beautiful, yet painful, read, The Dollmaker tells the story of two unique people trying to find their way to each other, Set on Cornwall's moors, this moody, compelling story is interwoven with several short stories each of which packs a powerful punch on their own, Untangling themes of art, longing, misfits, taking chances, and healing from childhood trauma, Nina Allan writes a tale that both tugs at your heart and satisfies your literary cravings.
Bravo! I read this book courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for a review, My opinions are my own,
I discovered Nina Allan slightly more than a year ago, and I fell in love with her writing in The Rift and The Race they were some of my favourite novels read last year, so I was beyond excited to get ahold of her newest novel, The Dollmaker, even though the description didn't really appeal to my taste.
And really, the novel was both what I love about Allan's writing and what made me wary in the description the rating of,that I wish I could leave is the reflection of that,
What I loved about Allan's two previous novels and what was realised beautifully here was the way in which the relationship between the frame and the embedded stories is undermined.
The characters tell stories about themselves and about the world, and these stories contain further stories, The relationship between fiction and fictionwithinfiction is uncertain and complex the reader is never sure if the world described is one of the historical past or the present or a fantastical world.
There's an effect of disorientation at times if I interrupted reading in the middle of a chapter, upon returning to the book, I would often find it difficult to find my bearings again, and it was amazing.
The book is also very beautifully written and engrossing, and its characters are as fascinating as the mysteries they slowly reveal,
What didn't quite work for me was the aspect of disability, While this story is essentially about and against oppression and prejudice, I found it occasionally difficult to get through the ablist thoughts of characters and disturbing images the book evoked particularly with regard to children.
I am not entirely convinced that the book succeeds in what it wants to accomplish there, and I found its pessimism almost misanthropic and that's something I don't really like in fiction.
And my second complaint, predictably, concerns the use of Polish names in the book, . .
Nonetheless, I found this book extremely interesting and thoughtprovoking, and I can't wait to read more from this author.
I love her voice and her vision, The Dollmaker by Nina Allan is the oddest book I have read this year and, quite probably, of any year, Yet, because of this, it is unforgettable, This curious but fiercely original novel will stay with me for some time,
In it we follow
Andrew and Bramber, two lonely individuals who have never met, but who quickly develop a love affair via letters as they become penpals following Brambers advert in a doll collectors magazine.
Only its not just distance that make the burgeoning relationship of these two doll obsessives complicated Bramber is institutionalised and hasnt told Andrew, and, similarly, Andrew has not informed his new queen that he was born with proportionate dwarfism.
How will they feel when their secrets are revealed That is what is at stake when Andrew suddenly undertakes a trip across England to surprise his queen with an unannounced visit.
Yet, if you think this is all that this story has at stake, well, you are in for a hell of a surprise, With a spirit that blends Angela Carter with Margaret Atwood at her darkest, Nina Allan sets this story off kilter, feeding in fables of murderous dwarfs, time manipulators, fairies and changelings.
This she does by cutting in supposed short stories from Andrew and Brambers favourite writer Ewa Chaplin, a supposed esteemed dollmaker who also wrote the darkest fantasy stories with powerful themes of love, obsession, disfigurement and revenge.
The question then becomes, how are these two streams in the book tied To what extent will the themes in Ewa Chaplins books shape our unusual protagonists
I could write pages about this book the way Nina has crafted the language so that, even though the novel is rooted in contemporary England, this feels like a Grimm Brothers fairytale, a little unworldly the sense of porous walls between the central love affair and the stories written by their shared favourite author how these dark tales seem to merge with reality until you wonder whether this is coincidence or forewarning.
And just that darkness and the strange blend of the gothic and the contemporary, Brilliant and unforgettable. This novel was simply lovely, and very wellwritten, too,
I think Allan did something very daring here, She breaks up the bits of novel in which Andrew tells us how he is travelling to Cornwall to see Bramber Winters and the letters of Bramber with the occasional fairy tale.
Andrew reads these fairy tales during his travels because they were written by an author Bramber adores, but soon, they start to bear some eerie similarities to his real life.
Now, if you stop your novel to tell a fairy tale that an last up to forty pages, that's a bold move, It means your novel bits must be strong enough to make the reader willing to plough through forty pages of something else, and simultaneously those short stories must be strong enough on their own to make it worth the ploughing through and justify the interruption.
