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The Limits Of Enchantment
An extraordinary story of a young woman coming of age, a novel of superstition and midwifery set in the dark heart of the English Midlands in the 1960s. Taught the art of midwifery at an early age, Fern grows up as assistant to her adoptive mother, Mammy an unlicensed midwife with a shadow in her past . From Mammy she learns that secrets are precious, men can't be trusted, hippies are filthy and people should generally mind their own business. When one of Mammy's patients allegedly dies from a potion prescribed to induce an abortion, the towns' people rally against her outdated methods and Mammy ends up hospitalized due to a fall and a broken heart. Alone and vulnerable, Fern is threatened with eviction if she can't find the overdue rent. Her only friends seem to be a bunch of hippies and a young woman with hoop earrings who has a mysterious connection to Mammy. As Fern struggles to save her home and Mammy's good name, everything around her begins to transform and she uncovers secrets from the past which may help her in the present. This is a story of the strength and courage of women, midwifery, superstition, magic, truth and identity.
‘Some wonderful social comedy as well as a sense of potential betrayal. He is a writer fascinated by his factual material, and by characters who would not be the same without it’ The Independent
‘Intricate, involving … Joyce has produced a wonderful portrait of England. This remarkable novel should scoop Joyce out of the dusty corners of bookshops and introduce his work to a much wider readership’ The Guardian
‘As solid, balanced, and finely tuned as anything Joyce has written, and that is tantamount to saying it’s about as finely tuned as any recent fiction we have’ Locus
'Enjoy this captivating tale in one sitting.' The Historical Novel Society
'Thick with ominous mystery but never sacrificing its characters’ integrity in deference to atmosphere or plot.' Kirkus
'Fern is one of his best realized characters to date. This novel's old-fashioned sense of values and heartwarming depiction of customs of home and community are sure to charm fans and new readers alike.' Publishers Weekly
‘Joyce weaves a vibrant, skilful portrait of both worlds, peopled with fascinating characters so convincing you’d believe he’d lived through it. The book is gripping, and the writing from this one-man genre astonishingly accomplished. It will live with you long after you grudgingly turn that final page. Graham Joyce is a magnificent writer. A national treasure’ Dreamwatch
‘Joyce unfolds a beguiling story of witchcraft with the kind of confidence and skill that comes from depth of experience. A very fine, very subtle novel’ SFX
‘Some wonderful social comedy as well as a sense of potential betrayal. He is a writer fascinated by his factual material, and by characters who would not be the same without it’ The Independent
‘Intricate, involving … Joyce has produced a wonderful portrait of England. This remarkable novel should scoop Joyce out of the dusty corners of bookshops and introduce his work to a much wider readership’ The Guardian
‘As solid, balanced, and finely tuned as anything Joyce has written, and that is tantamount to saying it’s about as finely tuned as any recent fiction we have’ Locus
'Enjoy this captivating tale in one sitting.' The Historical Novel Society
'Thick with ominous mystery but never sacrificing its characters’ integrity in deference to atmosphere or plot.' Kirkus
'Fern is one of his best realized characters to date. This novel's old-fashioned sense of values and heartwarming depiction of customs of home and community are sure to charm fans and new readers alike.' Publishers Weekly
‘Joyce weaves a vibrant, skilful portrait of both worlds, peopled with fascinating characters so convincing you’d believe he’d lived through it. The book is gripping, and the writing from this one-man genre astonishingly accomplished. It will live with you long after you grudgingly turn that final page. Graham Joyce is a magnificent writer. A national treasure’ Dreamwatch
‘Joyce unfolds a beguiling story of witchcraft with the kind of confidence and skill that comes from depth of experience. A very fine, very subtle novel’ SFX
273 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2005
31 people are currently reading
1977 people want to read
About the author
Graham Joyce
73 books568 followersGraham Joyce (22 October 1954 – 9 September 2014) was an English writer of speculative fiction and the recipient of numerous awards for both his novels and short stories.
After receiving a B.Ed. from Bishop Lonsdale College in 1977 and a M.A. from the University of Leicester in 1980. Joyce worked as a youth officer for the National Association of Youth Clubs until 1988. He subsequently quit his position and moved to the Greek islands of Lesbos and Crete to write his first novel, Dreamside. After selling Dreamside to Pan Books in 1991, Joyce moved back to England to pursue a career as a full-time writer.
Graham Joyce resided in Leicester with his wife, Suzanne Johnsen, and their two children, Joseph and Ella. He taught Creative Writing to graduate students at Nottingham Trent University from 1996 until his death, and was made a Reader in Creative Writing.
Joyce died on 9 September 2014. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 2013.
After receiving a B.Ed. from Bishop Lonsdale College in 1977 and a M.A. from the University of Leicester in 1980. Joyce worked as a youth officer for the National Association of Youth Clubs until 1988. He subsequently quit his position and moved to the Greek islands of Lesbos and Crete to write his first novel, Dreamside. After selling Dreamside to Pan Books in 1991, Joyce moved back to England to pursue a career as a full-time writer.
Graham Joyce resided in Leicester with his wife, Suzanne Johnsen, and their two children, Joseph and Ella. He taught Creative Writing to graduate students at Nottingham Trent University from 1996 until his death, and was made a Reader in Creative Writing.
Joyce died on 9 September 2014. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 2013.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 137 reviews
January 13, 2016
"It was then that I thought: Judith I could slap your face for a whole day and not stop even for lunch."
I absolutely loved this book.
A story that takes place in the 60's but has an old-world feel. After reading this story I have to say that Fern ranks right up there with Scout Finch as one of my favorite female characters. Her life will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and it will make you want to look out at the stars...even if it is only to wonder about the satellites orbiting the planet carrying dead monkeys.
I give you my word. You will love this book!
I absolutely loved this book.
A story that takes place in the 60's but has an old-world feel. After reading this story I have to say that Fern ranks right up there with Scout Finch as one of my favorite female characters. Her life will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and it will make you want to look out at the stars...even if it is only to wonder about the satellites orbiting the planet carrying dead monkeys.
I give you my word. You will love this book!
January 23, 2025
[9/10]
Turn over a stone anywhere and myth and story exude from the ground.
Graham Joyce found inspiration, like so many other British writers of fantasy, from his nature walks and from the local legends of his native island. This story started with a hare, instructor of Freya, spirit of fertility and much commercially abused mascot of Easter. But the hare of legend that inspired Joyce is only a distant relative of the Easter Bunny from our modern greeting cards, it is a creature with blood on its claws and danger in its eyes.
The hare was a big one. It gazed at me with large eyes, yellow and lunar. Its grizzled, reddish brown fur had a sheen, a lustre. The creature was immobile, but its massive hind legs were compressed: hard-packed muscle waiting to spring. Long black-tipped ears stood erect, listening.
Fern meets what could be her totem animal on one of her own evening walks.
She is an unusual young girl even for the eyes of a small village near Hallaton in Leicestershire, around 1960 or so. She’s an orphan and lives in an isolated cottage outside the village, homeschooled by Mammy Cullen and trained to follow in the old lady’s footsteps as the local hedge witch and midwife.
Mammy is both feared by the neighbours and in demand for her herbal remedies and for her decades in assisting births. The local bigwigs [landowner, mayor, priest, etc] in particular are scared of rumours that Mammy Cullen knows all the dirty secrets of the village from the girls that come to her for help.
Although I wasn’t afraid and I had the capacity to work hard, Mammy had stood like a door of oak and iron between me and the outside world.
Only the leaves of the field turning make a calendar, a leafy almanac telling us the true time of the year. We charted their constellation in the hedgerow; and they told us where to walk.
Fern is torn between the schooling she receives from Mammy, and the contacts she has with modern life and with the scientific way of thinking. A sudden crisis with one of the young women that came to Mammy for an abortion turns ugly and puts the old lady in hospital. Fern is left alone to deal with the major questions about what she wants to do with her life and about how she really feels about the supernatural part of Mammy’s teachings. In the absence of her guardian, some of those powerful people who were afraid of Mammy are now putting pressure to evict Fern from her home.
