Lord Napsack Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 After his mother's death' date=' Richard, a newly remarried hospital consultant, decides to build bridges with his estranged sister, inviting Angela and her family for a week in a rented house on the Welsh border. Four adults and four children, a single family and all of them strangers. Seven days of shared meals, log fires, card games and wet walks. But in the quiet and stillness of the valley, ghosts begin to rise up. The parents Richard thought he had. The parents Angela thought she had. Past and present lovers. Friends, enemies, victims, saviours. And watching over all of them from high on the dark hill, Karen, Angela's stillborn daughter. [/quote'] Mark Haddon was one of those authors who wrote one book everyone knows and then faded into obscurity. Maybe it was the 3 years between The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and A Spot of Bother that did him in. That 3 year gap may have been long enough for people to forget who he was. Or maybe people never remembered the name of the author, only remembering the title of the book. I have found that most people I've talked to about Curious Incident don't actually know the author's name. Which is a shame as he is a great author. After the success of Curious Incident I can only presume that people wanted more of the same, and A Spot of Bother was not that. In fact, according to Wikipedia, A Spot of Bother received mostly mixed reviews. I feel this is undeserved, as it was a great book that I feel more people need to pick up and give a chance. Yes, it is not Curious Incident, but it's good for an author to try and change and adapt, to never be stale. Why do I bring all of this up? Because The Red House is another Mark Haddon book that seems to have flown relatively under the radar. In addition to that it runs more so in the style of A Spot of Bother than Curious Incident. This is not, of course, a bad thing. It should also be noted that though it is more in common with A Spot of Bother the book is not just a carbon copy of it. Blimey, it's taking me far too long to get here, but let's actually talk about the book itself. As the synopsis shows, the book is about two families coming together for a holiday after the death of a relative. This initially reminded me of The Darjeeling Limited, a simply fantastic film about three brothers attempting to bond on a holiday after the death of their father. Over the seven days the families stay in this house not a massive amount particularly happens, but rather lots of little things. You see, the beauty of The Red House lies in the fact that Mark Haddon makes the mundane and the fairly ordinary interesting to read about. Of course, some things aren't quite that ordinary, but still believable, yet never before have I found someone going on an early morning run so interesting, nor has saying grace at the dinner table been such an important issue. These little events have massive repercussions throughout the book. The way in which Haddon makes these issues interesting is through his writing style. This style is nothing like his previous two adult books, nor is it like any book I've read with a similar focus. The Red House has a narrative that focuses upon a stream of consciousness. Though all written in third person it has the feel of a book written in first person. Usually a section will focus upon a single character, going through their thoughts, feelings and actions as if they are personally contemplating the situation. Sometimes the narrative focus will switch during a paragraph or section, which doesn’t confuse but rather intensifies any drama happening at the current moment in time. This focus is also enhanced by Haddon’s choice of language when focussing on each character. When focussing on Benjy, the 8 year old boy, the words used will be more simplistic and sentence structure less complex, yet when focussing on Alex, the 17 year old boy, the writing will be more centralised around Alex, swear words will be used more often and more sexual language will be used. This helps the reader understand each character more. However, it has to be said that understanding who each member of the family is and where they fit in can be quite difficult at first. It took me a while to figure out a family tree, which I then needed to write up as a quick reference. The narrative structure, though good for the story, did not help me get to grips with the family structure, though when this issue was overcome there are no longer any issues with the narrative. Throughout the book there are a massive amount of twists and turns. Plot gets slowly dispensed, keeping the reader in suspense. Most of the plot gets resolved in the last quarter of the book, though there are points where mini-plots end earlier. Haddon does seem to run out of steam near the end, however, with three characters having to be rescued and brought back home within the week, but he recuperates within the ending of the book. Finishing the book I was left somewhat upset. I had enjoyed reading about these people, as dysfunctional as they were. Yes, some of them (read: most of them) were horrible people, but they weren’t necessarily horrible people. They were just normal people. And leaving them made me feel sad. Some people had come out better, some came out worse, some the same, but this didn’t matter. This was a week of escape from a life which they would go back to and experience their lives in almost the same way. This is, at least, how I interpreted things. Things just keep on going the same. The Red House is definitely a book you should read, especially if you’ve liked Haddon’s previous work. It brings intrigue to the normalcy of life and does so through people you will probably feel you already know. It’s not too easy to read at first, but the style of writing will draw you in and keep you going throughout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pontalba Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 Great review LN! I have not read Haddon before, but your comparison to Darjeeling Limited has sold me. Plus of course the info following. Definitely going on my list. