Joanna Kavenna

This is my first Joanna Kavenna novel and I was gripped straight away by the intriguing plot and narrative. She gets you into the story fairly quickly and I was immediately caught up in the mystery of the late Professor Solete and his lifetime’s work on ‘The Field Guide to Reality’ and his investigation into nature of Light. Even stranger was his odd bequest to Eliade Jencks, a waitress in the museum cafe whom he has befriended. The professor’s friends believing it to be the show more whereabouts of his missing manuscript are astonished when Eliade finally lifts the lid on an old wooden box …….
Eliade embarks on a surreal detective quest in a search for the supposed missing manuscript ‘The Field Guide to Reality’. She stumbles through a succession of bizarre encounters with a collection of strange characters, who feed her clues and prompts, or in the case of one group, psychotropic tea which sends her off on a hallucinogenic dream to the centre of the universe and back. From Plato and Aristotle, Druids and ancient symbolism to the present weird happenings and final resolution, this tale rattles along never dropping the pace and intrigue. I particularly liked her descriptions of the old town of Oxford and the surrounding marshes and woods which are wonderfully evocative and painterly.
I like the way she writes - direct, unfussy and quirky. Her descriptions of the various oddball characters are funny and very visual.
I also really enjoyed the book’s layout and the moody illustrations of Oly Ralfe, which helped to convey the mood and mystery of the quest, almost in the style of a children’s story book.
I would thoroughly recommend this unusual book and will be investigating more of Joanna Kavenna’s work. show less

DNF at 60%. I tried so hard with this and it frustrated me at almost every turn. The story is great - a darkly humorous satire that is very timely and brings up some good things to think about. But the execution is maddening - some chapters are sharp and funny but others are an incoherent mess that just ramble on with seemingly no point or plot advancement. I tried to push on through those chapters but they just seemed to become more frequent as I got further into the book. Eventually I was show more doing anything and everything not to pick the book up again. When a book gets me that turned off, I just have to give up. show less

Kavenna blames her obsession with Thule on Pytheas, stating he began the story when he claimed he had been to the mythical land of Thule by way of Marseilles. But what or where exactly is Thule? Is it a place of barren rocks, howling winds, and flinty skies? Is it a Nazi organization, a secret society borne out of prejudices and hate? Is it an ancient calling to barbaric Vikings and long-forgotten mythologies? Kavenna travels the globe looking for answers. She meets with the former president show more of Estonia, Lennart Meri, searching for the true Thule. She travels to a former Thule settlement in Greenland and talks with scientists about global warming and the threat to the region's polar bears.
Throughout Kavenna's journey her descriptions of the landscape and people are stunning. Her words crackle with the cold and demonstrate the warmth of the people. show less

This was brilliant, utterly bizarre, hilarious to the point of making me laugh out loud, a bit too recognizable for comfort at times, and incredibly well-written. I loved every bit of it, except the ending, which fits the novel perfectly but was extremely sad.