Elmet

Daniel and Cathy live in a home that their father, John, built with his own hands. He is a huge man and an acclaimed bare-knuckle boxer but as a parent caring for his children, he is a gentle giant. They were never like the other children, and have an alternative upbringing, dropped out of school, spend their days foraging and hunting for food and share their fathers roll-ups and cider. He has told them that this is their home forever, but he has no truck with details like who actually owns the land.

Soon the ghosts from his past lives begin to haunt him once again, the local landlord and hood Price needs John to fight again, large amounts of money are stake and Price has leverage over John. The children notice a difference in their show more father, gone is the calm; now they see rage flame in his eyes. John decides to accept Prices request to fight, negotiating a deal to secure their future properly and so begins his training…

I normally don’t read Booker Prize books as I have not always got along with them in the past but this was on my list to read as I was fortunate to win a signed copy. It is a dark tale of the underground culture of a northern village, with the characters deeply rooted in the very landscape they inhabit. I thought it did take a little while to get going, as Mozley takes time setting the scene and builds the atmosphere, however, the last quarter of the book flew by. The prose is sparse yet visceral and charged. Her portrayal of the characters, whose flaws give the plot the friction it needs, make this tale of a family who have stepped away from contemporary society, unnerving and disturbing. show less

''I spend an evening laid out on a moor, watching the wind, the crows, the distant vehicles caught in memories of this same land, further south; earlier, another time; then likewise caught in memories of home, of family, of the shifts and turns in fortune, of beginnings and endings, of caused and consequences.''

A family of three lives in a copse in Yorkshire. A father, a boy and a girl. Isolated, forgotten and forgetting, no mother, no friends, extremely limited human contact. John earns his living in extremely violent circumstances, his children are his sole support. Daniel and Cathy have reversed the roles expected by society. He is a poetic soul, a pacifist, a lover of nature and learning. She is the tomboy, the protector, the one show more who takes the bull by the horns, a force to make everything right. When their peace is disturbed by a horrible man, the two siblings realize they only have themselves to trust.

''Farms can be lonely places. They can be lonely places to have skin torn and bones crushed. They can be lonely places to die.''

Mozley does a terrific job in conveying the woodland atmosphere, the scenery of isolating and willing seclusion from a world that appears threatening. But is it really or do we make it seem so, guided by our own decisions? Can it be that we are that innocent? Our choices can lead to destroying consequences, I appreciated the moral dilemma presented in the story and the harshness of a life that comes withing a setting that many of us would consider idyllic, seen from the point of view of the big city resident.

The folklore of the moors and the woodlands is put to excellent use. The green men with their foliate faces, the wandering hounds, the cries in the night and the fleeting shadows passing through the lower branches, fascinate Daniel and form his strong bond with the land his family calls home. The forest is both a protection and a threat, the light changes as swiftly as John's mood does. These extracts are characteristic of Mozley's talent in prose.

''The morning smelt of wood and little else. The summer scents had been bottled by the cold. It was a clear day, though, particularly now when the sun was low, and bright rays cut raw across the grass.''

''We stayed out there for half an hour or so, watching the lanterns, playing with sparklers, smoking and chatting, breathing in the cool woodland air. When we walked back to the house we did so in silence, having already got out all our words for the day.''

Is beautiful prose enough in a novel? In my opinion, no. I need a strong story and characters. John is an enigma, balancing between violence and tenderness, a huge load of wrong choices and the agony of a single father. Daniel is the voice of reason and the hope of a child. The greatest riddle is Cathy. A complex character, unwilling to trust anyone, brave, ferocious and always ready to protect her family. But the story failed to attract me, eventually. What started as a literary, possible existentialist drama, lost direction towards the middle of the novel and never really recovered, in my opinion. The interactions were weird and too long as the characters practically perform monologues while engaging in an ordinary conversation. It was tiring and distracting. Things became worse when the story became a B-rated Hollywood thriller and the events became too chaotic, too implausible and, at the same time, too predictable.

The prose was beautiful, the setting was powerful, the characters of the family were interesting. But the plot...What it wished to be I don't know. What I know is that I have read a ton of truly powerful books. This one will soon fade from my memory. It was a good novel, perfectly acceptable and I am glad I read it. Βut that's it.

