Sands of time

    It is said that there is no armour against Fate, and that is proved countless times over in Roma Tearne's novel Brixton Beach. The fragility of life, the hair's breadth which separates the safe path from the one that leads to danger, that is the unforgiving framework on which hangs this story of civil war, ethnic divisions and the search for a better life.

   The opening scenes describing a doctor looking for someone among the casualties of the London bombings in July 2005 are powerful, but then we move back from that urgent beginning to a very different time and place - Ceylon in the early 1970s. Here we meet Alice Fonseka, the child of a Sinhalese mother and a Tamil father, her family fractured by racial divisions but her closeness to her grandfather, Bee, making up for much of what she lacks at home.

   The story follows Alice as she leaves Ceylon bound for England and an escape from the violence and discrimination, but this is not a happy tale, and almost every character will suffer - some terribly - before we are done with it. As such, I found it 'too much', and that's a pity because as well as being a writer, Roma Tearne is an artist, and her painter's eye puts on the page colours, textures, the sea in all its moods, as she would put pigment on canvas. There's a quality of light and lightness to some of those scenes and to the writing of them which is lacking elsewhere in what can be a mood of oppressive, unrelieved gloom and dull resignation. The reader wants some spark of brightness, some hope, some redemptive twist of fate, but no ....

   That said, it's a strong, well-written book, and its factual background should not be made light of in a fictional setting, but I felt there was too much mute acceptance by characters whose creator is quick to cut them off from what sustains them and who puts too intense a focus on their suffering.

Comments

[LizF]

Oh dear. I just collected this from the library and was planning on making it next on my reading list (as soon as I have finished Testament, hopefully by Saturday) but having read your comment I'm beginning to doubt if it is the book for me at the moment! Life is pretty stressful at the mo and I'm not sure I'm up for anything too gloomy.

[Sakura]

I've just finished reading Mosquito, the debut novel by Tearne and loved it. It was sad and disturbing but at the same time beautifully written. I'll be reading her next book Bone China before attempting Brixton Beach. Mosquito did have a tiny light at the end of the tunnel...

[Simon (Savidge Reads)]

Hmmm interesting, I have this on the TBR and had been thinking of picking it up this weekend... maybe will hold off until I have a delightfully happy book to read afterwards.

[Cornflower]

Good idea, Simon!

[Cornflower]

Sakura, this one is beautifully written and I did enjoy it, I just could have done with a bit more light at the end of the tunnel!

[Cornflower]

Liz, maybe as Simon suggests below you could have a happy book ready to follow on with?

[Dark Puss]

Simon, would you also do the reverse?

[Dark Puss]

Why do we need the spark of brightness? Why can we not read a tragic book and enjoy it without it? I can see that one might well chose not to read such a book beacause of personal circumstances, as "LizF" states, but is there a general feeling that having taken up such a book knowingly one then needs some occasional relief? I posed to "Simon(Savidge reads)" the converese - can one cope with a book that is unremittingly happy? If so why?

By the way I do not find my personal circumstances affect (or are affected by) what I read in books. Is that because I completely fail to connect with the writing?

These are all genuine questions to which I hope you and your readers might provide some insight.

[LizF]

I must be rather shallow, but I'm afraid that I find that I have to be in the right mood to read certain books or they just don't gel with me and that would do a disservice to the writer.
Having said that, since I went to the trouble to request Brixton Beach from the library, and the staff went to the trouble to get it for me, it would be rude not to give it a chance - at least the first few chapters. But I will have Ruby Ferguson's 'Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary' as cheery back up!

[Cornflower]

I so agree - the right book for the right mood.

[Cornflower]

I didn't find that the book depressed me in any way - my view was more objectively-based than that, and my wish for some redemptive twist was as a seasoning to the dish, as it were, to bring out the flavours which were there.
Speaking generally now, almost regardless of where a book sits on the misery-happiness scale there ought to be some light and shade, some contrast, some variation to the pace/metre/tone/voice and so on, otherwise it loses something through monotony.
Further, two phrases come to mind: "truth is stranger than fiction" and "you couldn't make it up", and those suggest that in fiction (not fantasy, of course) there are bounds of plausibility and they are narrower than can apply to real life. The combined misfortunes of the characters in Brixton Beach were pushing credibility for fiction, I thought, though paradoxically they could indeed have befallen real people.
I hope that makes sense!

[Dark Puss]

How is fantasy different from fiction? Fascinating! Anyway yes of course you make excellent sense, but you refrained from commenting on my orthogonal view from both "LizF" and then your subsequent comment that I so agree - the right book for the right mood. Why don't I subscribe to that view I wonder - what I really mean is, since my question is obviously unanswerable, do you regard my lack of matching of mood to book as unusual?

[Cornflower]

Fantasy is a class of fiction in which 'anything' is possible and the writer isn't bound by the laws of our world; that's what I mean by its not being subject to the bounds of plausibility.
Re. your second point, perhaps men in general don't engage emotionally with a book as much as women do?