
As the e-book version of Linda Gillard's novel Emotional Geology
is now available (and at a bargain price!), I'm going to take the unusual step of reproducing my post on the book here. I read it in late 2007, and rather than just link to the piece, here it is in full, as it sits well next to a novel I've just finished reading:
"The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven". Those lines from Milton's "Paradise Lost" are quoted in Emotional Geology
, where the premise behind them is explored with skill, insight and a very sure grasp of character. This is not a comfortable read: Linda deals unflinchingly with difficult and painful issues and her language is strong, direct, and without the niceties and conventions which a lighter tone and subject-matter might require, but although it is powerful, uncompromising stuff, it's very well executed.
We meet Rose on the Hebridean island of North Uist. She is alone, self-absorbed, anguished and in voluntary isolation from a tormented past. She meets Calum, a younger man with his own demons to exorcise, and recognises a kindred spirit of sorts. A relationship begins, but it's a rocky road their romance must follow, made all the harder by the arrival of Rose's grown-up daughter Megan.
Rose is a textile artist, and the piecemeal approach to creativity which she uses in her work is adopted to great effect in the novel's own construction. The narrative shifts easily from first person to third, from reminiscence to present tense observation. As Rose says, "My mind is buzzing with ideas - cross-sections, layers, pleats, folds, distortions..."; there are flashbacks, letters and poetry, but the book's episodic nature has a strong cohesive quality, and like the best patchwork quilts, it's worked with an eye for colour, texture and tonal values. In this way, Linda Gillard gradually exposes each character's emotional layers and the past events which caused them to develop, as a geologist might identify a rock's strata and means of formation - it's no coincidence that rocks and mountains are crucial to the story. But whether it's the seismic shifts in people's lives that Linda is describing, or a collage of more mundane moments that she's putting together, she does it very well indeed.
The piecemeal construction of the novel is similar to that of Lisa Moore's February
, which I've read this week. Based on a real life event - the sinking, in February 1982, of the oil rig Ocean Ranger* with the loss of all crew - it follows Helen O'Mara from the night she gets the call to tell her that her husband is dead to another February, twenty five years on, when a happier future beckons.
A non-linear narrative takes the reader back and forth from the early years of Helen's married life to the time of the tragedy and on to when her children are well into adulthood, and as with Linda's book, the episodic nature of the telling is highly effective. Full of intricate and intimate detail, there are flashbacks and memories recalled and moments caught as if by a camera: "This is the kind of thing Helen remembers, bits of afternoons that sharpen in focus until they are too bright. Just moments. Tatters."
As you might expect, it's a very moving book, all the more so when you remember that so many families were really bereaved in the way that the fictitious Helen was. A subtle, intuitive portrait of love, loss and grief, it's another impressive book.
*(Coincidentally, it was another oil rig disaster, Piper Alpha, which formed part of the background to Linda Gillard's later novel Star Gazing
).