Rebel Angels
Libba Bray
548 p.

Delacorte Press, 2006.
(First published by Random House.)

Back cover blurb:

Ah, Christmas! Gemma Doyle is looking forward to a holiday from Spence Academy - spending time with her friends in the city, attending balls in fancy gowns with plunging necklines, and dallying with the handsome Simon Middleton. Yet amid these distractions, her visions intensify - visions of three girls dressed in white, to whom something horrific has happened that only the realms can explain.

The lure is strong, and soon Gemma, Felicity, and Ann are turning flowers into butterflies in the enchanted world to which Gemma takes them. To the girls’ great joy, their beloved Pippa is there as well, eager to complete their circle of friendship.

But all is not well in the realms - or out. Kartik is back, desperately insisting to Gemma that she must bind the magic, lest colossal disaster befall her. Gemma is willing to comply, for this would bring her face to face with her late mother’s greatest friend, now Gemma’s foe - Circe. Until Circe is destroyed, Gemma cannot live out her destiny. But finding Circe proves a most perilous task….

Rebel Angels teems with Victorian thrills and chills that play out against the backdrop of 1895 London, a place of shadows and light… where inside great beauty can lie a rebel angel.

These books are so much fun. I really feel for Gemma, despite maybe not being all that intrigued by the plot. Actually, the plot is pretty predictable. I said this to my sister, who is a big fan of this book series. She told me that I should just wait and be surprised. Unfortunately, the next thing I said was, like most things I predicted about the novel, correct. The only thing which I thought would happen which didn’t was actually me believing that Gemma would finally get to have some sex. She kissed two different people, and still she was unsuccessful. If she doesn’t get laid in the third book, I’ll be Very disappointed. (I shall start it later today, so it’s possible I’ll be able to report soon enough.) Apart from that? Some interesting stuff happened. I liked the fact that some people changed a little and there was character development, which is always nice. It’s also given me an itch for genuine nineteenth-century literature, which is nice, I suppose.

The Uncommon Reader
Alan Bennett
121 p.

Faber & Faber Ltd., 2008
(First published by Faber & Faber, 2007.)

Back cover blurb:

Led by her yapping corgis to the Westminster travelling library outside Buckingham Palace, the Queen finds herself taking out a novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett. Duff read though it is, the following week her choice proves more enjoyable and awakens in Her Majesty a passion for reading so great that her public duties begin to suffer. And so, as she devours works by everyone from Hardy to Brookner to Proust to Beckett, her equerries conspire to bring the Queen’s literary odyssey to a close.

I love Alan Bennett. I spent a great part of the summer re-reading The History Boys probably a half-dozen times, without ever getting bored of it. And all the time, I heard buzz about this novella about the queen. When summer was drawing to a close, I bought and I read it. And it examplifies exactly why I love Bennett so. There’s much literature, so much name-dropping - culture exists as much as in reality, if not more, in Bennett’s stories. And everyone, everyone, is so witty. Bennett describes the world the way I want it too be; a bit more dashing, a bit more clever.

This story is why monarchy still exists.

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
576 p.

Penguin Classics, 2006.
(First published 1847 by Smith Elder & Co.)

Back cover blurb:

Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, where she endures loneliness and cruelty, and at a charity school with a harsh regime. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane’s natural independence and spirit - which will prove necessary when she takes a position as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice. Should she stay with him and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions, even if it meeans leaving the man she loves? A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre (1847) dazzled and shocked readers with its passionate depiction of a woman’s search for equality and freedom.

In her introduction, Stevie Davies discusses the novel’s language and politics, its treatment of women’s lives and its literary influences. This edition also includes a chronology, further reading, and appendix and notes.

Okay, so I’ll admit it: I have never before read Jane Eyre.The Eyre Affair (which is very inspired by Jane Eyre) is one of my favourite novels, and until now, I hadn’t. Now I did, and… it’s a good book. Jane is maybe a little annoying at times, being so pure in thought and mind and deed, but Rochester was a sweetheart and he made me swoon more than a little at times. And it’s so well-written! It’s all charm and graces! The book made me feel so at ease, it was a joy to read. (okay, so, I read until they got engaged, then a person said the book was really boring after that, so I was a little hesitant and put off reading, but then I kept on, and it was good fun.)

There’s only one thing I can’t really get my head around. There’s all this buzz about Rochester being a racist keeping his black wife up in the attic, but when the wife’s brother comes to visit, there’s no mention of him being black. And I don’t understand it! But nevermind. I rarely understand these things.

Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders
Gyles Brandreth
338 p.

John Murray, 2007.

Back cover blurb:

London, 1889. Oscar Wilde, celebrated poet, wit, playwright and raconteur is the literary sensation of his age. All Europe lies at his feet. Yet when he chances across the naked corpse of sixteen-year-old Billy Wood, posed by candlelight in a dark, stifling attic room, he cannot ignore the brutal murder. With the help of fellow author Arthur Conan Doyle he sets out to solve the crime - but it is Wilde’s unparalleled access to all degrees of late-Victorian life, from society drawing rooms and the bohemian demi-monde of the underclass, that will prove the decisive factor in their investigation of what turns out to be a series of brutal killings.

Set against the exotic backgrounds of fin-de-siècle London, Paris, Oxford and Edinburgh, Gyles Brandreth recreates Oscar Wildes’ trademark sardonic wit with huge flair, intertwining all the intrigue of the classic English murder mystery with a compelling portrait of one of the greatest characters of the Victorian age.

Chosing to read this novel after reading Arthur & George was a Seriously Bad Move. Had I read the back cover blurb, I probably would have put it aside for a few more days. Why? Because while Barnes’ novel was beautiful and dazzling, Brandreth’s is unimpressive and more than a little frustrating, for several reason. Firstly, and most importantly, Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders let Oscar Wilde have a Sherlock Holmesian  way of deducing things. As if that was not enough, Brandreth let Arthur Conan Doyle be baffled and Mighty Impressed. Now, I don’t know much about the first Sherlock Holmes stories, but there must be something of a kind there, and even suggesting that it was Oscar Wilde, and not Arthur Conan Doyle, who use that kind of deduction, is just outrageous! Secondly, Brandreth went to great lengths to convince the reader that Oscar Wilde was certainly not homosexual. A constant praise of Constance, and other women, was present and, the fact that Wilde, in the novel, was a member of a gay club, wasn’t even explained! It made me so angry. Thirdly, the title lies. I am used to blurbs lying, but titles? Rarely ever. There is one murder in candlelight. The second and third murder are completely devoid of candles. Or interest.

Finally, it just wasn’t interesting. It failed at being a gripping who-dunnit. It failed even at being a gripping description of nineteenth-century Britain. Brandreth must have got so lost in writing witty lines for Wilde, which to be honest felt more over-the-top than witty, that he forgot to actually have a proper plot. Additionally, when he finally remembered that he was supposed to have a murderer, not just an orgy in naked boys, he first lets Wilde talk for pages about how another person is extremely guilty of a lot of extremely sordid things. Then, as an afterthought, he says that this person didn’t do it, but another person did. In the space of half a paragraph or so.

This was not very good.