Robert EdricRezensionen

You can't be familiar with the brooding moorlands near Howarth and not feel as though you understand something of the Bronte family and their lives. Most of us think we know something about them: the mother and sisters who died, the sisters who remained hewing their path towards immortality in slow, painful steps. And then there's the brother, Bramwell, the black sheep, fighting his failures, his addictions, his inability to find a way to make something of his life. He is the subject, in fact the 'author' of this book. He paints a sorry picture of his stumbling path, in the final year of his young life, towards illness, addiction and death. I found the picture he painted of himself - hopelessly depressed, fault-finding, increasingly estranged from his family, increasingly self-deluded a fascinating one. In this book, Bramwell does not dig deep in his moments of introspection, but then you wouldn't expect him to. He doesn't favour us with pen portraits of his father, his sisters. Just tantalising glimpses of what they're like. But nobody is more self-centred, less self-aware than Bramwell Bronte. Edric has carefully constructed this book in a series of vignettes that barely constitute a narrative, but which leave us feeling bewildered sympathy for an intelligent young man who has utterly lost his way. A beautifully imagined reconstruction of a life ill-lived.

Shortly after WW2, poet/ composer Ivor Gurney is in a Dartford mental hospital. His life is set against that of his fellow inmate (a conscientous objector- scorned by the bullying orderly) and their doctor- himself scarrred by the War. As the doctor - son of a bee keeper- embarks on a project to esurrect some old hives - and as Gurney's patroness tries to organize a concert to showcase her protege, the story moves to its conclusion..

5 stars for part 1, 4 stars for part 2 and 3 stars for the rest. The language is lovely and the idea and the place it is set in. However the tone was too unvaried and the end was too predictable. A bit like life perhaps, but luckily for me - not quite like my life.

Gutless book.

This is not a fast paced novel by any stretch of the imagination. However it is one filled with rich characters and strong sense of place. Together these components made for an evocative and moving story of both war and the pain of making the peace that stayed with me after completing the book.

Plot in a Nutshell
The story opens in 1920 and follows Lieutenant Alexander Lucas, Captain James Reid and their men who have the unenviable task of locating and identifying British war dead and the transfer and burial of those dead in what will become one of many War Grave sites. The story is driven by a number of events. The arrival of 2 women at Morlancourt – one a young woman seeking her fiancé’s grave and the second an older experienced nurse looking to oversee the internment of 24 nurses killed during the war. Against this backdrop we also see Reid and Lucas struggle with being asked to overlook what appears to be the identification of a war crime site and them come to terms with the burial of a young soldier executed for cowardice. The culmination of the story is a ceremony put together for dignitaries and journalists which offers a sharp comparison with the reality of the work being undertaken

Thoughts
I have been to France and also Belgium to visit a number of the war graves and memorials (French, UK and Commonwealth as well as German) scattered across the landscape and on each visit have found myself very moved. I had never however given a great deal of thought to how they were created and the effort involved. Nor had it occurred to me that like Reid, Lucas and Drake much of this effort would have been undertaken by soldiers not demobbed at the end of the War and as such living in a sort of limbo continuing in France. Edric captures this sense of limbo incredibly well – perhaps because the novel is not fast paced or full of complex plot and story lines but rather focuses predominantly on the ordinary routine of the men with only small every day interruptions.
Both Reid and Lucas are well drawn and realistic characters. Both have fought during the War before their current postings although it is clear both have been impacted in very different ways. I however particularly enjoyed the interactions between both men and a cast of secondary characters. I found many of Reid and Beniot scenes, the French station master – struggling to come to terms with the death of his son and the changes to his village, particularly moving.
There is something a little stereotypical in the characterisation of Wheeler, Reid and Lucas’ commanding officer who is shown to be disconnected with the work his men are undertaking heavily political and bureaucratic. Guthrie an army chaplain who appears midway through the story is also cut from the same cloth although both men are used to great effect to create and underline a sense that for our main characters the War is yet to really end.
Anything but stereotypical is the inclusion of Caroline Mortimer the nursing sister who enters the story awaiting the arrival of the bodies of a number of female nursing casualties. I did not see Caroline as a love interest at all but rather another clever and well researched way to highlight the impact of the War across society where women are not only impacted by their losses at home but also through their more active involvement in theatres of war.

Well-written story of odd behaviour in a late 19th C. British trading concession in the Belgian Congo. I can only give it 3 stars because of the precipitate, and so unsatisfactory, ending.

Given the praise his long backlist has received I am surprised that I had not come across Robert Edric before. Although I have only rated this as 3 stars, I will certainly look out for him in the future. This is set in occupied Germany just after WW2 and deals with some of the issues between the occupies and the occupied. I liked his writing style, but found it hard to get involved with the main character.

'You're the parson's son...that suffering man'

While books about the Brontes normally only show their brother Branwell as a background figure, Edric makes him the narrator and hence principal character. Set in the year 1848, the last year of Branwell's life, we follow him on drunken nights out with his friends - like him, largely 'failures' in their artistic lives; we see him dragged ever further down in his own and his sisters' estimation, as bailiffs come knocking for the debts he's racked up, and we see his recollections: of the illegitimate child he fathered, of the married woman he loved, and who rejected him, and of his utter lack of success in his work, from painting and poetry (especially set against the sisters' growing fame) to even being ignominiously sacked from the railways. In his lack of religious belief, he has even failed his godly - but loving - father.
His (indeed, all the children's) 'sanctuary' is the Haworth Parsonage, and Edric imagines the family dynamics: Charlotte's increasing anger and acerbity in her dealings with her brother as she settles his bills; Emily's love; his father's prayers and cherishing.
He sets this against the contemporary events: building work, religious dissent, the ever-extending railways...
I really enjoyed this unusual take on a family and a story that were already well known to me. I became more sympathetic to a character who tends to be presented as a 'dead loss', as I read the account from his own point of view.½

1897. In an isolated station in the Belgian Congo, an Englishman is to be tried for the murder of a native child. Imprisoned in a makeshift jail, Nicholas Frere awaits the arrival of the Company's official investigator while his friend, James Frasier, attempts to discover the circumstances which surround the charge.

The world around them is rapidly changing: the horrors of the Belgian Congo are becoming known and the flow of its once-fabulous wealth is drying up. Unrest flares unstoppably into violence.

Frere's coming trial will seek to determine considerably more than the killing of a child. But at the heart of this conflict is a secret so dark, so unimaginable, that one man must be willingly destroyed by his possession of it, and the other must both sanction and participate in that destruction.

In a narrative of ever-quickening and growing intensity, The Book of the Heathen explores notions of honor, friendship, justice and reason in a world where men have been forced by circumstance to descend into an abyss of savagery and terror. The Book of the Heathen is a stunning novel that truly evokes a Conradian heart of darkness.

A hauntingly bleak tale sparsely told portrays English imperialism at its worst. A nightmare world filled with casual cruelties,dark secrets and horrifying truths. Compelling and ultimately unforgettable

“Guard your good name. My own given names imprison me with their history, and are serpent and lamb to me. Some would say my very nature is born of them – I am betrayed by my instincts and damned by them.”
-Patrick Branwell Bronte

“You are a fortunate man and your home is a fortress and a sanctuary…”

Sanctuary by Robert Edric is a fictional account of Patrick Branwell Bronte’s last months. Set in Haworth, West Yorkshire in 1848, the Year of Revolutions, the Industrial Revolution is in full swing but the seeming promise it made of wealth and prosperity for all is less than an illusion for most. This is a period of change as the old ways are being swept away by the new wave of technology and ‘progress’. His father, the Reverend Patrick Bronte, ministers to the miners who live lives marked mainly by constant illness and early deaths. The Rectory, itself is situated near the moors and next to a graveyard. Bronte has been trying to get the graveyard expanded to accommodate the rising number of deaths but without success.

Yet, these miners seem much more content than Branwell who has pretty much failed at everything he has tried: poet, artist, tutor, railroad station clerk. He has returned home to lick his wounds. His home could be the sanctuary he seeks but he refuses to see it. He divides his time in drunken meetings with his friends and dodging his creditors. His father prays for him and his sisters preach at him.
Charlotte, once his greatest friend and admirer, is now his greatest critic. She pays off some of his debts which only increases the resentment on both sides. Reverend Bronte is loved and respected by his parishioners and the sisters are eliciting fascination from his friends and the media but Branwell sees it all as an indictment of himself. Instead of seeing how good his life is compared to many of his father’s parishioners or his friends, he only sees his own failures.

Yet, it is clear that his family loves him and wants only the best for him. They even try to keep the sisters’ success from him, going off on mysterious trips to London. When he sets his bed on fire, his father starts to sleep with him: Branwell sees this as a way to punish and imprison him while the rest of the family see it as an attempt to protect him from himself. When others offer a life-line to him, he sees a rod and hook. Despite the fact that both Anne and Emily are sick and his father is becoming frail, Branwell continues to demand constant attention and the limited resources from the family.

