Guest review by Sally Prue: THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J R R Tolkien

"Devoted admirer though I am of The Lord of the Rings, there's no disputing that it has led to a lot of trouble ... "

Sally Prue is a writer for children of all ages, from picture books up to Young Adult fiction. Her novel Cold Tom won the Branford Boase Prize and the Smarties Silver Award, and Song Hunter won the Historical Society’s Young Quills Award. Her other jobs have included being a Time and Motion clerk, an accompanist, and a piano and recorder teacher. Sally is married, has two grown up daughters, and lives on the edge of a small but very beautiful wood in Hertfordshire, England. She blogs at The Word Den and is also to be found on her website and on Twitter: @sally_prue.

(This review first appeared in Norman Geras' Normblog.)

Sending a book out into the world is an unnerving experience for a writer, as once people have got hold of it there's no knowing what they will think. For example, I have been lucky enough to receive several reviews containing kind mention of a character called Alice... but there is no Alice. There never was an Alice in any of my books. The girl I think they have in mind is called (wait for it) Stefanie. And she always has been.

Hold on to that thought, if you will, whilst we pay a visit, as I did recently, to Leominster, an English country town boasting many splendid hanging baskets and a heritage centre that is quite often open. And on a corner near a pub (I can't actually remember the pub, but most places in old English towns are near pubs) is a shop window displaying some extremely surprising weaponry. There is, for example, 'Sting', which, as every Lord of the Rings fan knows, is an elfish blade with the handy (unless hiding in the dark) habit of shining blue when in the proximity of orcs. There one can also, if over the age of sixteen, buy what purports to be Arwen's sword, which I don't remember from the book; and there are several other pieces of lethal Lord of the Rings equipment. Which just goes to show that there are a lot of nutters about – though presumably not in Leominster, or they would have bought up the shop.

For, devoted admirer though I am of The Lord of the Rings, there's no disputing that it has led to a lot of trouble. There are all the palely imitative books of quests, holy violence and silly names, for a start; then there are the hundreds of computer games, the sword-waggling role-players, and the couple of film adaptations. The last of these was, admittedly, hugely impressive. (Indeed, the only experience that has come close, for me, to the vertiginous awe of zooming over the Isengard of Peter Jackson's version, was once at the Comedy Theatre, looking down from the gods at Dawn French's cleavage.) But even this colossal film consists largely of nazgul, orcs, trolls, balrogs and wargs, from none of whom one would ever even dream of buying a second-hand car.

Yet, as has been elegantly argued on Normblog, a person isn't necessarily to blame for an indirect consequence of his actions. I myself don't see The Lord of the Rings primarily as a promoter of picturesque violence; and, what's more, I don't think that Tolkien did, either. I don't think the book is fundamentally about kings, or magic, or any of the related snobberies that so many of its fans delight in. It's true that there are heroes of ancient lineage (though the heir to the greatest throne is poor, alone, incognito, rather ugly, and seventy years old), and people do spend a lot of time knocking seven bells out of each other; but all that willy-waving and bending-of-the-knee isn't important. It's just a very beautifully and intricately realised and fascinating side-show. In The Lord of the Rings all power, for good or evil (and most power is shown accelerating with horrible rapidity towards evil), is ultimately futile. It's the little man who's vital, as he creeps, trembling and wounded, to victory (of a sort) while the big pretty fellas are busy marching magnificently hither and yon. The book chronicles the splendour and terror of the gods (OK, they're called elves or wizards here, but in their beauty, song and immortality they have much in common with gods), but it shows their fading and banishment, too; and man himself is depicted in his irresistible diminishment from hero to humanity. How about that? Just about the whole history of literature in one book. But then, epics are, most often, accomplished in retreat.

I first read The Lord of the Rings as a teenager. It was the first long book I ever read, and perhaps the first grown-up book I ever enjoyed. It has adventure, and humour, and horror, and a great variety of styles, and blokes I fancy (that Faramir, eh? Cor!) and love and comradeship and a huge delight in the miraculous beauty of the natural world. There is, it's true, a race that views warfare as the pinnacle of its civilization, but, hey, in the end all their proud warriors are outfought by a hobbit (a half-sized, ignorant, and unassuming countryman, basically) and a girl. The language in which they do it! And so King Theoden departed from his realm, and mile by mile the long road wound away, and the beacon hills marched past: Calenhad, Min-Rimmon, Erelas, Nardol. But their fires were quenched. All the lands were grey and still; and ever the shadows deepened before them, and hope waned in every heart. Oh, the pity of it! I remember my husband reading that bit to my children by the meagre light of our tent's flickering gas-lamp.

But in the end, for me the book isn't about the soldiers (though, a book that means many different things to many different people isn't a bad definition of a masterpiece). For me The Lord of the Rings is about the triumph of the modest and ordinary; and this happens, essentially, because the extraordinary and immortal cannot evolve to fit into a new world-order. The world is saved (or, more accurately, some of it is able to continue) because pity for the weak triumphs over self-preservation and even justice; and Tolkien leads us to feelings of pity, too: to the pity of a creature degraded by guilt and long suffering almost to the point of being a beast. Tolkien watches the passing of many things, lovely and hideous, weak and strong, heroes and demons, and he mourns and celebrates in equal measure. The Lord of the Rings is a valediction to much that is most valuable; but it is also a benediction on the new, though less splendid, world of the common man.

A writer of another famous long book, Philip Pullman, was quoted recently as saying that The Lord of the Rings tells us nothing about the human condition. Well, let me leave you with a passage from Tolkien's trilogy that marked the moment when I first grasped my own mortality. It's spoken by an old, lonely creature who was himself once almost a hero.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

The Lord of the Rings is published by Harper Collins.

More reviews by Sally:

Mr Weston's Good Wine by T F Powys

The Dean's Watch by Elizabeth Goudge

Emma by Jane Austen

Guest review by Savita Kalhan: A FINE BALANCE by Rohinton Mistry

"A complex and tightly-woven tapestry of humanity at its best and at its worst."

Photo: Mal Woodford

Savita Kalhan was born in India, but has lived in the UK most of her life. She got the writing bug when she was teaching in the Middle East, where she lived for several years. Now living in North London, she runs a teen reading group at her local library in Finchley, and writes for children.

Her debut novel, The Long Weekend, published by Andersen Press, is a tense thriller about two boys who are abducted after school. Her new book, The Girl in the Broken Mirror was published in May by Troika Books. ‘This is an unflinching, multi-layered exposition of male privilege, male abuses of women, and the clash of cultures. With hard-hitting clarity it also shows how girls are silenced, made to feel ashamed of their bodies, ashamed of wrongs done to them. Ultimately this is a poignant personal story of a girl’s fight to rebuild and re-connect with herself and those who love her after a truly harrowing experience.’ Love Reading 4 Kids

Some stories stay with you forever; they leave an indelible mark on you, leave you wanting for more, for the story to never end, for the writer to never stop writing. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry is such a book for me.

It was also the work that had the most profound effect on me and my understanding of the country of my birth, its customs, traditions and people.

Mistry did not start writing until after he had left India with a degree in Maths and Economics from the University of Mumbai. He emigrated to Canada to work in a bank. It was some years later that he decided to pursue a degree in English and Philosophy, and it was then that he started writing stories. He won the Hart House literary short story prize two years consecutively. Tales of Firozsha Baag was a collection of short stories set in an apartment block in modern day Mumbai. Then came Such a Long Journey, which was shortlisted for the Booker prize, and won many others. Later, after it was adopted as a University text in Mistry's old university, it was to come under attack by extremists and was withdrawn despite a huge outcry.

A Fine Balance is the book of his that I truly love. It stands the test of time. As a portrayal of life in Bombay in India during the 1970s, it is, for me, without comparison. I've lent out my hardback copy to friends, who, with the exception of one person, have absolutely loved it. The one exception's pronouncement on it was: 'Good melodrama' - which was tantamount to blasphemy in my eyes.

The sad fact of the matter is that the everyday lives of the characters may well have seemed like melodrama to him, as though the author had simply sensationalized the harshness of his characters' lives for the sole purpose of giving the reader something more than a portrayal of the humdrum nature of abject poverty. For all the harsh realism contained within its pages, and there is much, the novel is one of carefully, almost poetically, crafted prose, which forms a story that is memorable and harrowing. It is far removed from the magical realism of Salman Rushdie's work, also originally from Mumbai, yet there is something magical in each page of this book, and even the most minor character you stumble upon within its pages is treated to the magic of his penmanship.

A Fine Balance was shortlisted for the Booker prize, has won countless others, and even made it onto Oprah Winfrey's Book Club. It hasn't been to everyone's taste. Germaine Greer hated it and said it in no way resembled the India she had come to know after spending all of four months there. Others have criticized Mistry for appropriating a turbulent time in Indian politics to meet his own ends and the needs of his characters. Personally, I don't understand this criticism, unless such critics balk at the atrocities of those times coming under public scrutiny after such a long period. In A Fine Balance Mistry explores the inherent inequalities of the caste system, extreme poverty, high level corruption, and life during the turmoil of Indira Gandhi's Emergency, and the sterilization programme, and the 'Beautification' policies, which led to the forced removal of street-dwellers into indentured labour. His characters are drawn from many Indian communities including the Parsi, Hindu, Muslim communities; from Untouchables to Prime Minister, from beggars to thieves; but there are four central characters of different backgrounds and histories, and it is through their hearts and minds that the story is told.

It is a tale of a Parsi woman, Dina, two tailors and a student from the north, four disparate people whose lives, outlooks, preconceptions and prejudices are fundamentally changed over a period of time after their first meeting. Tragedy exists at the heart of each of their stories, it permeates each page, yet the resilience of their spirit sits right next to it, tempering it. 'You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair' - and quite simply, that is exactly what Rohinton Mistry does.

