{"id":978,"date":"2020-02-23T16:02:56","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T16:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hebulstrode.co.uk\/?p=978"},"modified":"2020-02-23T16:03:03","modified_gmt":"2020-02-23T16:03:03","slug":"wakenhyrst-by-michelle-paver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hebulstrode.co.uk\/?p=978","title":{"rendered":"Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The fens of Edwardian Suffolk, gentlemanly antiquarianism, mediaeval demonology, murder and madness make for a potent and captivating gothic brew in Michelle Paver\u2019s Wakenhyrst<\/a><\/em>, and if you should have a taste for any one or more of these elements, then you will most likely find this tale to your liking. Although her previous novels Thin Air<\/a> <\/em>and Dark Matter <\/a><\/em>had both been recommended to me, it was Wakenhyrst <\/em>that particularly appealed. Then again, I\u2019m probably in something of a minority in being lured in by the setting of rural England before the Great War, rather than by that of either the Himalayas or the Arctic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I had opened the book and\nstarted to read, the only annoyance I experienced was that of having to put it\ndown and get on with the necessities of life. I was captivated from the start.\nIt was engrossing and pacily written, with the opening mystery having me hooked\nfrom the outset. The central character of the story is Maud, the precociously\nbright and perceptive daughter of a man who brooks no challenge to his\nauthority within the confines of the familial home. It is a coming-of-age story\nin which the protagonist finds the structure of her existence dictated by the\nreligious and scholarly obsessions of her self-absorbed father, who has developed\na fascination with the life of a late-mediaeval local mystic. That said, there\u2019s\nprobably as much, if not more, of Richard Dadd about Edmund Stearne than there\nis of M.R. James. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the story unfolds, Maud is\ngripped with an increasing sense of horror as she realises how her father\u2019s\nresearches and the discovery of a \u2018doom\u2019 painting in the local church lead him\nto develop increasingly irrational behaviours as they intersect with a dark\nsecret from his past. Whereas he is quite emphatic about there being a divide\nbetween his \u2018true\u2019 and \u2018rational\u2019 religion, and the folkloric superstitions of\nhis staff, his daughter understands that there is little that separates the\ntwo. In time, as a series of unsettling events unfold within the walls of the\nhouse and in the immediate locality, Edmund Stearne\u2019s faith morphs into\nsomething much darker. There is a strong whiff of the mephitic that emanates\nfrom the fen, but as to its precise nature, I shall leave that for the reader\nto discover. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paver\u2019s book is a masterfully written mystery, whose sense of suspense carries the reader forward at a great rate of knots, deftly capturing the authentic voice of sensationalist sixties journalistic reportage in its opening, as well as successfully transporting us back to a claustrophobic and misogynist past. Steeped in rural superstition and supernaturalism, Wakenhyrst<\/em> provides a contemporary and worthy addition to the East Anglian ghost stories of M.R. James. In the closing chapter some rather witty and astute observations are made by a couple of the characters as to what would happen to the story should it fall into the hands of a Hollywood producer. Let\u2019s hope that it does not, and also that it does not fall prey to adaptation by the BBC, for the latter would surely also rip the guts out of this excellent story and stuff it full of its own extraneous political agendas. Wakenhyrst<\/em> <\/a>deserves to be adapted for the big screen, but it needs to be handled by a capable director who wishes to translate its essence to a cinematic audience, rather than to ride it as a hobbyhorse for their own personal preoccupations. <\/p>\n

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