In splendid Isolation

Another weekend, another book to review!!
I have actually finished two again (from reading during the week and this weekend) so I seem to have gotten back into the groove with the reading. It is doing wonders for the book counts well... it would do if I had not had a slight relapse in the book buying department but more on that later.


### SPOILER ALERT ###


Dark Matter, A Ghost Story - Michelle Paver
Let me start by saying that the fact that this one (as well  as the previous DK one) also takes place in the Arctic is a complete coincidence. The second thing I have to say about this book is that it is amazing!
I am not quite sure how to characterise this one best to do it justice. You could say it is a ghost story but hat would ignore the fact that it deals with other themes as well: friendship, love, loneliness, envy, class, madness, nature, darkness and light, hardship and tenacity. 
It is written in the form of a diary, almost presenting it as a factual story of polar exploration but it is not. It starts with a letter written by someone being asked about a polar expedition he was part of. He is obviously not happy about being petitioned to and seems annoyed at the suggestion that something "unnatural" happened during the expedition. The man seems a bit high and mighty and pompous, bordering on arrogant. This is all the introduction you get and then it is straight into the story. Interestingly enough the initial letter dates from 1947 and the expedition takes place in 1937... leading up to one war and just after another.
You are reading the diary of one of the expedition members, Jack. Because it is a diary you very quickly get drawn into the story. You are going through all of it with him very directly and closely. For us as a reader Jack is the main focus of the story. I quickly nicknamed him chip-on-his-shoulder-guy because he is. He seems very defensive of the way he got his education and how he was not able to get the job he felt he deserved. He tells us how he met the other expedition members and you very quickly see who he likes and who he does not. Jack's main reason for joining the expedition seems to be that he does not want to be like a corpse he sees dragged out of the Thames.... he wants a life that has meant something, he wants to achieve something more or otherwise...  what is the point. He has worked hard to educate himself and has tried to get a job as a scientist, however, he has failed to do so. The other expedition members seem to be the silver spoon types. Well educated, well off, well on the way to a fabulous adventure I say. The expedition is mainly a weather data gathering exercise and will involve taking readings at several set points every day when at their base station. The expedition almost seems doomed from the start as not one but two members have to drop out (family emergency, broken leg). In the end three of them and a team of dogs set off for their destination: Gruhuken. The three members of the expedition that end up going are Jack, Gus and Algie. 
Algie is the one who has written the letter at the start of the book stating that Gruhuken crippled one of his friends and killed another. What you now already begin to wonder is, what is going to happen to our Jack. Sure, he has written this diary but that does not necessarily mean that he is the one that survives and if he is the crippled one then why? This sort of already prepares you that something is going to happen to them while they are out there but it does not give you any major clues about what is in store for them except that some people may say it was an unnatural thing but yet very real.
What else do you need to know about Jack? Well... he does not like dogs (to start with) and he does not like Algie. He does like the idea of going to this isolated place, to be there where no man has been before, to do something that means something, he marvels at everything he sees and seems particularly fond of Gus. He is the only one keeping a diary... or at least he thinks so and he is very envious of the friendship that Gus and Algie have.
The first hint that this story is not going to end well, apart from the letter at the start, is provided by the captain that is supposed to take them to their base in Gruhuken. He seems to know that something happened there but does not want to elaborate. At one point he flat out refuses to take them there. Even though the captain relents he refuses to let his men stay on the island during the night and cannot wait to get out of there (should have been a clue for our boys really). He tells Jack to beware but does not want to tell him why.. he seems very scared and concerned that they have chose this place as their spot for a base camp. The boys, in the meantime are busy tearing down the old structures there putting their own mark on the place. It seems the place was used by seal hunters as well as miners in the past and remnants of both trades are everywhere. Things seem to be going okay.. although Algie behaves strange sometimes and Jack has a few experiences that leave him a bit shaken. But, being the intrepid explorer that he is, he shrugs it off and manages to convince himself that it is just an echo of the past and that it cannot hurt him. Whether or not he actually, deep down really believes this to be true is another matter. It seems to me it is more the kind of thing he tells himself to re-assure himself that he will be okay and that he is not going mad and what he is doing is worthwile.
