The Tip of my Tongue by Trezza Azzopardi

"When her mother is taken ill, little Enid has to go to stay with posh relations the Erbins in their mansion. Her father is struggling to cope, and Enid finds herself having to rely on her native wit and mother's advice to survive Uncle Horace, Aunty Celia and above all their teenage son Geraint. This Arthurian tale, from celtic myth cycle the Mabinogion, is retold by Booker shortlisted author Trezza Azzopardi."

In this reworking of the Mabinogion story "Geraint, son of Erbin", Trezza Azzopardi turns the tale around - Geraint is relegated to a supporting role and 'the maiden' Enid takes centre stage; their journey is no longer through the dangerous countryside of Medieval Wales with villains lurking behind every tree, instead Enid makes a journey of emotional discovery following her mother's illness, and her special 'skill' has changed from speaking out to listening in.
 Growing up in Splott, Cardiff, Enid is a seven year old girl who wants to become a spy. Told in the first person from Enid's point of view, the story captures a child's-eye view of the adult world, full of mysteries and miscomprehensions. She tries to make sense of the adult world and improve her 'spying' skills by listening in on conversations that the adults would rather keep from her, and which she then repeats without fully understanding. When her mother is taken ill, Enid is sent to live with rich relatives, the Erbins and their teenage son Geraint. Geraint has a whole set of rules and restrictions he expects her to follow - things she isn't to touch, lines of demarcation in his bedroom that she must not cross. Enid, true to her Mabinogion original, immediately disobeys him.

Despite not always being able to relate this back to the original story, I really enjoyed this. Azzopardi does an amazing job of seeing the world from a child's perspective and relaying it through a child's thoughts. It becomes a tale of coming to terms with grief and forging new relationships to replace the old. But it's not down-beat and gloomy - despite the underlying sadness, Enid's mix-ups and misunderstandings are often so very funny.

This is the last in Seren's series "New Tales from the Mabinogion" and although I haven't read all of them, links to those I have can be found here.

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, folk tales

Buy The Tip of My Tongue: (and Some Other Weapons as Well) (New Stories from/Mabinogion) from Amazon

Fountainville by Tishani Doshi

review by Maryom

 "Fountainville is a strange, lonely town on the edge of everywhere, with its own healing secrets, as revealed by Luna, assistant to Begum, the Lady of the Fountain, in this retelling of celtic Mabinogion myth by poet and novelist Tishani Doshi. Under their care the town flourishes, but when the mysterious Mr Knight arrives at their house of 24 women everything begins to change. Aided by Rafi, the giant of the woods and the all-action Leo, events begin to unravel fast for Luna and Begum."

Fountainville is part of Seren's series New Stories from the Mabinogion, in which a variety of authors re-tell the ancient folk-tales in new and surprising settings. In it, Tishani Doshi takes The Lady of the Fountain and transports it from Medieval Wales to modern day Asia, from a world of castles and knights to one of rent-a-womb pregnancies and drug lords.
I wasn't familiar with the original, which is one of those slightly rambling stories of knights fighting other knights for no apparent reason other than that's what they do, beautiful ladies living in castles waiting for the victor to claim them, strange exotic beasts roaming the countryside etc etc. Despite being called The Lady of the Fountain, the lady herself seems a rather peripheral figure and it feels that the focus of the story may have been lost over centuries of re-telling. As you would expect from a modern story, Fountainville has more form and structure to it - a proper beginning, middle and end. The emphasis of the story has changed too, moving from the knight Owain to the women - from passive figures decorating the background, they, and their health-giving fountain, now take centre stage. I felt a little that the connection to the old story was less strong than in some of Seren's series but this may be down to my only reading the original afterwards.

The author's afterword sheds light on the creative process that changed The Lady of the Fountain into Fountainville - the coincidence of catching a documentary on the surrogacy business, the development of the new story and it's changed emphasis. She also mentions two alternative paths the re-telling could have taken - a lion escaped from a circus or a war-time story about a French wish-giving well. I'd really love to read both!


Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, folk tales

Reviews for some of the other stories from this series, and an interview with one of the authors can be found elsewhere on the blog 
 

Buy Fountainville (New Stories from the Mabinogion) from Amazon

See How They Run by Lloyd Jones

 review by Maryom

 Llwyd McNamara is a  not-very-succesful academic, just given the chance of a lifetime  - access to the research and notes compiled by deceased rival Dermot Feeney on the life and career of Big M, Dylan Manawyddan Jones, a Welsh rugby star whose sporting career came to a dramatic and untimely end with the death of his brother Ben. After that Big M's life has been a chequered one - running a hotel on the wild coast of Wales, then a pub, setting up a shoe shop and various other enterprises, always moving on to somewhere new after falling foul of the locals. As he scrolls through, and then deletes, the information on Feeney's memory sticks, Llwyd begins to discover links between his life and Big M's.

Seren's series of New Tales from the Mabinogion aims to take the old Welsh folk tales of heroes and kings and re-imagine them in a modern setting, so who better to take the place of a god-like hero than a Welsh rugby star?