This moment is called the Asking in witches parlance, the moment of truth where you find out what stuff you are made of. The answer that Fern seeks from the ancestral hare could destroy her for lack of faith, in magic or in herself.
You could gaze at a thing, like a stream of water or a mite crawling in a split in a gate and it would carry off your soul and you were left, hollow, empty, not even present. And Mammy would say it’s not just Asking that does this: it’s life, and you can also get stuck and go to sleep in a corner of your life and then wake up seven or seventy years later and it was all gone.
>>><<<>>><<<
Setting the novel in 1960 allows the reader to more easily accept the cohabitation of old traditions and modern perks of village life. There is a strong side story about a group of free loving hippies moving to an abandoned property near Fern’s cottage, where they exercise both a fascination for their embrace of freedom and their weird music, but also a rejection for being clueless about country living and for their loose, irresponsible morals. Fern is understandably wary about turning to these sleazy gypsies for help.
The issue of abortions was also more stringent in that decade of love, and it has sadly become again a matter of life and death in this year 2024.
It was a woman’s right to choose, she said. I agreed with that sure enough. It always has been, and it always will be.
A hedge witch and a midwife like Mammy Cullen would of course be the first person a woman in trouble will go to. The way she shows Fern how to deal with these women is a lesson in tolerance, pragmatism and common sense that we could all learn from.
Mammy Cullen is not the only strong woman character in the novel. Fern might feel like she has been abandoned by everybody else and is about to be thrown out of the village she loves, but she has near her Judith, another young witch and a teacher who is about to be sacked for visiting the hippie farm, and Greta, one of the loose women at the farm that might have her own secret [and useful] history and a need to do her own Asking about where she wants her life to go.
And of course, there is that woman that she has seen in the television bulletins and that Fern dreams about when she gazes up at the star-filled sky:
It helped me to think of Valentina, my cosmonaut heroine, all alone in her shiny satellite.
Fern might be an orphan fighting the powerful men of her village for her home and for her right to choose in life, but she has plenty of role models to guide her through the crisis:
Blood may be thicker than water, but I know that kindness is thicker than blood.
Easter is coming to Hallaton village and its environs, and some traditions that are older than the church are planned to celebrate the arrival of spring and of hope for a renewal of life. Fern might just find her own place in the festivities, baking her totem animal into a huge pie while she listens on the radio to Green Onions by Booker T. and the M. G.’s.
>>><<<>>><<<
Graham Joyce holds a special place on my shelves that has little to do with themes or genre or skill. He has something that I call, for lack of a better word, as ‘voice’ – something that speaks directly and personally to my own life experience and to my own sensibility, creating a sort of resonance, of intimacy and of confidence in what he has to say.
I choose these favorite authors not for any intrinsic literary value, although the numerous prizes Joyce earned speak for themselves, but for this voice that feels like meeting an old friend any time I picked a book by him or by Neville Shute or Richard Russo and precious few others.
Sadly, the list of his still unread books is limited, but my own enchantment is enduring.
Turn over a stone anywhere and myth and story exude from the ground.
Graham Joyce found inspiration, like so many other British writers of fantasy, from his nature walks and from the local legends of his native island. This story started with a hare, instructor of Freya, spirit of fertility and much commercially abused mascot of Easter. But the hare of legend that inspired Joyce is only a distant relative of the Easter Bunny from our modern greeting cards, it is a creature with blood on its claws and danger in its eyes.
The hare was a big one. It gazed at me with large eyes, yellow and lunar. Its grizzled, reddish brown fur had a sheen, a lustre. The creature was immobile, but its massive hind legs were compressed: hard-packed muscle waiting to spring. Long black-tipped ears stood erect, listening.
Fern meets what could be her totem animal on one of her own evening walks.
She is an unusual young girl even for the eyes of a small village near Hallaton in Leicestershire, around 1960 or so. She’s an orphan and lives in an isolated cottage outside the village, homeschooled by Mammy Cullen and trained to follow in the old lady’s footsteps as the local hedge witch and midwife.
Mammy is both feared by the neighbours and in demand for her herbal remedies and for her decades in assisting births. The local bigwigs [landowner, mayor, priest, etc] in particular are scared of rumours that Mammy Cullen knows all the dirty secrets of the village from the girls that come to her for help.
Although I wasn’t afraid and I had the capacity to work hard, Mammy had stood like a door of oak and iron between me and the outside world.
Only the leaves of the field turning make a calendar, a leafy almanac telling us the true time of the year. We charted their constellation in the hedgerow; and they told us where to walk.
Fern is torn between the schooling she receives from Mammy, and the contacts she has with modern life and with the scientific way of thinking. A sudden crisis with one of the young women that came to Mammy for an abortion turns ugly and puts the old lady in hospital. Fern is left alone to deal with the major questions about what she wants to do with her life and about how she really feels about the supernatural part of Mammy’s teachings. In the absence of her guardian, some of those powerful people who were afraid of Mammy are now putting pressure to evict Fern from her home.
This moment is called the Asking in witches parlance, the moment of truth where you find out what stuff you are made of. The answer that Fern seeks from the ancestral hare could destroy her for lack of faith, in magic or in herself.
You could gaze at a thing, like a stream of water or a mite crawling in a split in a gate and it would carry off your soul and you were left, hollow, empty, not even present. And Mammy would say it’s not just Asking that does this: it’s life, and you can also get stuck and go to sleep in a corner of your life and then wake up seven or seventy years later and it was all gone.
>>><<<>>><<<
Setting the novel in 1960 allows the reader to more easily accept the cohabitation of old traditions and modern perks of village life. There is a strong side story about a group of free loving hippies moving to an abandoned property near Fern’s cottage, where they exercise both a fascination for their embrace of freedom and their weird music, but also a rejection for being clueless about country living and for their loose, irresponsible morals. Fern is understandably wary about turning to these sleazy gypsies for help.
The issue of abortions was also more stringent in that decade of love, and it has sadly become again a matter of life and death in this year 2024.
It was a woman’s right to choose, she said. I agreed with that sure enough. It always has been, and it always will be.
A hedge witch and a midwife like Mammy Cullen would of course be the first person a woman in trouble will go to. The way she shows Fern how to deal with these women is a lesson in tolerance, pragmatism and common sense that we could all learn from.
Mammy Cullen is not the only strong woman character in the novel. Fern might feel like she has been abandoned by everybody else and is about to be thrown out of the village she loves, but she has near her Judith, another young witch and a teacher who is about to be sacked for visiting the hippie farm, and Greta, one of the loose women at the farm that might have her own secret [and useful] history and a need to do her own Asking about where she wants her life to go.
And of course, there is that woman that she has seen in the television bulletins and that Fern dreams about when she gazes up at the star-filled sky:
It helped me to think of Valentina, my cosmonaut heroine, all alone in her shiny satellite.
Fern might be an orphan fighting the powerful men of her village for her home and for her right to choose in life, but she has plenty of role models to guide her through the crisis:
Blood may be thicker than water, but I know that kindness is thicker than blood.
Easter is coming to Hallaton village and its environs, and some traditions that are older than the church are planned to celebrate the arrival of spring and of hope for a renewal of life. Fern might just find her own place in the festivities, baking her totem animal into a huge pie while she listens on the radio to Green Onions by Booker T. and the M. G.’s.
>>><<<>>><<<
Graham Joyce holds a special place on my shelves that has little to do with themes or genre or skill. He has something that I call, for lack of a better word, as ‘voice’ – something that speaks directly and personally to my own life experience and to my own sensibility, creating a sort of resonance, of intimacy and of confidence in what he has to say.
I choose these favorite authors not for any intrinsic literary value, although the numerous prizes Joyce earned speak for themselves, but for this voice that feels like meeting an old friend any time I picked a book by him or by Neville Shute or Richard Russo and precious few others.
Sadly, the list of his still unread books is limited, but my own enchantment is enduring.
