It amuses me to see Labour get their own back on the Conservatives' reactionary sniping over the past couple of years. I dislike it when the opposition, whoever they are, sit there and pass judgement on the current government's decisions, since I'm pretty sure they'd do a similar or worse thing in the same position, but damn is it good to hear Labour gleefully pointing out the flaws in the Coalition Government's budget choices. And I'm not even a Labour supporter, but I feel the Lib Dems, now they've been given a chance to make a difference, have flailed and compromised until they have lost sight of their goals completely, overwhelmed by the Conservatives. It's sad to be proven right about both the party I support and the party I mistrust.
On to less inflammatory things. 'Dark Harvest' by Norman Partridge is a teen horror book with aspirations to the style of Ray Bradbury and Stephen King. In fact, its lyrical phrasing and rolling, elegant style is highly reminiscent of 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' by Bradbury. I found this novel in my local library, displayed face-out by some helpful librarian soul in the teen section. I'll admit, I'm dreadful for judging books by their covers, and this one is a corker. However, the novel itself entirely justifies it. 'Dark Harvest' tells the story of a little unnamed midwestern town with a sinister ritual: every year, an entity called the October Boy, a living pumpkin man, has sweets stuffed inside it and is given a knife. Its aim is to get to the church by midnight and the aim of every boy in town is to knock the stuffing out of the October Boy and feast on the sweets within, winning fame, money and a chance to get out of this sinkhole of a town.
The characters are a little generic and I must say I find it difficult to remember their names (hero is a teenage boy blah blah alcoholic father blah blah big dreams, small town) but they do fine for a story that is well-constructed and atmospheric, full of rustling cornfields and dark tarmac roads. The story is much less slow than 'Something Wicked...' (which I still haven't got through) but it defied my expectations. This is no slaughter-a-minute teen slasher movie in book form (unlike the film of the same name, which is unconnected as far as I can tell) but a dark meditation on small-town life (as seen in 'American Gothic', 'Something Wicked...', 'Stepford Wives' and most of Stephen King's canon) with really interesting overtones of ancient ritual. I can't talk about my interpretation because it would be a massive spoiler but there's more going on than meets the eye in this simple set-up.
Overall, it's not unlike a lot of other things in this vein, but 'Dark Harvest' is a highly enjoyable read and well-worth having a look at.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment