna Carta 800 website
Salisbury Cathedral

UPDATE

The auction raised over £223,000 and someone bought the Discworld Baron for a fantastic £5000.  Congratulations to the lucky bidder and great job to everyone involved.

The Scarlet Woman

I've done it! Only just, but I've done it! That's another two books read this month!

Last night I finished 'The Red Queen' by Philippa Gregory, the third book in her Cousins' War series and part-inspiration for the recent BBC serial 'The White Queen'.

'The Red Queen' is Margaret Beaufort, daughter of the House of Lancaster and cousin of the unfortunate King Henry VI.  Married to Henry's 24-year-old half-brother Edmund Tudor at just 12, she learns early that while an important tool in dynastic power games, she's not free to make her own decisions or wield power herself.  Tudor dies two years later, but not before the 13-year-old Margaret becomes pregnant. She endures a horrifying birth which, fortunately, results in a baby boy.  Naming him Henry after the troubled king of England, she sees her son as rightful heir to the throne and begins to set her sights on the ultimate prize. But will Henry Tudor support his mother's ambitions? Will her plans be discovered by the new York kings? Will either of them survive long enough to claim the crown for themselves?

'The Red Queen' by
Philippa Gregory
(Simon & Schuster, 2010)

I must admit I wish I hadn't started this.  Not 'The Red Queen', it's not that bad. I mean that I wish I hadn't thought it would be a good idea to read a whole series of books in a row.  The trouble is that this isn't a 'series' in a chronological sense.  Instead of one book leading to the other, perhaps with a little transitional overlap in between, both 'The White Queen' and the 'The Red Queen' cover the same time period but from two different perspectives. And it's hard not to get a bit bored when you've heard some bits of the story before, especially when so much of both books consists of the lead characters waiting for news and wondering what's happening.

It also doesn't help that the narrators are women.  I applaud Ms Gregory's intention of bringing female historical figures out of the shadows, but this doesn't change the fact that very few of them were allowed to actually do very much.  I was vaguely aware that Lady Margaret Beaufort was her son's greatest confidante and advisor (none of which comes across here, so I'll have to check now.), but prior to gaining the status of King's Mother, things appear to have been very different.  Beyond giving birth to Henry and finding a politically astute husband willing to support her, she doesn't really do that much in this book. What she does do is interesting, but not really enough for a whole book.  The fact that Ms Gregory has to tell the final section of the story in third person away from Lady Margaret kind of suggests that even she was struggling at that stage.  She didn't even bother to have her recount the story as if she'd heard it afterwards or a messenger tell her what happened.

Really, I feel that I would've enjoyed this book and its predecessor a lot more if they'd been written like 'The Other Queen', with multiple narrators, each contributing their perspective on the story to create a whole picture.  I also think I might've liked it more if I'd not read it straight after 'The White Queen' as I may have forgotten some events and needed the reminder, but then again I didn't know that there was going to be so much overlap.  Afterall, I loved 'The Lady of the Rivers', the first book in the series, and there was hardly any duplication between that and 'The White Queen'.

The one thing I would recommend this book for, and which shows Gregory at her best, is the birth of Henry Tudor. The incident is so shocking and awful that it could put you off having children for life. Then you remember that this was the suffering of a 13 year old girl and it all feels a lot worse.  Ms Gregory is known for her skill in creating a sense of time and place through her characters and this is the only point at which I really felt it in this whole book.

I don't really want to be negative about the work of such a fantastic writer, but I didn't enjoy this book as much as I have books from the Tudor series and doubt that I'll bother reading the new novel, 'The White Princess'. What I will probably do, however, is look up some non-fiction books about the key characters portrayed.  When I've got a few more titles off the shelves of course!

Now for something a bit different.  Science fiction anyone?