Ray Bradbury - The October Country

My newfound love for Bradbury close at hand, I skimmed the library shelf and decided on this collection of short stories, largely because, well, it was a small paperback. (I have no car, and it's a twenty minute walk to and from the library; my book choices are highly influenced by my ability to lug them back home again.) I'd also heard that out of all the mediums in which he's written, Bradbury is best at the short story.

I've read some of Bradbury's essays and musings on his own writing history and writing methods, so I know that he had a habit of making lists of words that sounded good, sounded like they could have stories in them, and then plucking one out and working at it until he'd found the story. The list of titles in this collection reflect that: 'The Crowd', 'The Scythe', 'The Lake', 'The Jar', and so on.

Horror isn't a genre that I've read much of at all, and I'm not sure to what extent Bradbury's stories count as horror; I read somewhere that one can lump him in with Stephen King in a genre of 'American weird', which I think is a pretty apt description. Not all of the stories are frightening, or more than mildly horrific. But they're definitely unsettling; definitely weird.

He does seem fond of the age-old device of one person being convinced of the danger inherent in a seemingly innocuous thing, and the disaster that results when nobody around them will take their conviction seriously. It's a trope that can be tiresome when handled badly, but I was impressed with how effectively Bradbury recycled it in new, creepy, engaging ways. The trope is most blatant in what I think are two of the most seriously disturbing stories in the collection, 'The Small Assassin' (which could almost be read as an allegory for postnatal depression) and 'The Wind', a really quite beautiful story with a creative concept at the heart of it, making it enjoyable and gripping even though it develops in a very predictable manner.

As well as the outright weirdness, the collection also contains some stories with an almost whimsical feel to them (Jack-in-the-Box, Uncle Einar) and those that are quite specifically about familiar emotion translated into a fantastical setting; the quiet despair of the protagonist in 'Homecoming', being surrounded by his supernatural family and hating his normality and inbility to be what is expected of him, shows that Bradbury's creativity is not limited to the simple act of dark invention.

Something that struck me in particular, reading as I did all nineteen stories in a fairly short space of time, is Bradbury's focus on the horror of the body. This is most obvious in 'The Next in Line', what I thought was the standout story in terms of how utterly creeped out it made me feel; after a woman pays a reluctant tourist visit to some mummies arranged in a catacomb in Mexico, she is overwhelmed with fear that she will die and join them. The careful, meticulous, horrible descriptions of the way she deteriorates -- almost entirely done in terms of bodily sensation and paranoid thought rather than emotion -- is masterful, and very upsetting. 'Skeleton', 'The Man Upstairs' and 'The Dwarf' are also body stories, in which one's own body can be traitor or alien or hated. It's a visceral and ancient kind of horror. It works.

'There Was An Old Woman' is another body-focused one, but instead of the body being the primary source trouble, it's something to be treasured and clung to. I loved this tale of a cranky old woman whose stubbornness in the face of death is both hilarious and, in an odd way, inspiring; it was a wonderful little celebration of humanity's ability to rage, rage against the dying of the light -- and a breath of fresh air in such a dark collection.

I think I need a break before my next Bradbury book; much as I enjoy his writing style and his imagination, the occasional brief and delicious immersion is enough.

Margo Lanagan - Black Juice

After reading Tender Morsels, I was determined to hunt down more of Margo Lanagan's work, and the library was good enough to supply me with some of her short story collections. I picked up this one first for the simple reason that it had a medal on the cover (2004 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards), thus proving that I am easily swayed by awards and other cheap tricks.

'Singing My Sister Down' has become quite well known; it's a quiet, ruthless story that has real overtones of horror for me. A young boy and his family head to the tar pits for a ceremonial picnic and singing session during the hours of his older sister's ceremonial execution. Lanagan's skill in building up a society that has alien customs but familiar interpersonal dynamics is displayed beautifully here, as the family's bickering and love and shared grief are played out against the strange, slow, slow ritual of death.

I found 'My Lord's Man' to be the weakest story of the bunch, not because it isn't well written but because it doesn't have as much of a narrative as the others. It paints a clear picture of three people and the complicated ways in which they relate to one another, judge one another, and forgive one another. But it feels -- not quite incomplete, but lost. As though it needs to be part of a larger whole.

'Red Nose Day', on the other hand, was my favourite. The story of a pair of assassins that slowly expands and expands into something weirder and deeper, it's got the perfect balance of tension and instant strong characterisation. It's a truly bizarre, chillingly imagined tale that reads like Terry Pratchett by way of Stephen King; you're not sure if it's a joke, but you certainly don't feel like laughing. In fact, you feel like backing away gently and hoping it doesn't notice.

When I was quite young my grandfather, who's spent a lot of his life in places like Sri Lanka and India and Bangladesh, wrote and illustrated a wonderful book for me, from the point of view of a labour elephant who had a lot of strange adventures with his handler. It was the first thing I thought of when reading 'Sweet Pippit', which tells the story of a group of elephants in search of their favourite human, who has been arrested and taken away from them. Once again Lanagan mixes recognisable human culture with the fantastical creation that is the elephants' customs, personalities, and powers. And I think that if elephants had names for themselves, they would absolutely be things like Booroondoonhooroboom.