As I read Sanctuary, I kept thinking I should hate this book. Branwell is the narrator and it is a litany of self-pity and self-recriminations. The story tends to consist of short episodes, meetings with various friends in different public houses, attempts to avoid creditors and his father’s prayers, and moments of nostalgia, remembering their childhood when, as the only boy, he was the main object of his sisters’ affections. The sisters often seem like shrews, constantly berating him over his failures when he thinks they should be more understanding. He is annoying, selfish, and completely self-centred. He blames everyone for his failure including, in his more rational moments, himself but is unwilling or unable to change. And yet, somehow, Edric made me care just a little for him and want to know him just a little bit better. Edric is also a master at capturing the feel of the particular time and place and he brings to the pages a real sense of the world that produced the literary genius of the Bronte sisters. It is well-written, often lyrical, and insightful. Based on real events, it is a fascinating look at a man who, despite his early promise and the constant love of his brilliant family, became the author of his own failures.

This was a boring read, which is as much upsetting as it is disappointing.

5 stars for part 1, 4 stars for part 2 and 3 stars for the rest. The language is lovely and the idea and the place it is set in. However the tone was too unvaried and the end was too predictable. A bit like life perhaps, but luckily for me - not quite like my life.

Synopsis

It is surely a simple case of hysteria. Four young women allegedly witness a terrifying apparition while walking in the woods. Has the devil really revealed himself to them? Are they genuine victims of demonic possession? Or, as most suspect, is their purpose in claiming all of this considerably more prosaic? The eyes of the country turn to a small Nottinghamshire town, where an inquiry is to be held. Everyone there is living through hard, uncertain times. The king is recently dead. It is a new century -- a new world looking to the future. But here, in the ancient heart of England, an old beast stirs.

Going by the blurb you think you are going to get a nasty, shivery little tale about pastoral superstition - however all is not as it seems and that is not all together a bad thing.

You expect a read full of supernatural shenanigans when what you get is people being devilishly mean to each other and not much else. But the quality of the writing, the frighteningly good characterisation and the underlying tension of this sad story more than make up for any lost expectations of a satanic romp. It is quite extraordinary that a story about a non story where not much happens can be quiet so compelling.

Edric is an author who makes his reader work hard and you have to really think what is going on beneath the surface in this dreamlike, claustrophobic village and of course there is no nice, easy ending. As someone said on Amazon it is like watching episode 1 of a series...and then it is cancelled.

An extraordinary novel -- Picnic at Hanging Rock meets Howard's End meet The Crucible.

It is the year 1691 and to an isolated village comes a man representing the Church Commissioners. Years earlier a woman has been burned as a witch and her house with her. As this house stood on Church land,the situation is finally to be investigated. Both the magistrate and the preacher were closely involved with the witch trial at the time and the investigator attempts to question both of them and also the villagers. However his questions come up against a wall of silence and hostility. As the investigator (termed misleadingly in the book an Inquisitor) pursues his quest for the truth,he becomes obsessed with the secrets he is uncovering.

Five young girls from a small Nottinghamshire town claim to have seen a terrifying apparition in a clearing in the local woods: was it a demon, a devil, or even the Devil himself? Merrit (we never get to know his first name) is sent by his superiors to head the inquiry, along with three prominent locals: the magistrate, the reverend and the doctor (so as to represent the State, the law, the church and medicine/science), to determine if this is simply a case of hysteria, the result of a genuine supernatural event, or something altogether more prosaic.

Set in 1910, the novel heavily relies on its time setting to convey its atmosphere: a new century, the king recently dead, new technologies and advances in science are invading every community; in short, old certainties are crumbling, people feel unsettled as they're encouraged to behave and see things differently, yet can't help but hang on to the old ways of thinking. Anyone familiar with courtroom dramas will know that there's not much action and that the suspense is created by the interplay of its characters; this novel is a case in point. The characterisation and sense of atmosphere is excellent, and the tension arises from the psychological power play between the main protagonists and the conflicts within the inquiry panel itself. We are only told of events as facts, i.e. they have already happened and form part of Merrit's investigation, or we learn of them third hand. Only towards the end of the book do we and Merrit get involved more directly. There's never any doubt that the girls' claim was anything but a supernatural sighting, and even though Merrit tries to keep an open mind, the reader will stay firmly rooted in reason and try to find other, hidden motivations for their allegation. Maybe this could have been written with more room for ambiguity, but that's a minor quibble. The truth is revealed at the end, and I believe it is the more terrifying for it because it follows a certain twisted sense of logic. The reason I have only given it four stars is that, in my opinion, it gets bogged down with dialogue a little bit too much, dialogue that doesn't reveal anything and doesn't serve any real purpose. Maybe others will feel differently.

(This revview was originally written as part of Amazon's Vine programme.)