February 23, 2015
Do you have an author that you see has written a book and you simply pick the book up having no idea what it may be about? Well Mr. Joyce is the one for me. After reading a few of his books, well I simply went on a book buying spree and purchased all that I could easily get my hands on. This being one. Seriously I had know idea what I was getting myself into.
Once again I was taken away by the book fairies and sucked into another world. I love his sentences. All of them. "I think to love someone you have to first have a conversation through the nose". It may sound mundane to you, but you should read the entire paragraph.
And yet again I sat and finished this book in one sitting. I just could not stop. Fern's story was magical, sad, and happy all at once. And let us not forget Mammy. I miss her. He writes great women. I would love to be their friends.
You can read the blurb about the book if you want. It is a profound story and I feel resonates today. Meaning, I can relate. I think most will find they can relate. Enjoy!!
Once again I was taken away by the book fairies and sucked into another world. I love his sentences. All of them. "I think to love someone you have to first have a conversation through the nose". It may sound mundane to you, but you should read the entire paragraph.
And yet again I sat and finished this book in one sitting. I just could not stop. Fern's story was magical, sad, and happy all at once. And let us not forget Mammy. I miss her. He writes great women. I would love to be their friends.
You can read the blurb about the book if you want. It is a profound story and I feel resonates today. Meaning, I can relate. I think most will find they can relate. Enjoy!!
October 30, 2021
Oct 29, 1045am ~~ Review asap.
9pm ~~ I have been reading Graham Joyce for my October Literary Birthday challenge, and I thought that I had read all of the titles I had when I finished Requiem. Then just a few days ago I was rummaging around in the bookcase where I keep the books I haven't read yet, and out popped this book, so of course I decided to add it to my October titles. (Moral of the story is that it is always a good idea to look over your bookshelves every once in a while, especially the ones that are two volumes deep. You never know what forgotten treasures might be there! lol)
The year is 1966. Fern Cullen lives with the woman who raised her, Mammy Cullen the local midwife who clings to the herbal lore she has used for years. But times are changing: there are Soviet women in space and the National Health service is working hard to keep traditional healers such as Mammy from continuing their work. What will Fern do with all the knowledge Mammy has been teaching her? She knows almost as much as Mammy, even though she does not believe in quite everything that Mammy does.
But this is not her biggest dilemma. A young lady who came to Mammy for help has died. Was her death caused by Mammy's herbs or by something else, something much more sinister? Fern must try to deal with the aftermath of this incident. Many people in the village have turned against them, and after Mammy is assaulted in town one day she must go into hospital, leaving Fern to deal with the collapse of her world the best way she can.
Does Fern have enough belief in Mammy and her traditions to do what she has to do? Which way will she turn for help? Is there even anywhere to turn? Anyone to Ask?
I liked Fern and Mammy very much, and was completely caught up in their lives. I loved how Fern discovered and embraced her true Self. A very satisfying end to my marathon of Graham Joyce titles!
9pm ~~ I have been reading Graham Joyce for my October Literary Birthday challenge, and I thought that I had read all of the titles I had when I finished Requiem. Then just a few days ago I was rummaging around in the bookcase where I keep the books I haven't read yet, and out popped this book, so of course I decided to add it to my October titles. (Moral of the story is that it is always a good idea to look over your bookshelves every once in a while, especially the ones that are two volumes deep. You never know what forgotten treasures might be there! lol)
The year is 1966. Fern Cullen lives with the woman who raised her, Mammy Cullen the local midwife who clings to the herbal lore she has used for years. But times are changing: there are Soviet women in space and the National Health service is working hard to keep traditional healers such as Mammy from continuing their work. What will Fern do with all the knowledge Mammy has been teaching her? She knows almost as much as Mammy, even though she does not believe in quite everything that Mammy does.
But this is not her biggest dilemma. A young lady who came to Mammy for help has died. Was her death caused by Mammy's herbs or by something else, something much more sinister? Fern must try to deal with the aftermath of this incident. Many people in the village have turned against them, and after Mammy is assaulted in town one day she must go into hospital, leaving Fern to deal with the collapse of her world the best way she can.
Does Fern have enough belief in Mammy and her traditions to do what she has to do? Which way will she turn for help? Is there even anywhere to turn? Anyone to Ask?
I liked Fern and Mammy very much, and was completely caught up in their lives. I loved how Fern discovered and embraced her true Self. A very satisfying end to my marathon of Graham Joyce titles!
January 17, 2012
I recently read Joyce's 'The Silent Land' and said, "Why haven't I read any of this author's work before?" I still don't know! I picked this up next - and it's even better than 'The Silent Land.'
Set in the 1960's, in rural England, it deftly draws the strange line of culture clash between old-fashioned ways of life and the incursion of the modern world.
The protagonist is a young woman, apprentice to a traditional midwife. Her learning has been herb-lore and beliefs called superstition, and although she has her loyal customers, business is hurting now that pre-natal care is provided by the National Health Service.
The traditional midwife also provides abortions, though...
And when a young woman dies, tensions in the village come to a head...
Things aren't helped by the commune of free-love hippies who've taken over the adjoining farm, and are also regarded with deep suspicion by most of the villages.
What unfolds is a tale that, yes, is on the edge of fantasy, containing magic and the unexplained, but is first and foremost a tale of people, beliefs, and ways of life.
I absolutely loved it.
Set in the 1960's, in rural England, it deftly draws the strange line of culture clash between old-fashioned ways of life and the incursion of the modern world.
The protagonist is a young woman, apprentice to a traditional midwife. Her learning has been herb-lore and beliefs called superstition, and although she has her loyal customers, business is hurting now that pre-natal care is provided by the National Health Service.
The traditional midwife also provides abortions, though...
And when a young woman dies, tensions in the village come to a head...
Things aren't helped by the commune of free-love hippies who've taken over the adjoining farm, and are also regarded with deep suspicion by most of the villages.
What unfolds is a tale that, yes, is on the edge of fantasy, containing magic and the unexplained, but is first and foremost a tale of people, beliefs, and ways of life.
I absolutely loved it.
May 8, 2020
4.5 stars
This is a wonderful book, and the kind of story that makes a mockery of genre classifications. My copy, and ex-library book, is marked Fantasy, and I see Joyce is a fantasy writer, but I feel that calling this fantasy keeps it away from the people who would enjoy it most, and thrusts it on people who might not. And it’s considerably less fantastical than, say, A Christmas Carol, or Orlando.
Fern is sixteen years old in 1967 and lives with Mammy, a wise-woman, unlicensed midwife, herbalist and abortion purveyor in a cottage in the midlands. A young woman dies in a botched abortion, and their way of life is abruptly threatened, specifically but also more generally, as the National Health Service rolls out and midwives are required to have nursing degrees to practice, as old gives way to new even in the English countryside, as astronauts go to the moon. Mammy has a health scare, and Fern is left alone to navigate her growth into adulthood and, perhaps, into something more.
What is special is in the actual writing. The voice of an outsider girl is flawless. I have a friend who thinks men shouldn’t write women and vice versa. Obviously this barely deserves a response, but if I were to respond, I’d offer up this book. I admit to googling the author after a hundred pages to make sure he was actually a man. There’s wonderful engagement with the rhythms of local speech, both sixties era and with a peppering of older words such as survive in villages long after they’ve disappeared from standard language.
It wasn’t perfect. I spotted a few continuity errors, and I still don’t understand how Mammy was born in 1890 but lost a son in the First World War (this is not a spoiler). But this author is a wonderful find. It depressed me a little to think this has flown so completely under the radar. Sometimes there’s no book so invisible as a book that’s fifteen years old.
Books this reminded me of: All Among The Barley; Little, Big
This is a wonderful book, and the kind of story that makes a mockery of genre classifications. My copy, and ex-library book, is marked Fantasy, and I see Joyce is a fantasy writer, but I feel that calling this fantasy keeps it away from the people who would enjoy it most, and thrusts it on people who might not. And it’s considerably less fantastical than, say, A Christmas Carol, or Orlando.