I think that they did, and if Allan ever publishes all nine tales, I'll certainly read them, My favourite was the one with Aunt Lola,
I also think it was a masterful move to include that excerpt about the dwarf and his queen at the beginning of the story and then weave it into the tale, because it heightened the stakes without the characters being aware of it: repetition signals importance, and since the dwarf kills his queen because he loves her but can't have her, that really made you fear for Bramber and Andrew.
I felt that this novel was very honest in its portrayal of two characters on the outskirts of society Andrew because he is a little person, and Bramber because she is in some sort of mental facility looking for love.
It's ending was a little more open than I would have liked, and I think that the reason for Bramber being in that mental facility was a little underwhelming though in real lifevalid, but I still loved this novel deeply, and I shall be thinking about it a lot.
Dollmaker Andrew has engaged in a pen relationship with a woman called Bramber, who he suspects is trapped in a facility she needs rescuing from, Their shared love of dolls inspired Andrew and Bramber to write to one another, and through the letters, they have developed a strong relationship, Andrew believes he loves Bramber, and is so sure Bramber is the one for him, he decides to set off on a hundreds of miles journey to surprise Bramber.
Along the way, he passes the journey by reading a book that contains fairy tales, which are an awful lot like Andrews own life,
I didn't know what to expect with this story, and it kind of took me aback, It was a pleasant story, as it all revolved around human connection, The story is told through the perspectives of Andrew and Bramber through her letters to Andrew, Whilst Andrews narrative was effective in establishing character background and reader connection, I felt Brambers narrative through her letters was a bit underwhelming and less effective, I genuinely suspect this will be a personal sentiment, as the notion of letter writing is typically endearing which I feel too! I just wasnt able to connect with Bramber.
My favourite parts of this book were the fairy tales by Ewa Chaplin, They provided the book with a variety of genres, and really ensnared my interest, These stories included: A woman who falls in love with a poor man, and seeks to escape her loveless marriage to be with him, A woman who falls foul to a dwarf whose idea of time is complex, A teacher who is convinced her new student is a bad omen, A girl who is betrayed by her aunt, and learns she isn't all that she seems,
What Andrew finds is these fairy tales by Ewa Chaplin seem to mirror his life, and people he knows, to an unabashed degree, I think the parallels were quite good, in helping Andrews development of understanding life on a deeper level,
All in all, I read this indays and Im rating itstars, The story was well written as at some points there was really beautiful prose, But I found there to be quite a somber tone throughout this read, and at times that was fine, but it was really depressing too, I didnt massively like the story, and the only reason I can give is I didnt find the story as engaging as other reads, I somewhat enjoyed it, and appreciated the depth within the story, but I was left feeling rather underwhelmed due to the vague way the plot and the characters were written.
I recommend this to people who like whimsical prose and short stories, because the book does impress in that regard, But other than that, I wouldnt recommend this as a story thats definitely one people should pick up and read,
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This honest review was possible through Netgalley providing me with an ARC from the publisher Whilst providing a challenging structure, Nina Allan writes a wonder of a luminous novel littered with dollmakers throughout.
It is complex, magical, multilayered, and interspersed with the dark tales providing the reader with stories within the main story that fray and blur the edges of reality.
I came close to giving up at the beginning but was richly rewarded as my persistence began to pay off as I got caught up in the atmospheric, magical and deeply unsettling storytelling that whispers of obsession, of dollmakers and love.
Whilst set in modern times, it gives off whiffs of the Victorian era and strong elements of the gothic, Short in stature, Andrew Garvie is a dollmaker who finds himself engaged in a burgeoning relationship with Bramber Winters in a mental institution in Bodmin Moor, developed through the letters they exchange.
Like a contemporary knight in shining armour, Andrew embarks on a quest for Bramber, convinced by the strength of his inner feelings for her and what he has learned about her, irrespective of views contrary to his.
On his journey, he engages with the chilling and eerie fairytales written by the Polish writer, Ewa Chaplin, with their elements of horror, They strangely echo the unfulfilled and traumatic past and lives of Andrew and Bramber, This is a novel of being different from others, of identity, feeling comfortable in one's skin, of learning to live again, rising above the fractured and fragmented past experiences.
Nina Allan gives us twisted and challenging storytelling, not linear in its structure, embracing the bizarre and the odd with the magical, and weaving the threads in the book with true expertise.
I adored her stellar characterisation and the beautiful, lyrical and richly descriptive prose, This may not be a book for everyone, especially as it does not seek to provide all the answers, but it works exceptionally well for me, I found it both enthralling and enchanting, Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC, .