I can't quite make up my mind about this book. It's an interesting premise, Charles Webster is a photographer attached the Lyceum Theatre, photographing costumes for Henry Irving's company. His home life is difficult, his relationship with his wife - a medium - is fragile and their interactions are a delicate dance of domesticity. Outwardly respectable, Webster has a side line, loaning some of the company's costumes to Marlow, who uses them in hardcore pornography. When one of Marlow's associates is accused of murdering a young prostitute, his life starts to unravel. This is an interesting and very readable book, but, I keep feeling that Edric just missed something, which could've made this a great book.

This was great! I'm really pleased it's the first part of a trilogy and I get to read the second two installments in the series. I just hope they are as high quality as this.

It's a PI novel, set in the internet age, in Hull, an industrial city in the north of England with nothing much to recommend it. Leo Rivers gets involved in the case of Nicola Bishop, a fourteen year old, who went missing five years ago at the behest of her father. The man who confessed to her murder was convicted of another murder but nothing was ever proved about Nicola's death.

The book is both well written and well plotted. I don't want to give away too much about how the story falls into place other than to say that everything is set up just right. This is well worth a read.

This is a fictionalized account of Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 arctic exploration in search of the Northwest Passage. It was engrossing from beginning to end. The writing is sparse, beautiful and poetic. The characters are extremely well-developed. The ice itself becomes a character, malevolent and unforgiving:

"Erebus was filled with the sound of creaking and scraping where the ice continued to assault her, probing and fingering as it came, searching out her weaknesses as meticulously and as relentlessly as it had sought out and then exploited those of the Terror." (Erebus and Terror were the names of the two vessels on the expedition).

One of the complaints I've read about this novel is that it is not entirely factually correct. (The example given was that the men did not die in the order presented in this novel). I'm not an arctic exploration scholar, but if you are, I hope that you will not let some factual errors deter you from reading this book, particularly given the fact that much of what is known about the exploration is speculation anyway. This is a novel well worth reading. Beyond being beautifully written, it has inspired me to seek out other literature on the subject.

A gripping story of environmental collapse, government gone crazy, and waste disposal coming back to haunt us. Even though it is written as a thriller, the events take place far away from the centre of things, and the characters at the centre have no real control over the events that are taking place. It reminded me of Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil', in that decisions are made arbitrarily by a powerful elite, who care little for a powerless population. Our hero has an inkling of this, but although he has some kind of authority does not posess any power. It's also set in the near future, but don't let that put you off if SF isn't your thing. No aliens or elves, I promise.

Like Edric's Peacetime, this novel examines the complex moralities and human relations of a hurting post-war world. Here, the world is 1946 Germany, within the British zone of occupation, where everyone has lost something and everyone is trying to make use of others for their own ends.

Our main character is Alex Foster, a British army interrogator working at "the Institute", processing arrested Germans to see whether they need to be sent to trial.

Unlike some of his colleagues, he does not get his answers by brutalising the prisoners; he also tries to treat his German colleagues with humanity, which gets him into trouble with his boss, Dyer, a man who firmly believes that they are there to do what they have to do and nothing else - the people in the local displaced persons camp, for example, are nothing to do with them.

That said, 'what they have to do' includes staying on the right side of the US, and so Alex ends up re-interrogating a prisoner, Walther, on the basis of a very slender file. Walther is suspected of being involved in an incident where a large group of US POWs were summarily executed. He claims that he was in hospital at the time, but points out, "if I'd been present ... then perhaps I might have participated in what happened. Yes, I don't deny that. Sometimes, and as I'm sure countless others have already made clear to you, Captain Foster, choice in these matters is an unattainable luxury."

This is a masterly, although uncomfortable, tale of complicity and compromise. It's easy to detect analogies with more recent wars, but that's never heavy-handed, and it really is more about the aftermath of war in general - not just the lives lost or shattered, but the utter mistrust between the survivors.

er is water, er is krankzinnigheid, er is de dood van een geliefde, en het zal wel de bedoeling geweest zijn van de schrijver om het beeld van het onderlopen van de vallei & de dam met zijn sluizen te laten samenvloeien met de 'krankzinnige' geest van Martha - hoe ook daar alles is ondergelopen, hoe ook daar alle begrijpen op een dam botst, en ook die plotse dood van de verloofde, een leven en toekomstbeeld onherroepelijk gewist en glad en leeg als een wateroppervlak. De macht van de bedrijven, het geldbejag, het water, de schaamte, de aftakeling van geest en lichaam ...