Fern is sixteen years old in 1967 and lives with Mammy, a wise-woman, unlicensed midwife, herbalist and abortion purveyor in a cottage in the midlands. A young woman dies in a botched abortion, and their way of life is abruptly threatened, specifically but also more generally, as the National Health Service rolls out and midwives are required to have nursing degrees to practice, as old gives way to new even in the English countryside, as astronauts go to the moon. Mammy has a health scare, and Fern is left alone to navigate her growth into adulthood and, perhaps, into something more.
What is special is in the actual writing. The voice of an outsider girl is flawless. I have a friend who thinks men shouldn’t write women and vice versa. Obviously this barely deserves a response, but if I were to respond, I’d offer up this book. I admit to googling the author after a hundred pages to make sure he was actually a man. There’s wonderful engagement with the rhythms of local speech, both sixties era and with a peppering of older words such as survive in villages long after they’ve disappeared from standard language.
It wasn’t perfect. I spotted a few continuity errors, and I still don’t understand how Mammy was born in 1890 but lost a son in the First World War (this is not a spoiler). But this author is a wonderful find. It depressed me a little to think this has flown so completely under the radar. Sometimes there’s no book so invisible as a book that’s fifteen years old.
Books this reminded me of: All Among The Barley; Little, Big
December 19, 2009
For me this is an outstanding book. By that I mean, one of the best that I have read.
Why?
Firstly, I am not conscious of Graham Joyce's voice. It would be interesting to know how many women would agree ... perhaps I just do not notice.
Secondly, a major part of the story refers to deep intuition, and the lore that gets people burnt at the stake. (Is it true that 900 000 women were executed in Europe for being witches? Supposedly this was really a struggle for power between the Church/ government/ academic guilds/ professional and academic 'closed shops' that discovered the power of claiming the nonsense code 'scientifically proven' in attacking their competitors.)
Of course, folk knowledge is not true, any more than is scientific knowledge.
Culture is not 'good' any more than is shit, but it has its uses.
And this novel contains a wealth of reference that sophisticated non-europeans might follow through, revealing something of the richness of light and dark in our cluster of northern European cultures.
Why?
Firstly, I am not conscious of Graham Joyce's voice. It would be interesting to know how many women would agree ... perhaps I just do not notice.
Secondly, a major part of the story refers to deep intuition, and the lore that gets people burnt at the stake. (Is it true that 900 000 women were executed in Europe for being witches? Supposedly this was really a struggle for power between the Church/ government/ academic guilds/ professional and academic 'closed shops' that discovered the power of claiming the nonsense code 'scientifically proven' in attacking their competitors.)
Of course, folk knowledge is not true, any more than is scientific knowledge.
Culture is not 'good' any more than is shit, but it has its uses.
And this novel contains a wealth of reference that sophisticated non-europeans might follow through, revealing something of the richness of light and dark in our cluster of northern European cultures.
June 13, 2008
This is SO not a genre novel...it's slow, subtle, elliptical, and although it's about witches there's no Harry Potter type magic.
But I found it stunning, quite enchanting in all senses of the world, and superbly well written. How come this didn't win the Booker Prize? It's that good in my view. Graham Joyce is a frequent winner of fantasy awards, a good egg, and a writer of poetry in prose form of rare distinction. Compelling.
But I found it stunning, quite enchanting in all senses of the world, and superbly well written. How come this didn't win the Booker Prize? It's that good in my view. Graham Joyce is a frequent winner of fantasy awards, a good egg, and a writer of poetry in prose form of rare distinction. Compelling.
May 2, 2013
I am continuing my Graham Joyce-a-thon. This did not disappoint. I was drawn in a little slower than previous books, but he got me again, yes he did.
The story of old wise woman, Mammy, and her adopted daughter, Fern. It's the mid-1960's and they live by the "old" ways, and practice the old arts. Fern not only has to learn what Mammy is teaching, she has to deal with new technologies, and new world laws, while she comes into womanhood, and has to fight off the men who would like to have her.
This is a story of women's secret knowledge, and how the men in power have always and will always be afraid of it, and want to control it. It's also the story of good decent people, who pass no judgment on others, and glory in the joy of life itself.
As always Joyce creates robust characters that are palpable, and whom you wish you never had to leave.
The story of old wise woman, Mammy, and her adopted daughter, Fern. It's the mid-1960's and they live by the "old" ways, and practice the old arts. Fern not only has to learn what Mammy is teaching, she has to deal with new technologies, and new world laws, while she comes into womanhood, and has to fight off the men who would like to have her.
This is a story of women's secret knowledge, and how the men in power have always and will always be afraid of it, and want to control it. It's also the story of good decent people, who pass no judgment on others, and glory in the joy of life itself.
As always Joyce creates robust characters that are palpable, and whom you wish you never had to leave.
June 25, 2015
There's nothing quite like a Graham Joyce novel. Is it a modern fairy tale? Is it fantasy? Magical realism? Or is it just the right words put down in just the right way to tell the most amazing story, and to hell with classifying it?
Let's go with that last one.
In this 1960's set tale, young Fern is at loose ends when her adopted mother, Mammy, ends up in hospital. The year's rent on their crumbling cottage is due, and Mammy's midwifery practice is under fire since she doesn't have a license and a young woman she may have "helped" to not have a baby has just died. Fern, as her apprentice, is even more in trouble. She's not just unlicensed, she's unsure of herself as well, since Mammy never wrote down any of her wisdom or just plain didn't share some of it, thinking there would be more time. Those loyal to Mammy and Fern still come to her for delivering babies, or baking wedding cakes that get a couple started in life, but can Fern do as good a job as Mammy? And those who are against them are coming out in full force, causing Fern to doubt not just her worthiness, but her sanity as well.
I would put this up with THE FACTS OF LIFE, in the favorites of the favorites of Graham's books. I'm both sorry I waited so long to read this, and sorry that now I have one less book of Graham's to discover. (He passed away last year.) But now it's your turn to discover it! Go on! Read it!
Let's go with that last one.
In this 1960's set tale, young Fern is at loose ends when her adopted mother, Mammy, ends up in hospital. The year's rent on their crumbling cottage is due, and Mammy's midwifery practice is under fire since she doesn't have a license and a young woman she may have "helped" to not have a baby has just died. Fern, as her apprentice, is even more in trouble. She's not just unlicensed, she's unsure of herself as well, since Mammy never wrote down any of her wisdom or just plain didn't share some of it, thinking there would be more time. Those loyal to Mammy and Fern still come to her for delivering babies, or baking wedding cakes that get a couple started in life, but can Fern do as good a job as Mammy? And those who are against them are coming out in full force, causing Fern to doubt not just her worthiness, but her sanity as well.
I would put this up with THE FACTS OF LIFE, in the favorites of the favorites of Graham's books. I'm both sorry I waited so long to read this, and sorry that now I have one less book of Graham's to discover. (He passed away last year.) But now it's your turn to discover it! Go on! Read it!
July 13, 2017
Thank you Graham Joyce. I kissed this book when I finished it, and held it to my heart. I've enjoyed every book that I've read by this author. I've even closed several of them thinking, "this one was my favorite". But The Limits of Enchantment took me exactly where I was looking to go right now. It hit me in all the right places. It piqued my curiosity, it flowed from my learning of the past year, it entertained me, it made me fall in love with the characters, it made me hate characters, and it took me through a range of emotions that gave me fullness. The story of Fern and Mammy takes us into every small community, every clique, every organization, that has its mixture of people and attitudes and love and desperation. In the end, goodness wins. In an era when we've come to think of modern progression as what's best, this book is a flavor of how old-fashioned approaches and common sense make more sense, even if in ways we don't understand.
May 10, 2016
I've quite liked everything I've read by Graham Joyce so far. This book is no exception.
This is the story of Mammy and Fern, midwives in England in the 1960's. There may be magic, but it's not obvious, and it may not exist at all. There IS tradition, even though the modern era is pressing sorely against the old ways. Fern ends up on her own fairly early in the book, and has some rough waters to navigate. What happens and how she navigates the rapids is the story of the book.
