The Friday Babble: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

I'm going away this weekend - flying down south this very evening! Now, to the majority of my readers, 'down south' means, 'to a warmer climate'. Sadly, when you live in the Southern Hemisphere, the further south you get the greater your chances of freezing to death are. My luggage is almost entirely packed with thermal underwear and woolen clothing, but if you never hear from me again it will mean there is a new, somewhat attractively-shaped icicle somewhere in the heart of Dunedin, New Zealand.

Dunedin is where I went to university, by the way. The student flats there are renowned for their shittiness, and generally it was a good five degrees colder inside your room than it was outside in the fresh air. Generally you got at least one text every day from a friend which simply read, "Fk its cld." It wasn't that we were deeply invested in using abbreviations in our SMSs, it was because it was so fucking cold we couldn't move our fingers.

I remember those years fondly.

Anyway, returning to the place where I (mis)spent my youth - or as one friend endearingly nicknamed it, "that shithole" - has made me think about books where winter, especially winters of ice and snow, play a particular role. Traditionally, winter is seen as a bad time, which is pretty understandable. Winter was for a long time - and still is, for many people - the time of year where you can't simply live, but must try to survive; there was no work and no income, no fresh food, and families had to try and keep themselves and their animals alive until spring. If you wandered outside and a snowstorm hit, you were a gonna. Grim stuff, I know. And people still seem to have a deep distrust of winter, even people who can afford gas-fires and insulation and snowmobiles and a sexy wool hats with a pompom at the top.

So, here are some books where winter is more than mere scenery. If you do reside in the Northern Hemisphere I know this may seem a little unseasonable, but I guess you could always save this post and come back and look again in six months' time.


Title: Hatchet Winter (1996)
aka Brian's Winter and Hatchet: WInter
Author: Gary Paulsen
Gary Paulsen wrote a book called "Hatchet", about a boy named Brian who finds himself alone in the Canadian wilderness after the plane he's on crash-lands. It's a pretty thrilling book, all about how he learns to survive - forage for food, build his own shelter, protect himself from wild animals, etc etc. Since it's a children's book, it ends with the kid getting rescued.

But a lot of people wrote to Paulsen saying, "Surviving in the summer is all very well, but how would Brian have coped with the freezing winter temperatures?" In response, he produced Hatchet Winter, in which the boy was never rescued and is stuck for the winter. Brian's chances of survival suddenly get a lot slimmer. Also, he's attacked by a bear! Awesome.


Title: Child-44 (2008)
Author: Tom Rob Smith
As well as cannibalism there was a hell of a lot of snow. Are there any Russian novels in which there isn't any fucking snow?



Title: Moominland Midwinter (1957)
Author: Tove Jansson
Finally, a story where snow is actually seen as being kinda cool! No pun intended. Moomins always hibernate over winter, but this year Moomintroll just can't get to sleep. Instead he discovers everything there is to know about this mysterious time of the year - he learns to ski, he learns to ice fish and he meets the Dweller Under the Sink; but he also discovers there is a dark side to winter, and that death befalls anyone who meets the Lady of the Cold...


Title: The Snow Queen (1845)
Author: Hans Christian Andersen
I loved this story as a kid, partly because it is a fairytale in which a girl rescues a boy and not the other way around, but also because it is one of the few of Andersen's stories which actually has a happy ending. Seriously, the first time I read the original ending to The Little Mermaid I nearly had a heart-attack. It was also the start of my long-term vendetta against Disney, but that's another story.

Anyway, it's a beautiful story, and as a child I completely missed the religious overtones (for instance, Gerda says the Lord's Prayer to enter the Snow Queen's palace - I don't think I even knew what the Lord's Prayer was when I first read that.) It did give me the lasting impression that Europe is a terrifyingly cold place, though.


Title: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
Author: C. S. Lewis
First of all, you know that atrocious movie version of this book that came out a few years ago? We're not going to talk about it. We're especially not going to talk about how badly they raped Prince Caspian which I'm pretty sure they did just to piss me off.

Anyway, I love the Narnia series and I love this book. Even the overt symbolism of Aslan (aka as my homeboy, Jesus) bringing spring to the wintery land of Narnia which has been overtaken by the evil White Witch does nothing to diminish my love for it. I reread the whole series about once a year (except for The Last Battle, sorry) and it still continues to amaze me.

Although my seven-year-old self was really confused by the concept of "Always winter, but never Christmas!" Christmas happens in the middle of summer and anyone who says otherwise is wrong.


Um.

In conclusion, I think what we have all learned today is that winter is a terrible time, brought about by evil women who enjoy making small children suffer. Winter may very well kill you, unless you are a small Finnish troll or happen to have an ax handy.

An important lesson for us all.

Book 6 - Child 44, or: In Soviet Russia, sociopath eat you!

