David and Marianne Dalmore's Garden

There was a home made swing attached to a tree, I think David must have made it, I wondered for whom at some point, he had no children in his family to my knowledge, or surely we would have met Perhaps he built it for Marianne, who once was his wife, as she seemed fragile and light like a child and I could easily imagine her set on the swing, smiling and laughing.
    The tree was a blossoming tree, pink in bloom. There were other trees at the back of the garden that blocked the neighbours houses from view, a dense crowd of trees. David placed a sign on one reading 'Murkwood' that had an owls face, it's eyes the 'o's in wood. Like lord of the rings. His garden had a pond with large golden fish, some more red than gold, and plants growing in the water with a few others growing out of the thin, slate like, stone edging. A white statue of a nude lady was at the bottom end of the pond, facing the swing, her hands swallowed by moss, as if she was clinging on to it with her pottery fingers. But she did not look at the swing, her face tilted towards the water surface, staring at her reflection like Narcissus, her stationary life emitting futile human thoughts.
    The pond housed frogs too that my childhood fingers longer to hold on to, perhaps a little too tightly. But I didn't want to hurt anything, or anyone and especially didn't want anything to hurt me. But then, after a long period of absence, David died and I was reluctantly told. Marianne passed not long after. I miss them. All of the memories are still raw, lost in the distance of my Mothers divorce that separated this inspired couple from my childhood and taught me death. The way Marianne's hair moved in her long braid when she lead me and my sister to feed the nearby horses with autumnal apples, she was unafraid of their wildness. David's pink telephone piano, the numbers piano keys. He used to learn the tune of your phone number rather than the digits. I used to make a racket and possibly a high phone bill. The car indicator buzzers he made, one sound for left, another for right. The bright, blue songbird wind chime my Mother gifted Marianne once. Home-made wine under a home-made pergola. Inventions, music, fish-tanks, dark wood, video tapes, puzzles, my Rubik's cube.
    Once they were gone the whole garden changed to winter in my mind. When I dream of it I climb into it from the back, Murkwood long gone and replaced by a twisting of brambles and brown nettles that claw at me and I pull myself through. The blossom tree still has the swing attached to it although it is rotting and has gone grey, the swing moved faintly in defiance to the lack of breeze. I touch the wood seat of the swing and feel the softness of age. I feel eyes watching me from the house but turn to no evidence. The pond is empty, dry of water, starved of life. The bathing Lady is gone too, but the moss around her fingers stayed, nude in patches from her absence. I get the urge to climb in the pond, down away from haunting guilt and absence, haunted by happiness. Then I hear their laughter from the house. But then I wake up.

In Loving memory of David and Marianne Dalmore

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A Review, The Book Of Lost Things

Illustrated by Rob Ryan.

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"Everything You Can Imagine is Real."   —Pablo Picasso

'The Book of Lost Things' (2006) by John Connolly is by far my favourite read, it appeals to both my inner-child but also satisfies me as an adult reader by not brushing over the harsh sides of the original fairy tales that Disney have made 'child-friendly'. I see this book as a testament to the benefits of reading fairy-tales as an adult reader but also as a indication towards Connolly's belief that it is a shame that it is now unexceptionable to expose children to this side of the fairy tale. I personally believe that the original stories are much more beneficial to the reader, regardless of age, as they create a safe environment to teach important, albeit uncomfortable or frightening, morals and lessons about reality (for all of you who are interested in the Fairy Tale Origins try this article or wait for my post on the subject). In my opinion, children should not always get a happy ending at the end of each story, as you are impinging that life is the same. Perhaps however this, for the sake of an easier life, does not apply to stories told directly before bedtime. This being said, I don't think that this novel is in any way aimed or should be read to a child as it goes into the metaphors that even the Victorians tried to brush over.