I was reminded a lot of some of Terry Pratchett's work here. "I Shall Wear Midnight" also has hares and hare-lore. Mammy might pass for version of Granny Weatherwax.
Joyce's writing style and subjects suit me very well. I can't wait to read more. And I think this book would be good to re-read sometimes too.
This is the story of Mammy and Fern, midwives in England in the 1960's. There may be magic, but it's not obvious, and it may not exist at all. There IS tradition, even though the modern era is pressing sorely against the old ways. Fern ends up on her own fairly early in the book, and has some rough waters to navigate. What happens and how she navigates the rapids is the story of the book.
I was reminded a lot of some of Terry Pratchett's work here. "I Shall Wear Midnight" also has hares and hare-lore. Mammy might pass for version of Granny Weatherwax.
Joyce's writing style and subjects suit me very well. I can't wait to read more. And I think this book would be good to re-read sometimes too.
August 15, 2022
Isolated Fern has been taught the old ways from her Mammy: midwifery; the values of secrets; to mistrust the new world and the ways of men.
Although she lives in a rustic hovel, Fern is in danger of being evicted. She struggles to clear Mammy's name, which has been tarnished.
Magic abounds in this story of the modern world at odds with a rich past. As always, Joyce blends literature and gentle fantasy to write another exquisite tale.
Although she lives in a rustic hovel, Fern is in danger of being evicted. She struggles to clear Mammy's name, which has been tarnished.
Magic abounds in this story of the modern world at odds with a rich past. As always, Joyce blends literature and gentle fantasy to write another exquisite tale.
August 20, 2020
25th October 2010
Not quite as I expected it to be, this book is not a horror story as classified but a story of a girl struggling to grow up in the sixties. She is the adopted daughter of the local 'wise woman' and her life is split down the middle by the old folklore beliefs of the mother and the new modern ideas of the sixties. There is a suggestion of witchcraft but I think it is more a case of if you believe in 'the old ways' then you will believe in that influence on your life. There are rich hippies playing at being free spirits for a while. Betrayal by people who have in the past relied on the ministrations of Fern's Mammy, and eventually the resurfacing of local loyalty because ultimately Fern is one of their own. Set in rural Leicestershire, very true to life in the area.
Not quite as I expected it to be, this book is not a horror story as classified but a story of a girl struggling to grow up in the sixties. She is the adopted daughter of the local 'wise woman' and her life is split down the middle by the old folklore beliefs of the mother and the new modern ideas of the sixties. There is a suggestion of witchcraft but I think it is more a case of if you believe in 'the old ways' then you will believe in that influence on your life. There are rich hippies playing at being free spirits for a while. Betrayal by people who have in the past relied on the ministrations of Fern's Mammy, and eventually the resurfacing of local loyalty because ultimately Fern is one of their own. Set in rural Leicestershire, very true to life in the area.
August 16, 2014
This book is very well titled, for that is exactly what it is about and how it is delivered. Joyce did not disappoint. There are many kinds of enchantment and the limits are our own.
His main character is 'coming of age', along with the society in which she lives, and the pace matches the subject matter in every way. If you can straddle the world of possibilities with the one that requires attending to everyday life, this book will be among your favourites. It is elegant, simple, and immensely complex all at the same time.
If you need a genre specific story line neatly tied up with all your questions answered, you may want to pass. This book is well outside genre fiction.
His main character is 'coming of age', along with the society in which she lives, and the pace matches the subject matter in every way. If you can straddle the world of possibilities with the one that requires attending to everyday life, this book will be among your favourites. It is elegant, simple, and immensely complex all at the same time.
If you need a genre specific story line neatly tied up with all your questions answered, you may want to pass. This book is well outside genre fiction.
August 2, 2016
Не лучший, но очень приятный роман Грэма Джойса про акушерок и минуточки волшебства (а также про то, что в Центральной Англии широко распространен БЛУД).
December 12, 2024
Книга из давних моих хотелок на прочтение. Всё как-то сомневался, стоит оно того или нет, какие-то очень разные отзывы на роман попадались.
Тематика книги довольно занятная - про старые традиции и обряды на фоне нового, изменяющегося мира. Начало 60-х прошлого века, глубинка срединной части Англии. Знахарка, которую именуют не иначе как Мамочка, принимает роды у рожающих, даёт травки для абортов, лечит просто разные недуги опять же народные средствами. Помогает ей девушка Осока, которую Мамочка удочерила давным-давно. Именно Осока - главная героиня романа. Так уж получается, что Мамочка, которой уже за 70, неудачно падает на рынке, ломает кость, ложиться в больницу и... И все трудности быта знахарки ложатся на плечи Осоки. Её особо никто ничему не учил, но должен же кто-то подменить Мамочку.
С одной стороны, вроде бы и современная медицина уже доступна всем, заговоры/приговоры тоже как бы под огромным вопросом, но люди всё равно по старинке идут к знахарке. Так удобнее, так привычнее, так всегда было. Вот почему и книга называется "Там, где кончается волшебство".
Меня книга в первую очередь привлекла тем, что она поднимает тему всяких шептух, к которым в раннем детстве меня самого водили родители, когда меня напугали до такой степени, что я постоянно заикался. Вроде как и к доктору нужно идти, а не к бабкам, а вот всё же. И воском капали, и хлебом по животу водили. Так надёжнее. Но я не могу сказать, что книга именно про это. Осока ещё очень молодая, и е самой решать, продолжать ли дело Мамочки, или всё-таки начинать жить в новом мире, где по космосу уже летают спутники с собаками. Рядом поселились хиппи, выращивающие растения семейства коноплёвых. Иногда заходит друг-байкер. Есть подруга-учительница. Есть люди, которые принадлежат права на дом, в котором живёт Осока. Девушка очень быстро сталкивается с проблемами, о которых она раньше и не догадывалась. Именно эти проблемы начинают точить идеальную жизнь молодой девушки. И Мамочка тут ей никак не поможет - всё сама. Находи общий язык с соседями, решай проблему с жильём, навещай Мамочку, ведь ей тоже нужна забота, пеки свадебный торт на заказ...
Эмоции роман вызвал разные. Где-то страниц 100 сразу мне очень нравились. Сцена с приглашением в гости молодого человека и разглядывание Осокой семенной жидкости в руке - вот прям вообще как будто из другой книги. Рейтинг 18+ тут совсем не зря стоит. Сложно сказать, почему автор решил написать об этом именно так. Как будто в общей гармонии кто-то из музыкантов резко сбивается и играет на тон ниже, и тебе сложно уже слушать эту музыку. Я не пуританин ни в коем случае, просто роман напичкан выбивающимися из общего строя сценами. И да, слишком много везения. Всё плохое само растворяется, хороших людей больше, чем плохих. Магический реализм есть, конечно, но может быть не в том количестве, которое ожидали увидеть те, кто жаловался в отзывах на обман.
А волшебство так и продолжает заканчиваться, но никак не закончится.
Любопытный роман, странноватый, лёгкий, добрый, местами грустный. 7/10.
Тематика книги довольно занятная - про старые традиции и обряды на фоне нового, изменяющегося мира. Начало 60-х прошлого века, глубинка срединной части Англии. Знахарка, которую именуют не иначе как Мамочка, принимает роды у рожающих, даёт травки для абортов, лечит просто разные недуги опять же народные средствами. Помогает ей девушка Осока, которую Мамочка удочерила давным-давно. Именно Осока - главная героиня романа. Так уж получается, что Мамочка, которой уже за 70, неудачно падает на рынке, ломает кость, ложиться в больницу и... И все трудности быта знахарки ложатся на плечи Осоки. Её особо никто ничему не учил, но должен же кто-то подменить Мамочку.
С одной стороны, вроде бы и современная медицина уже доступна всем, заговоры/приговоры тоже как бы под огромным вопросом, но люди всё равно по старинке идут к знахарке. Так удобнее, так привычнее, так всегда было. Вот почему и книга называется "Там, где кончается волшебство".