Things get a bit more critical when Gus gets ill and has to be taken back to the mainland... he needs someone to come with him and Algie gets to be the one to go with him. This leaves our Jack as the one to carry on with the work carried out on the expedition. He is the saviour of the expedition. Left on his own Jack tries everything to keep himself and the expedition going. He sets up these routines where he does certain things at certain times. He has a blast eating all the stuff that he wants to and he even gets closer to the dogs (one in particular) but with Gus and Algie gone the sun light fading it is not long before he is left in the darkness of the polar days and nights. You read Jack's diary and know that he is getting a bit more unhinged every day, he seems that little bit more irrational about what happens around him, that little bit more panicked when something out of the ordinary happens, when the snow storms hit he is even more isolated that he already was. Jack sees this ghost several times but he does  not understand what it is this thing wants from him. He can feel its malevolence but does not know exactly where it comes from and how.. if at all he can ease its pain. He worries about the others coming back, he hopes they will be able to get to him in time. He gets temporary relief when a local trapper comes to see him but this man only stays for a week or so. He does find out from this man what haunts Gruhuken and partly why... but it is not really what he want to hear. It is a dark tale of human cruelty and he is no better off for knowing it.
By this time also he has found the notebook that Gus was keeping. Now he finds out that both Gus and Algie have had experiences and have shared them between one another but not with Jack. Jack was surely too sensible, too reasonable, too much of a hard man to have experienced what they had so best not to bother him with it. You feel Jack's pain at discovering this.. he thought he could trust Gus but now the one that matters most to him has betrayed him.
The more the story goes on, the more it becomes about isolation. Physical isolation, mental isolation. Jack is starved from regular human contact, he hungers for his friends to come back. all he has is the radio, the dog , his food. His routines go out the window and he becomes more and more irrational and scared. He keeps thinking that if only he can hang on until they come.. then all will be well. Jack ends up staying in his bed, with the dog close to him. He is a sad excuse for a human being, half deranged or delirious... unaware of how to save himself or what the sensible thing to do would be. Then the Thing makes its final assault on him and it looks like he will die on his own driven mad by what haunts Gruhuken. But no... there are his friends!! They have come for him at last. He is saved... well, yes... but there is a price to pay. It seems that Gruhuken must have blood and Gus' is that it gets. The way this part is written is confusing, vague, blurry like the way it would have been for them in the boat coming to save Jack. It is almost like a dream and for a while you think that perhaps Jack has really lost it and it is all a dream and not real.
Jack survives, minus one part leg, Algie also lives. Jack has lost more than just  his friend in Gruhuken, he is scarred by the experience, physically and mentally. 
It is a nice touch that Jack has this ceremony now where he goes out to the sea where he now lives in Jamaica. He can just about bear to touch the sea there. It makes him feel closer to Gus whose life was lost in it so far away but he also feels that the thing from Gruhuken is there too and that is why he can never go back.
This book is about so much and it is certainly not just a simple ghost story. 
It is about human nature, about what it can endure. It is about the tricks the mind plays on you when under stress. 
It is about isolation. There is the isolation of the location and the isolation of Jack. He loses his innocent enthusiasm for the place. It turns against him and makes him suffer for coming there. At the start he says he wanted the place to be untouched and pure. He wanted to go to a place where he would be the first to have been there. He wants to make Gruhuken his but Gruhuken fights back.
Dark and light are another theme that features. When they arrive there is still light during the day. They do not always have lights on and are happy, at one point Jack even tries to keep the light out. Then the place goes dark.. literally because for the diminishing light of the sun, then Jack's friends leave, and the dogs run off and then the last rays of sun disappear. The place also had a dark feel because the bad things that happened there. What was done to the ghost was not nice and fluffy but a demonstration of human nature at its most cruel.
Jack's world becomes smaller and smaller the more the story goes on. He starts out by walking about a lot and sticking to his routines. As the light fades he loses the structure in his life. He sticks closer and closer to the hut and eventually his bed. Unfortunately for Jack the thing that is out to hurt him lies in wait close by and is getting stronger.
As a reader you are close to Jack because it is his diary you are reading. It is written in the I-form and these are his words, his thoughts, his emotions. It really is a great way to draw the reader in. There is a lot of tension in the writing, you feel Jack's emotions strongly, his despair and loneliness are on every page and you feel that in the next entry you read he might either finally escape or lose it completely. 
It is indeed, as the FT says "A tale of terror and beauty and wonder".


Title: Dark Matter, A Ghost Story
Author: Michelle Paver
252 pages
Orion
ISBN nr 978-1-4091-2118-3

Books to be read: 80
Books bought: 5

So, about my minor relapse...... I bought five books. I have to be honest and say that it was kind of a conscious relapse. I wanted something fun to do and then decided that a book buying trip would fit the bill. So I went out to Leighton Buzzard for a tour of the local charity shops. It could have been worse... I actually but I left one behind that I was not sure of getting ... might go back and get it in a few weeks.

Books to be read: 85..... well actually 84 as I have finished another one... But more on that in the next post.