The Tale of Raw Head & Bloody Bones

 

THE TALE OF RAW HEAD & BLOODY BONES by JACK WOLF

A REVIEW

"What I did know, know for certain, was that I had wanted to cause Pain to Lady B. - I had wanted to heal her, too; but I had wanted to hear her Scream... We were Monsters, both of us; or perhaps fallen Angels"

What you need to know first about this book is not the synopsis or the ins-and-outs. No, you need to know that it took me two pots of Earl Grey to endure those ins-and-outs, and that only after a very bubbleful, relaxing, not-quite-scalding hot bath did I finally complete it. This book is horrific and bloody and terrifying. It is also addictive, beautiful and utterly unlike anything I've read before. 

The reason I first picked up this book was due to it's magnificent front cover. A sinister phantom astride his horse, the echo of a white owl sweeping between the forest's crooked fingers, the flashes of red coiling like blood in water: it fit the folktale-esq title whilst promising a story, both haunting and horrific. Like the desires affecting Tristan Hart, the novel's young protagonist, The Tale of Raw Head & Bloody Bones was impossible to ignore.

Reading it was challenging. It's written in the first person but it's all in the style of the eighteenth century. Wolf, on being asked why he chose to do this, said that it was this decision to mimic the archaic, idiosyncratic grammar and style of Enlightenment writers that unleashed the character of Tristan Hart. However, it did mean that navigating the first few pages was a little like trying to read Shakespeare or Milton when you're out of practice. Initially, this threw me - I wasn't expecting it - but once you've conquered those first pages this use of language emphasises the story. It's easy to forget that Wolf is the author rather than Hart himself.

This is only exacerbated by the way the novel patterns fact and fiction. On one hand, we have Tristan, unreliable in the extreme, the epitome of a 'character' as his story is one of self-creation. He compiles his own narrative story, his social facard, by dwelling in a myriad of fictions. Beginning with his bucolic childhood full of faerie stories, fantasy eventually encompasses his narrative and blurs the distinction between reality and dreams. The uncanny cleverness of this disjunction between what is real to Tristan and what is true for other characters, is further emphasised by the way his life intertwines with the preeminent Enlightenment surgeon: Dr William Fielding. Fielding, a real doctor whose real history and clients populate Tristan's world, creates a startling counterpoint to the novel's psychological content. Without realising questions arise: how can anything be real or unreal, true or untrue? The novel demands that the darkest points of human nature are assessed: where sanity and insanity collide, whether pain and pleasure are exclusive, or how morality and sin intertwine.

For me, this created a yin-yang effect. Polarised are superstition and science, the worlds before and after the Enlightenment, the factual and the fictional, madness and genius. 

Throughout, I was struck by how similar his condition was to Jekyll and Hyde, whilst remaining startled and strained by the realisation of how different they were. His predilections conjured up fiendish spectres such as Jack the Ripper or le Sade, but also evoked memories of our own doctors, own families and friends. What goes on in the heads of those around us? How easily are we deceived? How simple is it to convince ourselves of false truths? 

Thus, an an idyllic moment in the Book Festival became strange. Uncanny. Unreal. As the Charlotte Square gardens filled with a rare shard of blue sky sunshine and the square hummed with visiting voices and rustled as the wind whispers down the tents... it was lovely. And set back from this sat the Writer's Retreat, a quiet space resting beneath colourful Chinese lanterns and flush green trees. And inside, Jack Wolf discussed his novel: how its unique, unsettling tale is both brutal and beautiful. I shivered and I listened. 

Admittedly, I didn't enjoy every moment. There were times when I couldn't keep reading it, had to put it down and pause, make sure my stomach was settled before I continued. Because even those moments of intense revulsion were quashed by curiousity and morbid fascination. Similarly, moments of the novel bewildered me - the whys and hows didn't always persuade me to believe in Hart's journey. But somehow, even that didn't deter me - perhaps because I enjoyed the literary aspects of an unreliable narrator musing on deeply philosophical conundrums. 

It is a book that both grips and reviles you. Worth a read - if you have a strong constitution. 

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
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