Courting Shadows

by Jem Poster

Hardcover. First edition, first printing. Signed by the author on title page. From the collection of the late David Bradshaw, Professor of English Literature at Worcester College, Oxford, with his signature penned on FEP. Not price-clipped. Somewhat edge-worn dust jacket with several light scores and some minor fading. Hardcover spine ends are bumped. Page block is sunned. Minor sunning on pages. Penned and pencilled notes by David Bradshaw on BEP. Text is clear. AF

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, British Literature, Mystery Thriller, Mystery

256 pages, Hardcover

First published July 18, 2002

About the author

Jem Poster worked as an archaeologist, surveying and excavating a range of sites on behalf of the Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments, before taking up an administrative post with Cambridge University's Institute of Continuing Education in 1987. From 1993 to 2003 he was University Lecturer in Literature with Oxford University's Department for Continuing Education and a fellow of Kellogg College. From 2003 to 2012 he was Professor of Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University, and is now Emeritus Professor. He is the author of two novels, Courting Shadows (2002) and Rifling Paradise (2006), as well as a collection of poetry, Brought to Light (2001). He has won prizes in major poetry competitions including first prize in both the Cardiff International Poetry Competition in 1995 and the Peterloo Poets Open Poetry Competition in 2001. He has been Chair of the editorial board of Wales’s leading literary journal, New Welsh Review, and is currently Programme Advisor to the Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education’s MSt in Creative Writing and Director of its International Summer School in Creative Writing; he is an Affiliated Lecturer of the Institute. He is Director of Academic Programmes for the Financial Times Oxford Literary Festival and in 2014 spent four months as Writer in Residence at Arizona State University.

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

A truly unlikeable narrator. John Stannard, a very haughty architect, attempts to renovate an old English church in the countryside in the 1880's. