Going with the flow
Sometimes one thing follows on from another. And sometimes one reading interest follows on from another. In this instance, it seemed to flow on naturally that having just spent a period exploring the wonderful books of Ursula Dubosarsky, I went on to look at those of another justifiably lauded Australian children’s author, Sonya Hartnett. Although Ursula Dubosarsky was a new discovery for me, I was, already a big fan of Sonya Hartnett and had read some of her books before. Perhaps not surprisingly she has won enough major international awards to have a well deserved reputation in this country too. But, for some reason, I had not read anything particularly recent of hers, so picked up these two novels, both of which are set during WWII, but which in many other ways could not be more different. What does unite them, however, is quite breathtakingly wonderful writing.
The Midnight Zoo
‘Cages come and get you’ (p 158)
Another great Australian writer, Morris Gleitzman, is quoted as saying, ‘Stories are rarely what they seem to be at first glance,’ This could not be more true of The Midnight Zoo. An apparently simple wartime story about two displaced boys discovering a small, deserted zoo, is, through its extended metaphor of the the denial of life and liberty, one of the most devastating books I have read about the anathema of war and the inhumanity of man.
It is also a most remarkable feature of Sonya Hartnett’s superlative writing that this bleak, and in some ways terse tale, is told through the most rich and ravishing prose. Sections of the book are close to prose poetry, not in any sense of florid verbosity, but in terms of deep, challenging thought, caught through the most vivid use of language and imagery.
The story is set in Eastern Europe during WWII, where two young brothers, Andrej and Tomas, have just witnessed their immediate and extended Rom (‘Gypsy’) family ‘removed’ by invading soldiers, and their homes destroyed.
‘The monster that had escaped its chains had countless arms and legs and eyes and mouths, innumerable shapes and disguises; and it was merciless even to mothers and children, even to the best of men.’ (p 154)
They find themselves rather aimlessly wandering the devastated countryside, seeking only to try to keep themselves alive. Further intensifying their plight, not only does the elder boy, Andrej, feel totally responsible for his younger brother, but the two have to carry with them their tiny baby sister, Wilma, caring for her as best they can. Everything that was their life has been taken from them, for no reason other than the most prejudiced demonisation of the race and community to which they belong.
‘Andrej stood amidst the wreckage, the last of the day’s sunshine beaming on his head and the birds chirping to one another, feeling as if his life had slipped off him like a coat and that his heart was exposed to the air.’ (p 145)
The boys stumble across a small zoo, where a disparate assortment of animals have been abandoned by their keeper and are desolately close to starvation. At the astonishing heart of the book, the various encaged wild creatures speak with the boys and eventually tell them their devastating stories. In many ways its seems totally incongruous to find the fantasy of talking animals in the context of a gruesomely realistic story and setting. Yet Sonya Hartnett pulls it off wonderfully. The various animals ‘personalities’, whose histories speak again and again of unspeakable cruelty, provide a most telling parallel to the life and freedom stolen by those who perpetrate aggressive warfare and the abomination of genocide.
The tale is harrowing and gut-wrenchingly cruel. It is compelling and heartrendingly beautiful. It is unspeakably moving.
Much of the story, particularly its closing chapters, are too demanding and potentially confusing for younger children. This is therefore a book for experienced, sensitive readers of, perhaps, twelve upwards.
Its ending swells with a vision of optimism, of freedom for boys and animals, and seems to offer hope and comfort. But, it is quite possible that such freedom is to be found only in their own hearts, in their disparate desire for it. Their escape is, perhaps, only in death. Ultimately this merely adds to the novel’s devastating bleakness, another reason why this is not a book for most younger readers. However, for children with the maturity and sensitivity to take it, it is the most wonderful example of what fine literature, as opposed to mere fictional entertainment, can offer to the mind and spirit. It shows how, in the hands of a great writer, the artistry of artifice can, through rich language, powerful images and skilfully constructed narrative, bring us face to face with reality. It can also powerfully lead us in the direction of a better world. This cutting vision of the inhumanity of men, of our potential for grotesque cruelty - to animals, to fellow human beings, and thus, in the end to ourselves - must be a spur to our determination to be more humane. We must seek for them the freedom that Andrej, Tomas, Wilma and the creatures of The Midnight Zoo so desperately wanted. It is for us to find the keys to their cages.