Меня книга в первую очередь привлекла тем, что она поднимает тему всяких шептух, к которым в раннем детстве меня самого водили родители, когда меня напугали до такой степени, что я постоянно заикался. Вроде как и к доктору нужно идти, а не к бабкам, а вот всё же. И воском капали, и хлебом по животу водили. Так надёжнее. Но я не могу сказать, что книга именно про это. Осока ещё очень молодая, и е самой решать, продолжать ли дело Мамочки, или всё-таки начинать жить в новом мире, где по космосу уже летают спутники с собаками. Рядом поселились хиппи, выращивающие растения семейства коноплёвых. Иногда заходит друг-байкер. Есть подруга-учительница. Есть люди, которые принадлежат права на дом, в котором живёт Осока. Девушка очень быстро сталкивается с проблемами, о которых она раньше и не догадывалась. Именно эти проблемы начинают точить идеальную жизнь молодой девушки. И Мамочка тут ей никак не поможет - всё сама. Находи общий язык с соседями, решай проблему с жильём, навещай Мамочку, ведь ей тоже нужна забота, пеки свадебный торт на заказ...
Эмоции роман вызвал разные. Где-то страниц 100 сразу мне очень нравились. Сцена с приглашением в гости молодого человека и разглядывание Осокой семенной жидкости в руке - вот прям вообще как будто из другой книги. Рейтинг 18+ тут совсем не зря стоит. Сложно сказать, почему автор решил написать об этом именно так. Как будто в общей гармонии кто-то из музыкантов резко сбивается и играет на тон ниже, и тебе сложно уже слушать эту музыку. Я не пуританин ни в коем случае, просто роман напичкан выбивающимися из общего строя сценами. И да, слишком много везения. Всё плохое само растворяется, хороших людей больше, чем плохих. Магический реализм есть, конечно, но может быть не в том количестве, которое ожидали увидеть те, кто жаловался в отзывах на обман.
А волшебство так и продолжает заканчиваться, но никак не закончится.
Любопытный роман, странноватый, лёгкий, добрый, местами грустный. 7/10.
July 26, 2017
So.....this was just good for me....not great. I still love Joyce's writing style and I loved the magical realism. I never really got attached to the characters though. Half the time I couldn't figure Fern out. I found the "asking" very confusing and I still don't think I understand it. The giant hare? That part felt more weird than magical for me.
Still a favorite author and I plan to read all of his books.
Still a favorite author and I plan to read all of his books.
September 23, 2014
Yet another stunning read from the incomparable Graham Joyce, The Limits of Enchantment is a coming of age story about Fern, a young untrained "midwife"/witch (I hesitate to use the latter term, but it feels appropriate enough, as there are mystical elements in abundance present here) who is forced to grow up quickly when her adoptive mother and teacher, "Mammy," passes away slowly and horribly after being led to believe that she was involved in the death of a girl she assisted with an abortion. Fern doesn't want to allow Mammy to go to the hospital, but it comes to a point where there's little to no choice for her, and it all goes downhill from there.
It's very much a sink or swim situation for Fern: she is mostly entirely on her own, despite the advent of a new friend who holds her hand through difficulties and teaches her more about herself and her circumstances and gifts. Mammy did her best to keep Fern sheltered, for better or worse, in an attempt to protect her from the world, and Fern's circumstances and actions are a direct consequence of that. Her naivete exists because she knows no better about the duplicity of people and the inner workings of her own heart. She feels that the world is against her, and in a sense she's right, but she finds allies in the most unlikely of places, faces up to her demons and gets in over her head a few times, and does Mammy proud. Fern is a fully explored and likable protagonist, and I rooted for her every step of the way.
I continue to be astounded by Joyce's uncanny ability to understand and articulate the inner workings of the female psyche. If I hadn't read Joyce before and I didn't know that this book was written by a man, I would be quite surprised to discover it. This story is more than anything about secrets and knowledge and the power and sharing of knowledge, of the endurance of love and spirit, and like any of Joyce's best yarns, at the end of it it feels like it's over all too quickly.
It's very much a sink or swim situation for Fern: she is mostly entirely on her own, despite the advent of a new friend who holds her hand through difficulties and teaches her more about herself and her circumstances and gifts. Mammy did her best to keep Fern sheltered, for better or worse, in an attempt to protect her from the world, and Fern's circumstances and actions are a direct consequence of that. Her naivete exists because she knows no better about the duplicity of people and the inner workings of her own heart. She feels that the world is against her, and in a sense she's right, but she finds allies in the most unlikely of places, faces up to her demons and gets in over her head a few times, and does Mammy proud. Fern is a fully explored and likable protagonist, and I rooted for her every step of the way.
I continue to be astounded by Joyce's uncanny ability to understand and articulate the inner workings of the female psyche. If I hadn't read Joyce before and I didn't know that this book was written by a man, I would be quite surprised to discover it. This story is more than anything about secrets and knowledge and the power and sharing of knowledge, of the endurance of love and spirit, and like any of Joyce's best yarns, at the end of it it feels like it's over all too quickly.
August 9, 2016
Roman aflat undeva la limita imperceptibilă dintre literatură mainstream și fantasy, dacă există vreo urmă de fantasy în el și nu e mai degrabă realism magic. Ne aflăm în UK, anii 1960-1970, americanii testează viața animalelor în spațiu, însă în mica localitate britanică Fren își urmează mama adoptivă în tainele moșitului. Mammy e și vraciul local, nu doar moașa care i-a adus pe toți pe lume sau cea care operează ilegal întreruperile de sarcină aflând secretele neștiute de nimeni. Însă casa în care locuiesc în chirie e pe cale de a fi pierdută, iar una dintre intervențiile lui Mammy nu are succesul scontat. Fren rămâne singură în casă, alături de câțiva prieteni, o mână de hippie și multă lume din sat care o vorbește de rău. Fren trebuie să practice munca mamei sale, să își salveze casa, dar mai ales să pună Întrebarea atunci când e cazul. Și de această Întrebare se leagă tot misterul romanului și partea sa de realism-magic. Plăcut la lectură. Personaje bine construite. Nu știam la ce să mă aștept, așa că la final romanul a fost ok.
Mizerabilă, absolut mizerabilă redactarea celor de la Tritonic și o traducere cu mari probleme. Nu știu cum poate avea o editură care publică cărți despre jurnalism, comunicare și redactare de carte astfel de angajați și/sau colaboratori. Efectiv, îți dă dureri de cap. Citită în engleză, poate că i-aș fi dat mai multe stele. Deși nu cred.
Mizerabilă, absolut mizerabilă redactarea celor de la Tritonic și o traducere cu mari probleme. Nu știu cum poate avea o editură care publică cărți despre jurnalism, comunicare și redactare de carte astfel de angajați și/sau colaboratori. Efectiv, îți dă dureri de cap. Citită în engleză, poate că i-aș fi dat mai multe stele. Deși nu cred.
August 14, 2016
This is the second book I have read by Graham Joyce and I intend to read many more! I love the weird and wonderful worlds he creates -- worlds that straddle the ordinary and mundane, but then pop off into the surreal in a subtle, captivatiing way.
I loved the characters -- Mammy, the folk medicine herbalist, is a crusty funny old lady who upon further inspection is really much softer and loving than one would suspect. William is the village beekeeper, another crusty mysterious old man who knows more that he is letting on. And of course Fern, the young narrator who has been raised by Mammy and is not sure what to believe about magic. And then there is the hippie farm, the medical community, the very secretive Freemasons, plus a host of romantic and not so romantic encounters.
I loved the sequence of events, one after another that combine to form a higher truth. I recommend this for fans of magical realism/ witchcraft/ 1960's culture and British sensibility. Great story!
I loved the characters -- Mammy, the folk medicine herbalist, is a crusty funny old lady who upon further inspection is really much softer and loving than one would suspect. William is the village beekeeper, another crusty mysterious old man who knows more that he is letting on. And of course Fern, the young narrator who has been raised by Mammy and is not sure what to believe about magic. And then there is the hippie farm, the medical community, the very secretive Freemasons, plus a host of romantic and not so romantic encounters.