Een voorbijganger mompelt wel eens iets, er schudt iemand met een vuist of dreigt met het gooien van een steen. Maar we zijn slechts mensen, we laten dat over ons komen wat over ons komt, maken een gebaar dat we vervolgens toch maar laten ... de steen, het plannen maken, ... hebben daarmee tenminste gedaan alsof. Als een schaap dat nog even blaat en met de poten stampt voor het met een voorhamer de schedel wordt ingeslagen.

Het boek is goed genoeg geschreven, alleen ontbreekt het aan omvang, aan durf, aan krachtvoer. Het verleden dat wordt weggewist blijft te veel verleden in het hoofd van de schrijver/verteller. De lezer merkt het gemis niet eens op.
De sprongen in de tijd zijn groot. De werkzaamheden van de ingenieur (te) vaag. Graag had ik in dit boek, tussen de dagboeknotities door ook de technische verslagen gelezen. Zijn maandenlange eenzaamheid laat amper sporen na. Zijn humor is enerzijds niet cynisch genoeg (gezien zijn voorafgaand verlies zou hij uit het verdrinken van een vallei een groter genoegen moeten of kunnen scheppen), anderzijds te weinig zalvend om hem niet door de overblijvende dorpelingen te laten lynchen.

Het zijn de beelden, niet het beeldende, die het boek redden. Zoals het ook de cover, en niet de schrijver was, die me het boek deed lezen.

http://occamsrazorlibrary.blogspot.com/2009/09/gathering-water.html½

Gathering the Water is the story of Charles Weightman, who has been given the unenviable task of supervising the flooding of the Forge Valley . The board has built a dam, which requires that the bulk of the valley be flooded in the name of progress. The consequence of this is that most of the valley's inhabitants will lose their homes. Needless to say, they resent Charles, and do not seek to make him welcome. Charles is aptly named, for he bears not only the weight of the town's hardship, but also the heavy heart of a man whose beloved fiancée has passed away. His only pleasure lies in the company of Mary Latimer, a widow who has returned to her hometown to take care of her mentally challenged sister. Charles struggles to complete his task as he increasingly identifies with the townspeople.



Robert Edric is a good writer and a competent storyteller, however it is difficult to sustain enthusiasm for this novel. Perhaps it is a matter of taste, but the TurboBookSnob thought this novel was a bit of a snooze.

It's 1897, and the Europeans are in Africa exploiting the people and the country's resources. Most of the action takes place in the station of an unnamed British Company (simply known as "The Company), at a quarry. As the story opens, one of the Englishmen, a Nicholas Frere, has been seized and awaits the Company's official investigator who must look into Frere's alleged killing of a child. The circumstances surrounding the event are at best vague, but Frere will talk to no one, especially his friend James Frasier, about what really happened. Frere had been prone to going off on small excursions alone, to observe and detail life in Africa, and it was during one of these outings that the incident occurred. Frasier is convinced that Frere is innocent and that he is being used as a scapegoat so that the rest of the world can believe that there is actually some sort of justice on behalf of the native populations. This was the time of very vocal, anti-imperialist crusaders such as Roger Casement, who had worked in the Belgian Congo and had witnessed first hand the horrific abuse of the indigenous populations. (If you want a good look at this time period, do NOT miss King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochshild, which goes into great detail.

As the cover blurb states, this book "explores notions of honor, friendship, justice and reason in a world where men have been forced by circumstance to descend into an abyss of savagery and terror." I couldn't have said it any better...so far away from civilization, the book really looks at the darkness that creeps into men's souls...and perhaps the irony of the novel is that the one viewed to be the darkest may have been the best of them all in a situation where human life is dealt with as cheap and expendable all in the name of profit.

I think if I had known about this book when I had my college students read Conrad's Heart of Darkness, I may have used this book instead. It is an amazing story, and one you won't soon forget after having read it. I am looking forward to now reading some of Edric's other works.

Who would like this? Anyone who has an interested in this time period and in imperialism at its worst, or anyone who wants something different than the usual stuff in the bookstore shelves. I VERY highly recommend this book.½

A book about drowning - literally and metaphorically.
1847 and Charles is given the job of overseeing the flooding of a valley in Yorkshire and the eviction of its remaining inhabitants.
Charles himself has taken the appointment to put off grieving for his dead fiancee and immerses himself in his work instead. It soon becomes clear to him that the company's motives in appointing him are to deflect the locals from realising the scale of the consequences of the project. He finds a kindred spirit in one of this neighbours, but she is also drowning in guilt over her mad sister. There is little so finite as sinking or swimming for Charles who is torn every which way as the flooding gathers apace.
A fine novel with a strong undercurrent about man's destruction of the environment. Highly recommended indeed.½