The Children of the King
‘It seemed peculiar that the war, which was huge and serious and complicated, should bother to disrupt even the littlest life - like a tiger so bad-tempered it would crush a ladybird.’ (p 17)
Aside from being set during the period of WWII, the setting of The Children of the King could scarcely be in starker contrast to The Midnight Zoo and, to a large extent, the tenor and style of the story reflect this. Here two children, Cecily and Jeremy, from a clearly affluent background, move with their mother from bomb-threatened London to live with an eccentric uncle in a country mansion in northern England. Here the household also takes in an evacuee, May. So far, more Noel Streatfield than Morris Gleitzman. But, yet again, first impressions are deceptive and Sonya Hartnett is clever and more original than this core scenario implies. This is another book about the realities of war, it just comes at it from a very different direction.
A large part of the author’s inspired approach here is to combine this account of the experience of realistically drawn children with a recounting of the journey to the throne of the man who was to become King Richard III. The telling of this story-within-a-story is prompted by a nearby ruined castle and the girls meeting with two strange boys, who, it emerges, seem to be the ghosts of the murdered ‘princes in the tower’. Once again Sonya Hartnett draws together what might seem to be two disparate, and even incongruous elements, into a compelling whole, with the historical narrative providing an image of manic power-seeking that results, amongst many other negative consequences, in the killing of innocent children.
Much the compelling fascination of the book comes from the exploration of character and relationships, particularly those of Cecily. Her uneasy friendship with the more independent minded May is beautifully drawn and developed through action and dialogue, as is her equally turbulent, if loving, relationship with her slightly older brother. Jeremy is particularly angry and frustrated in being corralled off to the safety of the countryside when he feels that, despite his fourteen years, he should be back in the thick of the war, ‘doing his bit’.
‘“A sweet boy talking about killing people . . . That’s what this war’s done.”
“Jem couldn’t kill a butterfly.”
“But that’s the thing, see? A boy who can’t kill a butterfly wants to kill a man. Where’s the good in that? Where’s the victory in that?”’
Whereas The Midnight Zoo is more directly about the victims of war, the characters in this book experience war from a distance. But it is still there. In fact the chapter describing the start of the London Blitz is just about as powerfully devastating as any in children’s fiction. The threat to life and liberty posed by man’s lust for power over man is ever harshly present, in both strands of the narrative, and it is deeply frightening.
‘She had the dream of being encased in a skin of glass: everything, so far, was happening outside the glass and could not touch her. But glass is breakable, and Cecily knew that the moment it broke, a river of fear would gush in . . . fear for the world she would grow up in.’ (p 200)
As always, Sonya Hartnett tells her tale through ravishing prose . Her many long descriptions never seem to slow the story, as could be the case, but instead seductively pull the reader further under its spell. It is a lyrical book, rather than an action-packed one, but packs its own compelling punch nonetheless.
More than anything, perhaps, it is about that feeling of smallness and uselessness that we all feel when faced with the horrendous issues on a societal or even global scale. Ultimately, however, it reminds us of a wonderful and wonderfully important thing: when the problems of the world seem just too daunting, when there seems to be nothing that we can do, amidst all the horror and cruelty and injustice, it is really only necessary that we do something. One action is sometimes enough. One change. The beating of a butterfly’s wing. ‘One change changes everything.’ (p 232)
Remember this writer
Both of these books were critically acclaimed when they were published, and rightly so, but, even a couple of years on, I don’t see them around very much. Teachers, parents and others who recommend books to children should not neglect one of our finest contemporary authors of children’s literature - and particularly for those children who are ready for more challenging and thought-provoking reads.
Greatest children’s war stories
These are a good many children’s novels set in one or other of the twentieth century’s ‘World Wars’. A remarkable number of them are very fine books and these have been added to recently as a way of marking various significant anniversaries. This is an excellent thing as, now that those dark days are beyond the living memory of even the grandparents of most children, such books have a most important part to play in awareness, understanding and remembrance.
However, if I was asked to nominate those that I see as the greatest of the great amongst such titles, (as I seem, in fact, to be doing) these present two books by Sonya Hartnett would certainly be up there, along with Ursula Dubosarsky’s The Blue Cat (recently reviewed here). They would most emphatically be joined by Hilary McKay’s recent The Skylark’s War (also reviewed on this site). Alongside these would then need to go a few earlier books: Morris Gleitzman’s Once (and its sequels), Judith Kerr’s When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Robert Westall’s The Kingdom by the Sea*, Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars, Michael Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful, John Boyne’s The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas and, of course, Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight Mister Tom.
All of these are inevitably challenging reads for children, emotionally even more than intellectually. However we must never forget what yet another fine writer said:
‘Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth.’ E.B. White
To these readerly qualities I would also add empathetic and courageous.
Note:
*His The Machine-Gunners and Blitzcat would also be strong contenders.