I loved the sequence of events, one after another that combine to form a higher truth. I recommend this for fans of magical realism/ witchcraft/ 1960's culture and British sensibility. Great story!
October 11, 2017
Libro que “cuenta poco” pero es todo muy sutil. Sin grandes aspavientos hay crítica social y cultural, paso de la adolescencia para encontrarse de frente con la adultez y todo con un aura fantástica pero sin llegar a caer en ella. Son hechos cotidianos pero contados muy bien, con delicadeza y suavidad.
Sin grandes revelaciones ni poso es un libro que se hace agradable de leer.
Sin grandes revelaciones ni poso es un libro que se hace agradable de leer.
March 15, 2017
C'est un livre très "sage". Un intriguant mélange entre chronique d'une société rurale et fantasy. Je n'ai pas été envoutée, peut-être que ne pas l'avoir lu en anglais m'a empêchée de rentrer parfois dans cette histoire, mais il traine quelques belles émotions après l'avoir terminé.
October 14, 2008
Fern, adopted by a Hedgewitch learns how to straddle two worlds in the cultural upheaval of the 60's in England. Actually, she straddles 3 worlds, the Craft, the 60's and adulthood.
September 2, 2012
from page 234:
" "How they hate you if you're a little bit different," she would say. "They hate you so."
To which she would add, "And it ain't necessary." "
" "How they hate you if you're a little bit different," she would say. "They hate you so."
To which she would add, "And it ain't necessary." "
December 18, 2013
Books that successfully straddle two genres are a cause for celebration, but they risk falling through the cracks between niche markets. You can feel the resistance from either side: Romance readers might enjoy "The Time Traveler's Wife," but would they accept a lover who pops in and out of time? (They did - in droves - even before it was picked by the Today Show Book Club.) It seemed impossible to recommend Margaret Atwood's weird and wonderful "Blind Assassin" without apologizing nervously for the science fiction that runs through the story of domestic intrigue. (The Booker Prize in 2000 helped.) And last fall, beneath the lavish praise for Susanna Clark's "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" - a historical novel about the Napoleonic Wars - you could hear a pleading tone: "Yes, it's about magicians, but it's really good."
Englishman Graham Joyce is a popular and critically acclaimed writer of fantasy who's been sneaking over to the realm of literary fiction lately, producing stories that glint with pixie dust when you least expect it. In fact, his latest novel, "The Limits of Enchantment," is about the liminal hues that run between worlds we think of as wholly separate. Readers on both sides of the great genre divide would do well to peer into this one.
The story is told by Fern, the adopted daughter of an old herbal healer in a small English village. Mammy, as everyone calls her, wears a crusty, suspicious personality, but those who come to the moss-grown cabin feel the depth of her wisdom and compassion. She's spent her life helping the people of this village, particularly young women who find themselves carrying burdens they feel they cannot bring to term.
Like so much in this story, her service resides in a vague, never quite articulated zone, "a half secret." The year is 1966, and abortion isn't legal; everyone knows and doesn't know what she's up to. Mammy is willing but reluctant to help these girls, who afterward are relieved but sorrowful.
The strangeness of this in-between world is becoming clearer to Fern. Although she's 21, she still acts like a young dependent, allowing Mammy to guide her in all things. "In many ways Mammy had prevented me from being part of the changing times," she admits. She can't help wondering about life beyond the glow of her mother's wisdom. "The technology I could see advancing all around me and even in the skies overhead barely touched our lives." While helping Mammy collect herbs by moonlight, Fern looks up to spot Soviet satellites carrying dogs and monkeys. Surely, she thinks, that's as magical as Mammy's hedgerow medicine.
She also can't help wondering about sex, the great energy that seems to drive and ruin so many lives in their little village. In some ways, this is a novel all about sex. It even includes one of the funniest seduction scenes I can remember. But typical of Joyce's sleight of hand, there isn't any sex in the book. (I'm not being Clintonesque; you'll just have to read it for yourself.)
He's not a mystic, per se, or a Luddite or a wiccan or an alchemist, but those scents waft over the story now and then as he plumbs the tension between ancient wisdom and modern knowledge. That opposition breaks into the open when a pregnant girl dies and rumors point back to Mammy's herbal abortifacient. With her encyclopedic knowledge of the town's sexual abuse and folly, Mammy has plenty of enemies among the irresponsible men in town, and some hope that her patient's death will provide a convenient opportunity to silence the old witch for good.
While Mammy struggles with crippling guilt, newer enemies begin to swarm in, too. England's system of socialized medicine has drawn the government into healthcare matters that were long considered private. Suddenly, Mammy's practice and even her personal health are matters of official concern: Who authorized her to heal without a license? And, come to think of it, should a woman of her mature age be living without the benefit of modern medical care herself?
Mammy quickly finds not only her profession but her sanity questioned, and for the first time, Fern must move to protect them both against official and maniacal forces that Mammy used to fend off by herself. "Mammy had stood like a door of oak and iron," she says, "between me and the outside world."
The subtlety of Joyce's position is one of the many pleasures of this novel. If there are slips of melodrama and pretension here, they quickly dart behind toadstools, and we're left to consider the friction between nature and technology.
On one side, members of The Few, a shadowy group to whom Mammy belongs, have no use for pharmaceuticals and X-rays, while on the other side, the doctors regard Mammy's herbs and premonitions as ridiculous.
But Fern struggles to nurture some compromise between these worlds. When Mammy can't work any longer, Fern enrolls in a midwife course and does her best to endure the instructor's condescension and the chilling impersonality of the hospital. She can effectively sense the position of a fetus with her touch, but she marvels at the ultrasound machine. Is there no overlap, she wonders, between these two competing systems of thought?
The hippies camped out at an adjoining farm seem to offer another viable alternative to modern technology, but Joyce is clearly unimpressed by their self-absorption. Their mushrooms help no one; their rejection of marriage falls heavily on unattached children; their commune is laziness dressed up as idealism.
Fern must find some way to harmonize these forces in her life that refuse to cohere. She must temper the materialism of the hospital, the radicalism of the mystics, and the selfishness of the hippies. It's a challenge that almost costs her her life.
This is a strange little novel, full of ideas that are sometimes deep, sometimes vague. A surreal dark-night-of-the-soul climax involving a giant rabbit is particularly dramatic, even if I'm not always entirely sure what it means. But the story is thoroughly charming, in the old and modern senses of that word, and as Fern remarks toward the end of her journey, "Strange can be good."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0215/p1...
Englishman Graham Joyce is a popular and critically acclaimed writer of fantasy who's been sneaking over to the realm of literary fiction lately, producing stories that glint with pixie dust when you least expect it. In fact, his latest novel, "The Limits of Enchantment," is about the liminal hues that run between worlds we think of as wholly separate. Readers on both sides of the great genre divide would do well to peer into this one.
The story is told by Fern, the adopted daughter of an old herbal healer in a small English village. Mammy, as everyone calls her, wears a crusty, suspicious personality, but those who come to the moss-grown cabin feel the depth of her wisdom and compassion. She's spent her life helping the people of this village, particularly young women who find themselves carrying burdens they feel they cannot bring to term.
Like so much in this story, her service resides in a vague, never quite articulated zone, "a half secret." The year is 1966, and abortion isn't legal; everyone knows and doesn't know what she's up to. Mammy is willing but reluctant to help these girls, who afterward are relieved but sorrowful.
The strangeness of this in-between world is becoming clearer to Fern. Although she's 21, she still acts like a young dependent, allowing Mammy to guide her in all things. "In many ways Mammy had prevented me from being part of the changing times," she admits. She can't help wondering about life beyond the glow of her mother's wisdom. "The technology I could see advancing all around me and even in the skies overhead barely touched our lives." While helping Mammy collect herbs by moonlight, Fern looks up to spot Soviet satellites carrying dogs and monkeys. Surely, she thinks, that's as magical as Mammy's hedgerow medicine.