Completely unrelated link of the day: Hark, a vagrant! Kate Beaton draws hilarious cartoons - mostly about famous political figures, but occasionally about her family and friends, and fat ponies. If you said to me, "Helen, you can only read one cartoonist's strips about Napoleon eating cookies to get over Josephine for the rest of your life, or I will hunt you down and kill you," I would not believe you for a second, but I would keep reading Kate Beaton's comics.

The People Have Spoken: The results of my last poll are in, and Lewis Carroll has been voted as the most seriously messed up writers of children's stories. I don't know whether he was a paedophile, a lover of decapitation, or just fucked in the head, but I still wouldn't turn down whichever drugs he was on.

Lewis Carrol: Probably high on crack.

And now, to business: Hello, citizens. Today I'd like to talk to you about a serious problem facing our community. A lot of people still refuse even to mention it, preferring to turn a blind eye to what has been rightfully be described as a serious social disease. And it can effect anyone. Your friends and loved ones, your parents, your spouse, even your children could be hiding this shameful secret. It is your job - no, your duty - to find out which of your loved one have caught this - this illness - and now enjoy partaking in a meal of human flesh.

That's right, Hannibal. I'm talking about cannibalism.

Actually, I'd rather not talk about cannibalism, but unfortunately I read Child 44 and so now I'm going to have to.

Title: Child 44 (2008)

Author: Tom Rob Smith

Why this book?
My paternal unit (also known by his codename, "Dad") recommended it to me, and since we most have the same taste in fiction I gave it a go. By the "same taste in fiction" I mean that we both think gratuitous explosions = good, Steve Martin = bad, and swarms of the dead feeding upon the living = excellent.

What's it all about, anyway?
Our story begins in the Ukraine, in 1933. In the village of Chervoy, in the middle of winter, the people are slowly but surely starving to death. They've already eaten their boots, their clothes, and chewed their wooden furniture in their desperation, so it is nothing short of a miracle when a young boy, Pavel, spots a cat in the forest. He and his younger brother go into the forest to catch it, little realising that while they're hunting the cat there is someone hunting them...

Flash forward twenty years to Moscow, where crime no longer exists. Of course it doesn't exist, because crime is a symptom of a capitalist system and Soviet Russia has succeded in severing itself from all capitalism. The few - very few, of course! - crimes that are committed, must be committed by madmen, or foreigners, or gays - people who haven't accepted proper communist ideology.

And this is what Officer Leo Demidov believes, until he learns of the death of a young boy. As a war hero and a Party Member, Leo does his job and tells the boy's family that it couldn't possibly be murder; it must have been an accident. But the family refuses to believe him, and for the first time Leo starts to wonder if there really could be a real murderer somewhere in Russia.

Leo is framed by a jealous colleague and sent out to the middle of nowhere with his wife, Raisa - exiled. In the industrial town of Voualsk, not far from the Ural Mountains, Leo discovers more deaths of children, and starts to become convinced that there is a serial murderer at work. Even thinking such a thing is treasonous, and soon Leo and Raisa are on the run, trying to escape the police but still determined to track down the child killer.

Finally, both helped and hindered by many people along their journey, Leo realises he must face up to his own mysterious past in order to face down the murderer.

The good and the bad
Did I mention the cannibalism. OK, so actually it is a fairly minor part of the story and entirely realistic in its place in the story - desperate people do do desperate things - but still, that was the one thing about the book that really stuck with me. People gnawing on human flesh is right up their with people having their eyes removed for "things I never want to read about."

Child 44 is comes across as both thriller and political thriller. There are essentially two villains; one, the sociopathic serial killer who removes children's stomachs after murdering them, and the other the police officer Vasili, who is so twisted with hatred and jealousy for Leo that he is prepared to go to extreme lengths to bring him down. Smith effortlessly draws us in to the atmosphere of Stalin's Soviet Union; the desperation among those who are starving, the fear and suspicion that no one in Moscow can escape from.

The relationship between Leo and Raisa is a strong point in the story. Until they are exiled, the two have essentially been living a lie; while Leo has always loved his intelligent, beautiful wife, she has only pretended to love him not only for their entire marriage but during their courtship as well. Raisa hates the Party, hates Leo for being such a loyal Party member, hates Leo for being a war hero when that same war gave her scars that run very deep. But with their Moscow life stripped away from them, and with no one to rely on but each other, they slowly and surely build a relationship that is built on trust, truth and love.

I actually found the serial murderer plot one of the weaker points of the novel - maybe I'm just incapable of being surprised any more, but I had figured out what was going on long before the narrative really allowed for it. I was also left with too many loose ends for my comfort, although apparently this was only the first in a trilogy, so perhaps they will be tied up later.

So should I read it or what?
I'd definitely recommend this book for its wonderful portrayal of the heavy political atmosphere of the 50's, and its character development; both Leo and Raisa are drawn well, and I love Smith for giving us a detective's wife who is never a damsel in distress. Ocassional weak plotting aside, this is an excellent book - even with the cannabilism.