This novel has the dark tone, as well as Gothic and Macabre aspects, found in Connolly's other novels, however seems to be in another world to them, being that it is not similar to anything else he has written. It seems also to have a lot of aspects of the bitter-sweet Victorian fairy tales which were also dark in content as I have mentioned. It is particularly a study of the psyche of the protagonist, David, and how he deals with the death of his mother and his childhood, in a way it is a bildungsroman that is either situated internally in David's imagination or in the fairy tale world. It also addresses how some children who have been protected for harshness may become more unstable (David has obsessive compulsive disorder and is hearing voices of books in his psychiatrist's office, which is actually an amusing section) if they are not able to confront adult concerns in childhood in a way that they need to, being that David's father disapproves of his fixations with fiction, encouraging him however to engage with newsprint, which I assume David finds too real.

 For those of you who have not read it I have included a brief plot summery below.

Plot Summery (warning, you may see this as spoilers)

It begins with a boy, named David, who is losing his Mother during the 2^nd World War. After her death he moves to the county side near London with his Father and his new wife Rose, his Mothers carer. It is a short time before this that David starts having black outs, odd dreams and can hear books talking amongst themselves. His dreams are also affected and in these dreams that we are first introduced to the world of Jonathan Tersely (who used to live in his new house) and the Loupes (A peculiar man, wolf hybrid). During an air raid, David enters the world and becomes fully submerged in a land full of perils that feel too fictional to be deadly. But he learns, as the book progresses, Connolly give a real sense of growth in this character, the plot is in fact a very excellent way of telling a coming of age story. David encounters distorted versions of every fairy tale imaginable including Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Sleeping ‘Beauty’, and Little Red Riding Hood and her ‘litter’ as it were. Some of the stories he encounters include four that are told to him by other characters, as well as one of the most notorious of fairy tales villains, Rumplestiltskin.

Of Intruders and Transformations', My Illustration.

'Of The Deer Girl'. My Illustration

Of All That Was Found And All That Was Lost - The First Chapter

    

Connolly uses a strong sense of imagery and character placement in this novel, so that as a reader you never feel lost, to me it felt more like I was reading a new form of text that was openly extracting places and association from my memories due to the familiar use of fairy tale and the character found within them. The detail of environments were very impacting which added a richness to the writing. As a novel, is is quiet emotional if you as prone to growing attached to characters.

I was listening a lot to this song (Yeasayer, Wait for the Summer) and others on the same album when reading this, and I just think that the video to this song as well as the entire sound of the album, All Hour Cymbals, embodies the feel of this novel and I would recommend it as a quiet background soundtrack to this read.

I really hope that you may be inspired to read this and as it really is am amazingly captivating piece of work. Also please note that the book also comes with notes at the back of the book which explore the origins of the fairy tale and includes a print of each fairy tale that Connolly used when writing, so its really like two books in one.

'Of The Loups and How They Came into Being', My Illustration

'Of Anna', My Illustration

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From The Watch Tower

Once upon a time, upon this same soil, another kind of world existed. This world, however, in no way resembled the present time and very little of it remains. It was full of unimaginable wonders and perils too easily imagined. The kind of world that lives only in your classic fairy tales and folk law. Myth and legends that you no longer believe in.This world was filled with a form of the rawest beauty that made the landscape both hypnotic and nauseating. The kind of beauty that could make your eyes bleed, like diamond dust in the air. In this world, a long time ago, I was born to my Mother, Amicia, and Father Brahm, who raised me after my Mother’s demise. This world was a harsh one and unforgiving upon weak bodies and bore illness' stronger than even my Mother's willpower. She did fight, mainly for the sake of me, her only son, to keep on breathing one more day, one more hour, one second longer. She wanted time... and time is was such peculiar thing back then, as I am sure to explain to you soon. But inevitably my poor Mother left me. She left, and I can't recall her ever being here… and so I grew up, like a plant from rot, tended by my Father as he grieved for his lost love. This, I think, made me stronger the others; less coddled but always very much loved. I think that my Father saw in me what he saw in my Mother, caring for me to keep her alive in some way. I don't think I could ever fully understand this love. He wanted me to be what their love had been, immortal and beautiful. If only I could have lived up to his wants for me and I wish that he were still here today to tell me how to love again after such a great loss. But, dear reader, it is not my intention to tell my life's story to you. My intention is to tell you the circumstances as to how I am still living. It want to show you my love, in a fickle attempt to regain it, to try imagine the reality of you reading someday this as I watch you from afar, I want your reaction, your heart, you love maybe? But I need your promise.