His work speaks to me as an Indian, but it is universal in scope and in its depiction of humanity. He is, above all, a writer who plunges you, heart and mind, deep into his stories, where you remain submerged until the final page has been turned and you come up, gasping for air.

'... his sentences poured out like perfect seams, holding the garment of his story together without drawing attention to the stitches' - this is a line spoken by one of Mistry's characters, and perhaps best describes the mastery and craft of Rohinton Mistry himself.

In A Fine Balance he has created a complex and tightly-woven tapestry of humanity at its best and at its worst. For me the book is a literary masterpiece. It is a story you will never forget. His most recent novel Family Matters was published in 2002, but I am sure that I am not alone when I say that I am still waiting for Mistry’s next story.

A Fine Balance is published by Faber.

Guest review by Tony Bradman - THE PASSAGE trilogy by Justin Cronin

Tony Bradman has written books for children of all ages. His most recent titles are Anglo-Saxon Boy (Walker), Revolt Against the Romans (Bloomsbury Education) and The Greatest Stories Ever Told, illustrated by Tony Ross (Orchard).

Is it me, or is there still a general air of snootiness about genre fiction in our literary culture? An implicit belief that if a novel features an apocalyptic plot or vampires then it can’t have any literary merit? We could add accessible prose to the charge-sheet, and stories with lots of jeopardy, terrific action sequences and memorable dialogue. To some critics I’m sure that all seems rather, well… vulgar.

I’ve always found that attitude to be enormously irritating, so I’m pleased to say Justin Cronin’s trilogy of doorstep-sized novels make it look as narrow-minded as it really is. His trilogy - The Passage, The Twelve and The City of Mirrors - is an apocalyptic novel with vampires, but it also has enormous literary merit. It explores character and relationships, it has intimacy and grandeur, melancholy and joy. There are passages of technical explanation any writer of science-fiction or thrillers would be proud of, but also moments of genuine lyricism that will linger in the mind. I bought each volume in hardback as they appeared, and was utterly gripped.

The premise does combine several familiar genre tropes. A rogue element of the US government sets in motion a secret project to develop super-soldiers with hugely enhanced physical powers and a capacity for instant self-healing. The catalyst for these changes is a virus discovered in a rare species of Colombian bats, and the first test subjects are a dozen death-row convicts, men who are offered the chance of life if they ‘volunteer’ for the project. But the scientists, government agents and military men seriously underestimate what the virus can do - the convicts are turned into giant vampires who are virtually invulnerable. The inevitable break-out occurs, the test subjects escaping from a secret laboratory - and the apocalypse soon follows.

And what an apocalypse it is, an almost complete extermination of the human race. The original twelve vampires kill thousands, but also spread the virus in order to create more vampires who are like them - and who will be under their control. Before long only small pockets of survivors remain, their outposts dotted across America and completely cut off from each other. But from the beginning we know there is hope. The bad guys - and this is a measure of just how evil they are - also infect a six-year-old girl called Amy with the virus thinking that she won’t turn out to be so dangerous. They’re right - she gains some powers yet doesn’t lose her humanity, although they can never imagine the role Amy will have in the long-term future of our species.

I should point out that Justin Cronin doesn’t tell his enormous tale in a strict chronological sequence. The Passage does begin at the beginning, setting up the premise, introducing the twelve convicts, Amy, and some other key characters. But it quickly leaps 92 years, telling the story of one of the outposts and its people, the descendants of refugees. The storylines in both The Twelve and The City of Mirrors then move backwards and forwards in time, filling in more background detail in the lives of important characters, setting up clues and foreshadowing events to come. All, is resolved at the conclusion of the final book - the stories of individual characters as well as the ultimate fate of the human race a thousand years after the catastrophe.

The trilogy weighs in at something like 800,000 words, and by my reckoning that’s about six-or-seven-novels-worth of material. I was going to say that this puts it on a Tolstoyan scale, but in many respects it’s even bigger that. There’s a huge cast of characters too, many of whom could easily have whole novels devoted to them. But you never get them confused with other characters, or forget what their place is in the overall tale, and that has to be a testament to the sheer craft of Justin Cronin. He manages it all with great aplomb; I was gripped by it all, often re-reading sections.

It’s difficult to convey the sheer quality of the whole thing - until you read it for yourself you’ll have to take my word for it. The trilogy has been very successful in terms of sales, and film rights were bought by Ridley Scott before the first book was published, although now it seems likely to be made into series for television by HBO. If that happens, then I think it could do for the apocalyptic novel what the Game of Thrones adaptation has done for fantasy fiction, ie proved that it’s best done on epic scale on screen as well as in print. And don’t forget, you heard that here first.

The Passage trilogy is published by Orion.