“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

Starcross: A Stirring Tale of British Vim upon the Seas of Space and Time! by Philip Reeve
Illustrated by David Wyatt
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (2007)
380 pages

Oh, this left me giggling almost the whole way. Maybe it’s because the last few books I had read before it were so serious, and it was a relief to read about the more light-hearted adventures of Art and Myrtle. I loved the narrative here as much as I loved it in Larklight, and that’s saying something because stuff in the first person often rubs me the wrong way.

My copy had three lines of titles (Starcross or The Coming of the Moobs! or Our Adventures in the Fourth Dimension — A Stirring Tale of British Vim upon the Seas of Space and Time!) and I had grinned just looking at those. What other narrator could be as droll as Art? And who else would ever use the word “amanuensis” on a title page of a book? I love the title pages and the ads on the inside covers and the chapter titles — I spent a lot of time on both Larklight and Starcross studying those inside covers and the illustrations and having a laugh over them.

As for the story itself, I enjoyed Starcross better than Larklight, though I think the story was stronger in Larklight. In this instalment, we find Art and Myrtle and their mother visiting the hotel Starcross, where strange things are happening. Some old friends make a reappearance . . . and disappear in forms you won’t expect them in. The family vacation ends up with Art and Myrtle having to save the universe. (Again.)

The patriotism and the Victorian sensibilities were absurd and relevant and fun at the same time. I love Myrtle best when she forgets to be “sensible”, and her decision at the end made me cheer. I spent some time reading this book sputtering at Jack. Pirate or not, you better learn how to treat a your lady, young man! And I wonder how Art could be so smart and yet so dense when it comes to Jack/Myrtle. The footnote about how Jack must be using How to Write Love Letters: A Guide for the Perplexed to prop a wobbly table sent me choking with laughter. The joys of being young.

There will be a sequel to this, obviously. I have reliable sources saying that the sequel, Mothstorm, will be out this year. One does not leave his readers gaping at a pirate’s behaviour towards his lady friend, when said lady friend has declared Ambitions of her own. How could you leave us with such a cliffhanger, Mr Reeve!

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Alfred A Knopf (2001) (First published 2000)
540 pages

I have no idea what to say about this book. Perhaps literary fiction is just not my thing. I enjoyed reading it, though I was never really compelled to read on past my bedtime, and I liked finding the twists and turns to the plot, and how the stories within stories within stories were told in the book. I liked how the stories were slowly woven together at the end. I was impressed that Margaret Atwood managed to pull it off and have it all make sense. I really liked the way she repeated some passages to tie things together. And I love it when there are twists up to the end and you figure it out just before the author spells it out — I think that’s how it should be done. Enough clues to let the reader figure it out, but enough obfuscating to make it exciting, unlike some other books that I will grouse about later.

But! But. I found the story to move oh-so-slowly, and I found myself reading it at the same snail’s pace, despite how much I liked the way Atwood uses the language. This is the first library book I had to renew because I couldn’t finish it on time. The novel centres on Iris Chase, whose sister Laura commits suicide at the end of World War II, as Iris, now an old woman, recounts the tale of her life. Interwoven between Iris’s narrative are newspaper clippings and The Blind Assassin, Laura’s novel which was published posthumously.

For some reason the edition I read had some problems with the typeset — some “W”s came out as “fi”s and “fi”s as “W”s. It was distracting when one of your characters is suddenly called “finifred” and someone else is “Wghting” something. Hopefully that will get, or has been, fixed in later editions!

This book was also read for the Man Booker Challenge hosted by Dewey. This book wasn’t even on my original list; I suspect very few of the books on the original list will end up being read for that challenge. Actually, out of Margaret Atwood’s books, The Handmaid’s Tale has been recommended to me more often than this title, but I can’t seem to find a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale anywhere. I probably should poke the library and get it to add it to its collection.