The Watchtower
My Sketch

    The sun burnt a hole in the sky of the world that once was, yet the light didn't ever fully reach the earth that lay limp, barren and clammy underneath the dry air, the only food that would grow an ashy brown yam that tasted so bitterly sweet that I can still not find any reason to miss it. In this past world the night was day and the day was night, neither standing out more significantly than the other. It had always been this way for us and showed no signs of changing. I lived in a small village, just on the outskirts, near the City Castle. I remember looking at the grand barracks, an architecture unlike that of medieval evil kings which seem rather bland and tame in comparison with our castles peeks and turrets, and I sat upon the shoulders of my already elderly Father, his hair greyed, my Mother long since departed, its stone tan walls were greatly impressive to me then; each window looking like a claw mark by some giant best cutting into the masonry, but all within seemed light, spacious, cool and restfully safe. Its silhouette was clean cut against the amber sky, proud, safe and watchful. I dreamed that someday that I should be allowed to venture inside; maybe sleep one night in a tower like a young prince may do, for children do fancy these such things. My Father told me a story about the castles origins as a form of never ending bedtime story.
    One story that stood out to me the most was one with a young prince, and I shall tell it to you. He was the youngest son in his kingdom so his father gave him the most turgid and barren lands as it was all that wasn't promised to his elder siblings. He walked for fifty days and fifty nights with only his companion, a small brown mouse, for company and protection. When he came across a large putrid ditch he knew he must have found the correct place. He began collecting stones but found only small pebbles but that did not deter him. A day later and the very castle that I had admired as a child was built, every detail crafted perfectly in awe inspiring miniature. The prince turned and crouched down to his mouse companion once he had done and asked her what she thought? The mouse scurried with excitement into the castle and let out a great squeak that frighten the prince into thinking that one of the pebble chandlers had fallen onto her.
Moments later, the building began to shake. The pebbles growing to stones. The castle growing to full size. The startled prince arose and stared up in shock of his beautiful castle, now towering above him. The stone castle door stood open, and a brown haired maiden was stood in the doorway. She spoke to him in a high pitched voice.
"My prince. I have watched and loved you for so long and I thank you for rescuing me from your fathers castle. I was so touched by your gesture of crafting me a castle of my own that as reward I have made your own big enough for us both to live together as king and queen."
The prince squeaked. Never had he seen a woman that looked so much like a mouse. He walked past her into the castle. Not one chandler had fallen and no dead mouse could be found. The brown hair lady began to grow weary of the princes' stupidity and with a twitch of her nose she brought down a chandler from above the princes head and crushed him to death. She promptly transformed back into a brown mouse and waited for other mice to join her in the dead princes castle. Eventually, more mice came and they ate him.

    My Father passed away rather suddenly and the family home became mine. I was a young man then. I should explain one thing; in this world time was only young itself and it hadn't quite worked out seconds from hours, hours from days or days from years; it ravaged individuals rather than the population, separately and maliciously. And as it did this, it was hard to grasp ones age. But I’d say I look as a man in his twenties would look today, and I still do. Time seemed to favour me, in a way. The home wasn't much to inherit, but it was the fruit of my family heritage, countless generations had been conceived, born, aged and taken inside this small building. I deemed it a fate that was useless to be fought against and put away my childish fancies and began to settle into adolescence. The place was little more than one room, from outside you walked into a wooden door, the bark still on yet peeling away, and went into a room that housed a stone stove that within stoked the smallest of fires yet exhaled thick smoke up and out through a hole in the roof. There was a narrow bed made from straw and sticks with the thinnest animal hide I have ever seen, the animal who gave it up is unknowable, unidentifiable, although I have tried for countless years to recall my Fathers stories about its origin and name. There was little more than that when I first acquired it, perhaps a pot or two but nothing more. Not much was added to it before it was lost forever to me.

My Sketch

If you would like to read more, please leave a comment and I will post the next few paragraphs. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated as I currently trying to extend this plot into my first novel.

Thank you for reading. Please show your support by clicking like, commenting and following.

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All works Copyright Kate Ruston 2014

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My e-Books

The Blind Kings Sons (£0.99)

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My art @ Deviant Art