Yet another book where a hard-done-by kid is summoned from obscurity to become a hero (demi-god, wizard, whatever) and defeat evil monsters? I can take it or leave it. No, actually I would rather leave it. Whilst genuinely rejoicing in the huge number of children whose reading will be supported and encouraged, my own 'to read' pile is teetering with so much potentially imaginative and innovative kids' fantasy that I need to give my time to that.
So, am I glad that I didn't leave this one.
To start with, it starts with: 'Looking back, it had been a mistake to fill the orphanage with books.' The thought is that of orphanage Director, Ackerby. The implication is soon clear. Acherby=bad, therefore books=good. Within its first few pages this novel strongly promotes books (big cheers), libraries (bigger cheers) and strong boy characters who are avid readers (massive cheers!). Perhaps this is my sort of book after all. Its heart is certainly in the right place.
And the start turns out to be just that, just the start. This book has three staggering qualities that thrill my readerly sensibilities, sustain my inward cheers and demand review superlatives aplenty. How almost disastrously misleading were my pre-reading impressions. If ever a book was not to be missed . . .
Firstly, it oozes the highest quality writing, the best crafted, most imaginative, playful, original, communicative use of language that I have encountered in a debut children's novel for a very long time. (Possibly not since I first read France's Hardinge's deliciously loquacious Fly by Night ten years or so ago.) What is it with the Irish and wonderful writing? Dave Ruddock reveals in a postscript Q&A that his childhood influences were the likes of J K Rowling,Tamara Pierce and Roald Dahl. However he also seems to have at least an armful of the blood of such compatriots as WB Yeats, James Joyce and Shamus Heaney.
Examples of illuminating imagery abound: 'Its headlights switched on with a sound like lightning hitting a cushion'; 'The road looped around the mountain like a tailor's measuring tape.' It is not that the words are fancy. It is that they are perfectly chosen to conjure the picture. And sometimes it is as simple, and as simply brilliant as: 'The sky fell as rain.' So cleverly using 'the sky' rather than 'rain' as the subject of 'fell' is enough to evoke both deluge and abject misery in the most powerful way. Masterful.
In creating vocabulary for the phenomena of his particular magical world Dave Rudden cleverly draws on pre-existing language roots, in this case essentially Latin. This isn't the degree of extreme linguistic sophistication of Tolkein, but the genuine derivations give his terms the resonance of age and authenticity compared with the contorted alphabetic disharmonies of so many invented fantasy coinings. And those occasional children who do go so far as to look words up will get the extra little thrill of discovering that 'Tenebrae' relates to the Latin for shadows or darkness.
Of course, many young readers will not be strongly conscious of the skill with language which underpins this book. They will however be exposed to it, even if unaware, and this is in itself an important thing. Further, though, what this language does is lift the characters, locations and action vividly off the page, and of this they cannot help but be aware.
The second quality of Dave Rudden's writing complements the first ideally; he imagines with striking clarity, depth and detail. This is storytelling which carries you right into the heat of the action as well as into the hearts and minds of its protagonists. You know every person intimately, see every place as if with your own eyes. You breathlessly share every riveting moment and you vicariously live every thrilling, terrifying, exciting scene.
This author's monsters may have much of the comic book about them (although they are no less terrifying for that) but his protagonists are beautifully drawn. Denizen, the thirteen year old principal of these, might be plucked from an orphanage, but he is no clichéd story-book orphan. Rather he is drawn with a real depth of human understanding for his situation and for the outlook on life it can produce. He does not sentimentally hope to re-find his lost parents, but, rather. desperately, almost obsessively needs information about who they were. His down-to-earth acceptance of life, coloured with no little cynicism, often maintained and expressed even in the midst of the most unimagined horrors, can be as touching as it is amusing. His core humanity is both inspiring and heart-rending. Similarly the other young characters, Simon, his best friend from the orphanage, and the two prominent girl characters are beautifully drawn. Adults too are far from one-dimensional, and their complex developments, shape and enrich the story quite wonderfully.
And that leads on to the third of this writer's outstanding qualities. Despite a certain been-there-done-that feeling in the story's core premise, his narrative turns out to be exceptional in its power and originality of developement. This is in fact no clichéd or derivative regurgitation but a surprising, sometimes shocking, and always edge-of-the-seat exciting story, thrillingly told. Having very recently finished reading Sally Green's magnificent Half Bad trilogy (see my post from April '16) I would say that this was somewhat closer to a younger readers' version of that than to, say, Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. KOTBD is in no way derivative of Half Bad, and there are innumerable differences, it is a question of quality, power and dark potency as much as anything.
What this writer has in spades is the ability to envisage with amazing sensitivity and detail. This is combined with his masterful ability to craft language, source words, turn phrases and conjure metaphors which will convey those pictures vividly. He has a poet's power of image which here he uses in the service of the very best, most exciting of comic book/video game storytelling. It makes him very special and raises this book far, far above the level of most other examples of its now rather commonplace orphan-learns-to-fight-monsters-and-save-the-world subgenre.
There can be no doubt, not a borrowed shadow of a doubt, that KOTBD is amongst the finest examples of children's fantasy. It is classically timeless, but at the same time so original, so new, so today. We seem to be being promised a KOTBD trilogy. That there is more to come is cause for almost inexpressible excitement. I hope that after that, though, Dave Rudden will not be seduced down the route of an interminable series. Such very special writing talent needs to be used to create a whole range of diverse wonders.
Late last year we lost, tragically young, a most promising Irish born children's writer in Nigel McDowell. There can, of course, be no direct replacement. However in Dave Rudden we now have another young Irish author who has the potential not only to rival mega sellers like Rick Riordan and Deren Landy but to join the ranks of the real greats in contemporary writing for children with the likes of Philip Reeve, Frances Hardinge and Kenneth Opel.
KOTBD gets my very highest recommendation. A rare honour. (See list page.)
Fortunately for US readers, this gem seems to be coming your way later this year.
Posted with Blogsy