She also can't help wondering about sex, the great energy that seems to drive and ruin so many lives in their little village. In some ways, this is a novel all about sex. It even includes one of the funniest seduction scenes I can remember. But typical of Joyce's sleight of hand, there isn't any sex in the book. (I'm not being Clintonesque; you'll just have to read it for yourself.)
He's not a mystic, per se, or a Luddite or a wiccan or an alchemist, but those scents waft over the story now and then as he plumbs the tension between ancient wisdom and modern knowledge. That opposition breaks into the open when a pregnant girl dies and rumors point back to Mammy's herbal abortifacient. With her encyclopedic knowledge of the town's sexual abuse and folly, Mammy has plenty of enemies among the irresponsible men in town, and some hope that her patient's death will provide a convenient opportunity to silence the old witch for good.
While Mammy struggles with crippling guilt, newer enemies begin to swarm in, too. England's system of socialized medicine has drawn the government into healthcare matters that were long considered private. Suddenly, Mammy's practice and even her personal health are matters of official concern: Who authorized her to heal without a license? And, come to think of it, should a woman of her mature age be living without the benefit of modern medical care herself?
Mammy quickly finds not only her profession but her sanity questioned, and for the first time, Fern must move to protect them both against official and maniacal forces that Mammy used to fend off by herself. "Mammy had stood like a door of oak and iron," she says, "between me and the outside world."
The subtlety of Joyce's position is one of the many pleasures of this novel. If there are slips of melodrama and pretension here, they quickly dart behind toadstools, and we're left to consider the friction between nature and technology.
On one side, members of The Few, a shadowy group to whom Mammy belongs, have no use for pharmaceuticals and X-rays, while on the other side, the doctors regard Mammy's herbs and premonitions as ridiculous.
But Fern struggles to nurture some compromise between these worlds. When Mammy can't work any longer, Fern enrolls in a midwife course and does her best to endure the instructor's condescension and the chilling impersonality of the hospital. She can effectively sense the position of a fetus with her touch, but she marvels at the ultrasound machine. Is there no overlap, she wonders, between these two competing systems of thought?
The hippies camped out at an adjoining farm seem to offer another viable alternative to modern technology, but Joyce is clearly unimpressed by their self-absorption. Their mushrooms help no one; their rejection of marriage falls heavily on unattached children; their commune is laziness dressed up as idealism.
Fern must find some way to harmonize these forces in her life that refuse to cohere. She must temper the materialism of the hospital, the radicalism of the mystics, and the selfishness of the hippies. It's a challenge that almost costs her her life.
This is a strange little novel, full of ideas that are sometimes deep, sometimes vague. A surreal dark-night-of-the-soul climax involving a giant rabbit is particularly dramatic, even if I'm not always entirely sure what it means. But the story is thoroughly charming, in the old and modern senses of that word, and as Fern remarks toward the end of her journey, "Strange can be good."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0215/p1...
March 19, 2024
My ultimate favorite Graham Joyce novel so far. I’ve read it multiple times.
November 29, 2020
« — Ce qui se trouve dans notre tête, personne ne peut nous le reprendre. »
✨ Fern et Maman Cullen vivent un peu en marge de la société, à l’écart du monde et des institutions.
✨ Fern va se construire, murir en dehors de sa mère et voir son univers autour d’elle se transformer. Une femme forte et pleine de ressources pour s’en sortir.
✨ Une sorte de conte initiatique, qui met en avant la nature, tout en dépeignant une société qui se modernise à grand vitesse, à la fin des années 60.
✨ L’histoire flirte à la limite du folklorique. J’ai bien aimé son style d’écriture enchanteresse de l'auteur.
« — T’as beau faire ton possible pour aider les gens, me dit-elle, ils finissent toujours par se retourner contre toi. »
✨ Fern et Maman Cullen vivent un peu en marge de la société, à l’écart du monde et des institutions.
✨ Fern va se construire, murir en dehors de sa mère et voir son univers autour d’elle se transformer. Une femme forte et pleine de ressources pour s’en sortir.
✨ Une sorte de conte initiatique, qui met en avant la nature, tout en dépeignant une société qui se modernise à grand vitesse, à la fin des années 60.
✨ L’histoire flirte à la limite du folklorique. J’ai bien aimé son style d’écriture enchanteresse de l'auteur.
« — T’as beau faire ton possible pour aider les gens, me dit-elle, ils finissent toujours par se retourner contre toi. »
August 23, 2016
Já há muito tempo que queria ler este livro de Graham Joyce. Depois de duas experiências fantásticas com o autor, pude finalmente ler esta obra, e as expectativas eram imensas. Se calhar, foi por isso que Os Limites do Encantamento não me conquistou por completo. Eu esperava algo que me abalasse, me deixasse sem ar depois da leitura, e não foi isso que aconteceu. Malditas expectativas!
A história é... interessante, no todo. Embora eu esperasse um ambiente mais rústico e medieval, somos transportados até à década de 60, onde as então inovações e avanços científicos ameaçavam acabar com as tradições da medicina tradicional e popular. Seguimos de perto o dia-a-dia de Fern, filha de uma curandeira, e a sua luta com o estigma de ser quem é, a diferença na sua educação e os seus demónios pessoais. Esperava algo mais mágico, e não a forma como Fern cresce e se desenvolve, a forma como aprende a ver o mundo à sua volta, a sua descoberta enquanto mulher, enquanto adulta e enquanto pessoa. Esperava algo mais... encantado.
A própria Fern também ficou aquém de me apaixonar. Não é fácil de criar empatia com a personagem, pois é bastante ingénua e, mesmo contextualizando a época, não senti aquela ligação, não me senti próxima da sua vida.
No entanto, estamos a falar de Graham Joyce - e o autor nunca desilude. Estamos perante uma história escrita no masculino e narrada por uma voz feminina, e em ponto algum a raiz máscula do autor vem à superfície. A forma como se liga com cada uma das personagens, como as faz viver através das páginas... A Mammy Cullen, uma personagem fantástica. E depois temos toda uma parte da história em que o real e a magia se misturam e nos confundem, testando os nossos próprios limites do encantamento. Para que lado pendemos nós, leitores?
Apesar de não considerar o seu melhor livro, Os Limites do Encantamento vale bem a pena uma leitura. Graham Joyce é um autor que nunca desaponta, com magia nas palavras e narrativas fortes - um escritor que, definitivamente, é de leitura obrigatória.
[http://eu-e-o-bam.blogspot.pt/2016/08...]
A história é... interessante, no todo. Embora eu esperasse um ambiente mais rústico e medieval, somos transportados até à década de 60, onde as então inovações e avanços científicos ameaçavam acabar com as tradições da medicina tradicional e popular. Seguimos de perto o dia-a-dia de Fern, filha de uma curandeira, e a sua luta com o estigma de ser quem é, a diferença na sua educação e os seus demónios pessoais. Esperava algo mais mágico, e não a forma como Fern cresce e se desenvolve, a forma como aprende a ver o mundo à sua volta, a sua descoberta enquanto mulher, enquanto adulta e enquanto pessoa. Esperava algo mais... encantado.
A própria Fern também ficou aquém de me apaixonar. Não é fácil de criar empatia com a personagem, pois é bastante ingénua e, mesmo contextualizando a época, não senti aquela ligação, não me senti próxima da sua vida.
No entanto, estamos a falar de Graham Joyce - e o autor nunca desilude. Estamos perante uma história escrita no masculino e narrada por uma voz feminina, e em ponto algum a raiz máscula do autor vem à superfície. A forma como se liga com cada uma das personagens, como as faz viver através das páginas... A Mammy Cullen, uma personagem fantástica. E depois temos toda uma parte da história em que o real e a magia se misturam e nos confundem, testando os nossos próprios limites do encantamento. Para que lado pendemos nós, leitores?
Apesar de não considerar o seu melhor livro, Os Limites do Encantamento vale bem a pena uma leitura. Graham Joyce é um autor que nunca desaponta, com magia nas palavras e narrativas fortes - um escritor que, definitivamente, é de leitura obrigatória.
[http://eu-e-o-bam.blogspot.pt/2016/08...]
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