See How They Run is a re-telling of the Third Branch of the Mabinogion: Manawyddan son of Llyr, and is actually one of the tales with which I was at least vaguely familiar - I've even read a previous re-working in Not For All The Gold In Ireland by John James - so I could see where the plot was going, how and where it fitted around the old one. What I didn't grasp while reading was why the story was told at second or even third hand as Llwyd read the story through Feeney's notes. Having finished, I read the afterword which helped slot things into place - so maybe just this once I should have read that first.

Maryom's review - 3.5 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, folk tales

Buy See How They Run (New Stories from the Mabinogion) from Amazon

Bringing Down the Giants – Cynan Jones talks about taking on Peredur.

One of the things I love about book-blogging is discovering books and authors that may not have come to my attention through my local bookstore or library. Oddly, though, my attention was drawn to Seren Books' series of re-worked tales from the Mabinogion by a clothing website. The series is now drawing to a close with Cynan Jones, author of Everything I Found on the Beach , being asked to adapt the tale of Peredur to a modern setting. The result is Bird Blood Snow and we are lucky enough today to have Cynan explain how he went about it.

I was the last of ten authors to be invited to write one of Seren’s ‘New Stories from the Mabinogion’: I got Peredur. The tale everyone else had left.

When I read it I thought: Shit. I came away with one image – the bird and the blood in the snow; and a sense that the hero of the tale was a delinquent. There were reasons why every other writer had avoided the story.

However, such was the totality of my reaction, that I had no doubt how to approach it.

Writing Bird, Blood, Snow was a “bicycle kick”. There was the surety of what I wanted to achieve and the necessity to achieve it immediately.

So I stopped thinking and just went for it.

I brought in different voices, perspectives, techniques. Tried a sense of performance, of pantomime. Half-did things. Wrote incorrectly. Caused confusion. Added pictures. Mind maps. Crossings out. I threw it all in.

There was a thrill to working like this and a necessary pace. Like a bicycle kick, I figured if I missed the target, what the hell: it would be a worthy effort, and entertaining. If I hit the net, all the better. The only issue was if I missed completely and landed on my arse.

I wasn’t going to know until I handed in the manuscript. But Penny Thomas, the series editor, had been clear: I had a totally free creative remit.

Luckily, she liked it.

When were you awarded the commission to write the book?

I was awarded the commission at the start of 2012. The book was due for October ’13 and would have been the final book in the series. Then Seren asked whether we could bring things forward a year. That was March ’12. They needed the manuscript by June. I said yes.

If I’d had longer I might have taken a different approach. I might have looked at telling the story of Peredur’s mother and father, bringing it to the point where Peredur is taken from things – the point the original tale starts. It would have been more like my other work. More considered, scant, controlled.

Was there a lot of research involved in writing the book?

I usually research heavily. It’s part of the process of limbering up to write. Given the shift of deadline, research went out of the window this time. I think that fed into the book. I’m fully aware the psychiatric treatments I describe are outdated. The mishmash of voices is deliberate. I use the anachronisms with intent.

The key work, other than the writing, was consuming the various novels and other texts I wanted to bring into the story in order to create echoes.

I wanted readers to feel that they recognised the piece, to reflect the fact that the motifs, occasions, references in the original would have been understood by the audience. I added echoes of other books. Sometimes verbatim, other times parodied or hinted. I bent Welsh nursery rhymes into the story.

What were your chief aims when deciding on the approach you took to the book?

I wanted to repeat the sense I had from the original that it was written down – and therefore ‘solidified’ – before it was ready. That it hadn’t matured properly, (much like Peredur himself), before it was sent out into the world.

I wanted to bring in the fact the original was an oral tale and would have been performed. Performance would have brought emphasis and exaggeration and spontaneity to the otherwise dry language. I had to get that back in somehow.

I wanted there to be a degree of celebration. The original tale is violent and nasty, and I couldn’t shy out of that. But there had to be something of the romp to it! It had to be visceral and colourful and compelling, but it had to be fun.

In the end, though, a book can’t rely on party tricks. It has to work as a coherent whole.

I hope it does for you. 

It most certainly did for me! Many thanks for letting us in on the working process. 

Maryom's reviews of the Seren tales from the Mabinogion can be found here

More information on Seren’s ‘New Stories from the Mabinogion’ can be found here and if you are not familiar with the Mabinogion tales then brief information on the Mabinogion can be found here and more specifically the Peredur story here

Cynan Jones' website can be found at www.cynanjones.net and you can follow him on Twitter as @cynan1975

Bird, Blood, Snow by Cynan Jones

review by Maryom

The original Peredur tale recounts the adventures of a youth bent on recognition as a knight in King Arthur's court. In true questing fashion, he defends maidens, defeats giants, and eventually overcomes the witches who have cursed him. In Blood, Bird, Snow, Seren's tenth in it's New Stories from the Mabinogion series, award-winning author Cynan Jones turns the tale into a modern Quixotian romp.