I'm still not sure what to think of 'House of the Many'. Without a doubt it's incredibly well put together, once again abandoning normal fantasy tropes for the scarier and closer-to-home details of a cultish group of people controlled by a single man, seen through the eyes of a small boy. (Margo Lanagan, like Diana Wynne Jones, seems to have a fondness for child narrators.) But I think I was hoping it would lead up to something bigger.

I really liked 'Wooden Bride' but again felt that it could be more effective if it was part of something longer. Maybe because the idea of it -- 'bridehood' as an event that has nothing to do with men and everything to do with girls coming into their own, all the trappings of a wedding blurred into myth and meaningless ritual -- was something that made me yearn to see a wider context, instead of a short vignette that gives the bare bones of the concept and not much more.

'Earthly Uses' is a really fucking creepy story about a boy who lives with his abusive grandfather, and is sent to fetch an angel to heal his dying grandmother. Except 'angels', in this story, are definitely not the shining intermediaries we associate with the word. Gah. I still get shivers thinking about this one, which I suppose means it's a very effective piece of storytelling.

I let out a cheer when I worked out that 'Perpetual Light' was recognisably set in Australia; most of Lanagan's stories are set in unnamed and/or unrecognisable cultures, and there's a sad dearth of Australian urban fantasy or sci-fi in general. To be honest I'm still not entirely sure what parts of it are about -- I'd need to reread it, I think -- but there are definite themes of environmentalism and family, a much more science fiction feel than any of the other stories in the collection, and a kind of mild, dusty dystopia that I loved because it was based firmly in the NSW bush. I also thought the narrator, Daphne, was a great character. I would happily read novels worth of this particular world.

'Yowlinin' was another favourite of mine, largely for the narrator -- a half-wild girl abandoned by her village because her parents were killed, a girl fiercely proud of her independence and scornful of everyone else, but also with a bit of a crush on one of the village boys -- and partly because I think it had the most effective pacing and plot. Like 'Earthly Uses', it features the kind of magical creatures that you're likely to have nightmares about.

'Rite of Spring', about a boy who participates unwillingly in a harsh and dangerous ritual that is needed to bring about the start of spring, is another one that has a strong sense of myth to it, with the struggle of human beings against the grudging elements, and the idea that our rituals and beliefs have real consequences.

All in all, this collection left me with both a wild jealousy for Lanagan's powers of imagination and language, and a desire to snap up all her other books as soon as possible.

Diana Wynne Jones - Unexpected Magic

You know how it is. You're in Galaxy Bookshop (or any other fantasy-sci-fi treasurebox of your choice) and you can maybe, possibly, probably stretch your budget to one book. One book. Suddenly everything looks desirable, but nothing looks quite desirable enough to be The One. You slouch impecuniously towards the Diana Wynne Jones shelf in the YA section, knowing that her books are at least the kind that you will consistently reread and are thus usually worth purchasing.

Lo! And behold! Sitting neatly next to a handful of Chrestomanci books is something you've never come across before (excellent) and that you know your local library doesn't have (even better!): a book of short stories. Nice and thick, too. Decision made.

I read this collection slowly, especially because I was only a fraction of the way into the book when Diana Wynne Jones's death was announced. I felt as though every word of hers that I hadn't yet read had just become infinitely more precious.

If you've read any DWJ at all you probably have a fair idea of the kind of stories that are in this collection: fifteen shorts and one novella, all stuffed full of children and cats and families and England and annoyances and, as the title suggests, one sort of unexpected magic or another.

I enjoyed the novella, 'Everard's Ride', the most, because I think DWJ's characters are best when you have a bit of time to get to know them. It's a fairly standard normal-kids-get-mixed-up-in-affairs-of-magical-kingdom story, but with a frightening bite to the politics of it all, wonderfully drawn dynamics between siblings, friends, and acquaintances, and a hefty dose of class awkwardness thrown in.

There's probably not much point in faithfully listing every single story in the book, but I'll mention some favourites. 'Auntie Bea's Day Out' is another classic DWJonesian story of a family of a children under the eye of an unpleasant relative, and the strange things that start happening to them on a trip to the seaside. 'The Girl Who Loved The Sun' stands out as being much less deadpan and Kids Own Adventure; it's written as a fairytale, a lyrical myth, and brings some welcome variety of tone to the collection. 'Nad and Dan adn Quaffy' (no, that wasn't a typo) is a tongue-in-cheek, hilarious story about an author whose writing technique is to pretend that her word processor is the controls of a spaceship -- and who is one day surprised to find that the computer is talking back.

There are three stand-out shorts, in my opinion, and I think I liked them the most because they were most successful in conveying a real sense of niggling danger. 'The Master' is the disturbing tale of a newly qualified vet called out to a murder scene and faced with crypticism and wolves. 'Enna Hittims' is about a girl stuck at home with the mumps whose drawings come to life and try to take over her house. And 'Dragon Reserve, Home Eight' is a real masterpiece of worldbuilding, giving a strong sibling relationship and some dragons and a whole lot of fear and moral ambiguity, all in a very short space.

Telling any existing fan of Diana Wynne Jones to read this book would be the most pointless form of preaching to the choir, but if you've never read her, I think it would be an excellent introduction to her distinctive narrative style.