characters’ lives, history was invested with a relentless power, forcing itself into the narrative throughout, and for all that, I still wept at the end because I cared about the people I’d spent the last two days getting to know. As a reader, I could hardly want anything else. I often think, that in the rush to move forward, to experiment and be ever more… self-consciously conceited about the things we can do with words, we forget the power of an aesthetic reconstruction of the past as a window into seeing the world as it is today. We push and push and push boundaries of textual possibility, but when that’s done, what have you got besides unceasing chaos attempting to convey meaning (or perhaps, not even that)? I like my historical novels. I like them even better when they’re as good as The Children’s Book is, at shedding new light on the way people are swept up into history, without ever realising it, while also questioning the way we see art, artists, love, women, society, family, rules, politics, free-thinking, revolution and war. It begins during the waning of Victorian England, as the slow, simmering rebellion of the various societies against what were previously considered unshakeable codes of conduct grows and grows, until finally all of the various thoughts, beliefs, ideologies, desires and fears find themselves inextricably enmeshed in the manic explosion of World War I. If you want to understand how we got from stuffy drawing rooms, tea-parties and corsets to free love, read it. And if you want to understand how mired we still are in the beliefs of ages past (even though we might like to think we’re a freer, better, wiser generation), read it.
Cinema, Music & Art with the Brew | October 2010 | 45