Peredur has been taken by his mother to live away from the housing estates in the hope of raising him away from the culture of gangs and violence that predominates there. Of course nowhere can remain isolated for ever and the arrival of a couple of kids on fancy bikes, inspires the young Peredur to customise his own and try to join their gang. His desperate attempts to impress them lead him to violence and brutality, and, despite the attempts of foster families and social services to channel his strength into more acceptable channels, he looks on track for an unhappy, extremely violent end.

In case you haven't discovered the series yet, Seren's New Stories from the Mabinogion series takes these ancient Welsh legends and folk tales and re-interprets them in a modern, or even futuristic, setting. Bird, Blood, Snow is an imaginative re-telling of the tale of Peredur, son of Efrawg, told through a journalist's notes and interviews, copies of police and psychiatric reports and newspaper cuttings. The reader is aware from the beginning that something horrific has occurred and is being investigated by the police, though we only discover what at the very end.  Whereas the original tale had Peredur as a hero, Jones' re-telling has him as a troublesome teenage thug. The qualities that made the medieval Peredur an heroic legend - his belligerence, aptitude for fighting, his persistence in the face of opposition - are out of place today and only lead to him into trouble. It made me wonder how many of Arthur's famous knights would feel comfortable in the modern, humdrum world; maybe they're best left in legends.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, folk tales

The Dreams of Max and Ronnie by Niall Griffiths

Ancient Myth, Current Politics
review by Maryom

Another book from Seren Press' Mabinogion series - this time re-interpreting two stories - The Dream of Maxen Wledig and Rhonabwy's Dream, both now set firmly in our era.

The historical figure Magnus Maximus, Emperor of Britain in AD383, becomes Max, dealer in drugs and stolen goods, known to his gang as 'The Emperor', who holds court in his favourite nightclub, Rome, and has his finger firmly on the pulse of his city - till one night he dreams of a woman, a 'perfect' woman, living somewhere in the remote north of the country. From then on he cannot rest until she is found but will his quest cost him his 'kingdom'?

As Ronnie's dream the latter becomes a satire on the invasion of Iraq and the modern cult of hero worship. Ronnie is a squaddie about to be sent off to Iraq. Attempting to hide from what may await them, he and his mates set out on a drink- and drug- filled binge, ending up at Red Helen's filthy run-down home where Ronnie takes something that knocks him out for three days, during which he has the strangest dreams of tattooed men fighting and killing while their leaders play Killzone2 on a games console and deny responsibility for the carnage surrounding them. Violent and possibly shocking, this brings the ancient tale to life here and now.

I've loved all the Mabinogion re-workings that I've read, but think this may be the best.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction

The Meat Tree by Gwyneth Lewis

Welsh Myth - 23rd Century Style
review by Maryom

2210 - An old Earth-style space ship is discovered drifting in orbit round Mars and inspectors are sent to check it out. In an attempt to discover what happened to it they log in to its Virtual Reality Games programme - and find a medieval, gender bending, myth based tale in progress - but what has it to do with the ship's breakdown? and what has happened to the crew members?

When I read this was a Sci fi interpretation of the Blodeuwedd myth, I expected something very different to this. I read the Owl Service by Alan Garner when much younger and supposed this would be a similar re-telling but with a futuristic setting. The Meat Tree is a far more complex, multi-layered reworking. The old myth is plainly there in the VR game - helpful if you've never read it - but also echoed in the actions of the wreck inspectors as their identities shift and merge with the VR characters. The story is told through "thought recordings" of the two inspectors, immersing the reader totally in their world.
An unusual and intriguing story about identity, self-determination and survival.


Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction


Buy The Meat Tree (New Stories from the Mabinogion) from Amazon

White Ravens by Owen Sheers

Re-imagining Myth
review by Maryom

Owen Sheers brings a contemporary twist to the ancient Welsh tale of Branwen, daughter of Llyr with two different, but entwined, stories, one set in the present day, one during WW2.
Rhian and her two brothers live on a remote Welsh hill farm, the family's home for generations, but following an outbreak of foot and mouth the brothers decide to set up in a different line of business - one they feel is less effort and more lucrative.
Matthew O'Connell is sent on a secret wartime mission to bring 6 raven chicks from a remote Welsh farm to the Tower of London but is unwittingly bringing tragedy with him.

This book is part of a series from Seren Books - New Stories from the Mabinogion - though there's no need for any prior knowledge of Welsh myth to enjoy this story- it's gripping enough and perfectly capable of being read as a stand alone story.
I was drawn in by Sheers' storytelling skills, his ability to tell part of the tale from a woman's perspective, to give Rhian a voice and let her speak. White Ravens is very much a story set in the real, everyday world, not a magical, fantasy tale but, in the way of myth, the characters are drawn powerlessly along towards their inescapable fate. Although this is a story about men torn apart by violence and bloodshed, of men who release their torment and rage on the people and animals around them, it also offers the possibility of ending the vicious circle they find themselves caught in.


Warning - there is a certain level of violence against animals in this book that some readers may find distressing.

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - Adult Literary Fiction

Buy White Ravens (New Stories from the Mabinogion) from Amazon