''The same old trains still ruffled on past, despite it all. I wondered what the train driver thought, and what the passengers thought, when they looked out the windows as dusk settles and saw our copse, and the crest, and the trail of thin black smoke coming from behind it.''

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/ show less

The land itself seems as medieval as the feuds which continue through the ages and is "Now pocked with clutches of trees, once the whole county had been woodland and the ghosts of the ancient forest could be marked when the wind blew. The soil was alive with ruptured stories that cascaded and rotted then found form once more and pushed up through the undergrowth....". One of these ruptured stories involve siblings, Daniel and Cathy who live with their father on land once owned by their deceased mother. It is told from the perspective of Daniel who appears to be on the run and searching for his sister. As the story unfolds, the reader learns that Cathy is a strong young lady who will fight to protect those she loves and her father, show more though a gentle man and loving father, will fight when it is necessary. Through the years, enemy lines are drawn and alliances formed. Will peace last or will old and semi-unclear feuds be recalled? What is clear is that the self sufficient lifestyle this family of three once lived in the wilderness will change.
This novel is the perfect example of why I try not to give up on a book. Approximately 3/4's of Elmet is rather sluggish and fraught with the daily details of living like survivalists in a modern world. However, it lays the ground work for the explosive finish which is frightening and powerful! show less

I'm not sure what to make of Elmet. It's an odd book, set in the rural English countryside, and told from the point of view of a boy growing up, who has an older sister and a father who is living off the grid. They've built a house in a quiet copse and are living close to nature, poaching a bit, trading for other things. Daniel's father is a large man who earned money for a time beating up men, some in illegal prize fights, others for wealthy men willing to pay. It's not long before their quiet life is threatened.

There's an overwhelming sense of peril shadowing this novel. Fiona Mozley does a brilliant job of both describing the natural world and of hinting at the danger to come. This isn't a book that obeys the usual patterns and if show more you need to have all your questions answered by the end of a novel, you may want to skip this one. But if you enjoy well-written novels that do things differently, you'll like Elmet. show less

A dark fairy tale set in a just-barely contemporary England, thick with beautiful woodsy descriptions and a hovering anticipation of violence. Mozley just about out–Angela Carters Angela Carter, but there's also some Faulkner-level southern gothic at work (without the actual south). I liked it overall, though the Yorkshire dialect set my teeth on edge sometimes. But I'm always a sucker for a green-wood fable, and this put an interesting and unique spin on it, so I approve.

"Daddy was both more vicious and more kind than any leviathan of the ocean"
By sally tarbox on 30 April 2018
Format: Kindle Edition
The epigraph tells us that Elmet was the last independent Celtic kingdom in England...for centuries a 'badlands' and sanctuary from the law.

This memorable novel is set in this part of Yorkshire; though it's a 21st century world, it feels ancient, timeless, brutal.
Teenage narrator Danny and his older sister live with their father, a feral world of self-sufficiency. They don't fit into the community- Cathy's complaints of ill-treatment at school are dismissed: "they're nice boys". Daddy is a bare-knuckle fighter, huge, apparently a gentle giant to his children, yet with an inner requirement for brutality: "your show more Daddy needs it. The violence. I wouldn't say he enjoys it, even, but he needs it. It quenches him."

In a world of travellers and corrupt landowners, events build to a horrific and unexpected crescendo...

Poetic, with beautiful descriptions of the rural landscape, yet unsparing of the darker side of life, this was a worthy Booker prize nominee. show less

This is about the last stand of an older system of living and of justice. In that sense, it is about Elmet. It is also about the first stand of someone who could not escape an inherited pattern, but was smart enough to see the pattern, and did the only possible thing to escape it. And it's about the homelessness of understanding not enough, knowing nobody safe, and grieving with no answers. Come for the starting over on wild land. Stay for the clutching and crushing grasp of the sins of the parent. Tired of characters overcoming improbable differences? Watch this stark shallowness of neighborly understanding turn friend against friend. You will never know all of what happened. There is a feral joy in accepting both the book's mysteries show more and its certainties. Feral joy being in short supply and poorly represented, you don't know yet, probably, how much having it will mean to you. Let this book claw you. Twist round and bite it. When you are both spent, the thrill of its power and your fight will make you stronger. show less