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Mar. 26th, 2010 10:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerI want to talk about Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins books.
There's so much to love in these books. They're crime thrillers, on the face of it, with murders which are committed by ordinary living murderers for (usually) mundane reasons like greed and ambition and revenge, but Rickman manages to work in, every time, a tantalising sense of something genuinely paranormal going on under the surface. They're solidly grounded in a real landscape, the Welsh border between Herefordshire and the Radnor Valley, which he obviously loves, and whose history and folklore, meticulously researched, shapes and gives colour to the ghosts and other horrors he describes. They deal with the ongoing clash between Christianity, paganism and secularism, and he manages to point out the good as well as the bad in all three approaches without any bias one way or the other.
But it's the invention, the fiction, that makes these books. The lead characters, Merrily and Lol Robinson, two deeply damaged people who find, in the course of the overarching story (which Rickman says you don't have to bother with, but it adds so much) a way towards healing. The supporting cast is magnificent too; one character, who starts out in the first book as slightly repellent and possibly a villain, has found his way by the latest volume to redemption and a kind of quiet heroism. Another, who barely gets half a book before getting killed, remains a strong and difficult (but ultimately benevolent) presence throughout the series. And another, Gomer Parry, who first appeared in one of Rickman's earlier novels, combines a sort of unshakable valour with a tricksterlike unpredictability that makes him a joy to encounter. There's also possibly the best guitar maker ever invented, and I wish his guitars were real so that my friends who make magic with Ovations and such could each have one. (Or at least lust after them; they don't come cheap.)
And the village of Ledwardine itself. Who wouldn't want to live there? It's not perfect, it's not a Brigadoon-like community sealed off from the corruption of the world like my Avevale, but it's as close as we'll ever get in a world like this.
These are great, great books, and I've hardly scratched the surface. If anything I've mentioned has tickled your fancy, start with The Wine Of Angels and go on from there.
Oh, and Lol's CD is available again, as you'll see on the site.
There's so much to love in these books. They're crime thrillers, on the face of it, with murders which are committed by ordinary living murderers for (usually) mundane reasons like greed and ambition and revenge, but Rickman manages to work in, every time, a tantalising sense of something genuinely paranormal going on under the surface. They're solidly grounded in a real landscape, the Welsh border between Herefordshire and the Radnor Valley, which he obviously loves, and whose history and folklore, meticulously researched, shapes and gives colour to the ghosts and other horrors he describes. They deal with the ongoing clash between Christianity, paganism and secularism, and he manages to point out the good as well as the bad in all three approaches without any bias one way or the other.
But it's the invention, the fiction, that makes these books. The lead characters, Merrily and Lol Robinson, two deeply damaged people who find, in the course of the overarching story (which Rickman says you don't have to bother with, but it adds so much) a way towards healing. The supporting cast is magnificent too; one character, who starts out in the first book as slightly repellent and possibly a villain, has found his way by the latest volume to redemption and a kind of quiet heroism. Another, who barely gets half a book before getting killed, remains a strong and difficult (but ultimately benevolent) presence throughout the series. And another, Gomer Parry, who first appeared in one of Rickman's earlier novels, combines a sort of unshakable valour with a tricksterlike unpredictability that makes him a joy to encounter. There's also possibly the best guitar maker ever invented, and I wish his guitars were real so that my friends who make magic with Ovations and such could each have one. (Or at least lust after them; they don't come cheap.)
And the village of Ledwardine itself. Who wouldn't want to live there? It's not perfect, it's not a Brigadoon-like community sealed off from the corruption of the world like my Avevale, but it's as close as we'll ever get in a world like this.
These are great, great books, and I've hardly scratched the surface. If anything I've mentioned has tickled your fancy, start with The Wine Of Angels and go on from there.
Oh, and Lol's CD is available again, as you'll see on the site.
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Date: 2010-03-26 12:31 pm (UTC)I'd add to your comments (with all of which I agree, btw) that the writing style, and characterisation, the little, meaningful, stupid, spiteful, silly and misguided things that people do and say also contribute to making these books an utter joy. Humanity is very lovingly and accurately portrayed.
I've also read, as an aside, some of his non-Merrily books - they are *much* darker, and I enjoyed them much less, for the record. I think they were also his earlier works, for the most part, so perhaps he began with more of a thriller/horror brief and then found his voice with these.
Right with you on Gomer Parry.
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Date: 2010-03-26 12:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-26 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-26 02:59 pm (UTC)But I'll be putting your recommendation on my wishlist for reading when I run out of the current stack *g*...
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Date: 2010-03-26 01:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-26 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-26 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-26 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-26 09:04 pm (UTC)