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Napsack Posted June 28, 2012 Author Share Posted June 28, 2012 No problem. I've gotten used to this reviewing lark over the last couple of years writing reviews of films and games, so writing a review of a book was actually kind of difficult for me. Thanks for the encouragement If you've never read Haddon's work before then definitely pick up Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time as that book is just brilliant on so may levels. Other than these two books and A Spot of Bother his only other work is in children's books. No idea what any of those are like though, but I might end up reading those just to see how he fares as a children's author as his books can have very grown-up themes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 I very nearly got this out from the library today but I have three books in line to read, so thought I better not be too greedy. I've recently read The Curious Incident which I thought very good, so will definitely give this a go in the near future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 Great review! I've read both "Curious" and "bother", loving the first and admittedly being a little underwhelmed by the second. But, I'd always read something new by him, so I will definitely add this to my TBR list. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylie Posted June 29, 2012 Share Posted June 29, 2012 Ian, like you, I loved Curious Incident but was underwhelmed by A Spot of Bother. The Red House seems to be in a similar vein to the latter, so I might pass on it for now and come back to it at a later date. I enjoyed your review, Lord Napsack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Napsack Posted June 29, 2012 Author Share Posted June 29, 2012 The similarity comes purely from the book having a more family dynamic. There are a couple of strands of similarity, but the story as a whole is very different. For some reason I always felt A Spot of Bother needed to focus more on the child, but what I loved about The Red House is that it did just that. It looks into the thoughts of the 8-year old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylie Posted June 29, 2012 Share Posted June 29, 2012 Maybe I would enjoy it more, then. The family dynamic was what bothered me about ASoB. I remember feeling that the story, specifically the family's problems and relationships with each other, were rather cliched and a bit dull to read about. A child's thoughts would be obviously be completely different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Napsack Posted June 29, 2012 Author Share Posted June 29, 2012 Hmm, well, there is some cliché in there, but the four adults and child are not privy to that. The teenagers are slightly, but I can only suppose it is because Haddon is having to write about modern day teenagers. Writing one teenager is hard enough but he has to pull off three. No easy task, I tell you. He seems to pull them off well enough though, by which I mean I swear I knew those people in secondary school and college Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted June 29, 2012 Share Posted June 29, 2012 Lord Napsack, thanks for the review! I'm one of those who loved both The Curious and A Spot.I'm really bummed that the latter is such an undermined novel, I think it had its perks and it made me laugh out loud at times, which is not particularly usual with books. I haven't read The Red House yet but it sounds like another Haddon novel I would most likely enjoy, and I decided long ago that I would try all of Haddon's novels. I just wanted post this so you'd know you are not alone in enjoying the other books, too, instead of just the obvious choice, The Curious Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Napsack Posted June 30, 2012 Author Share Posted June 30, 2012 Lord Napsack, thanks for the review! I'm one of those who loved both The Curious and A Spot.I'm really bummed that the latter is such an undermined novel, I think it had its perks and it made me laugh out loud at times, which is not particularly usual with books. I haven't read The Red House yet but it sounds like another Haddon novel I would most likely enjoy, and I decided long ago that I would try all of Haddon's novels. I just wanted post this so you'd know you are not alone in enjoying the other books, too, instead of just the obvious choice, The Curious It does seem to be a rare thing. I don't think I've met anyone who has read A Spot of Bother but so many people have read Curious Incident, often being surprised that he wrote more. I do think people didn't notice the name attached to the book, so didn't notice when more of his stuff came out. Also, as I said in the review, I think the time spent between books was too long for some people to remember him. The Red House isn't as laugh-out-loud funny as the others, being a bit more dramatic, but it still had moments where I couldn't help but giggle a bit. Not to be advised when you're on a train, though. People look at you funny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesilbeach Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 I couldn't get on with Curious Incident... and gave up after 20 odd pages, but I really enjoyed A Spot Of Bother. I've got The Red House on my wishlist, so will get round to it some time in the future, I'm sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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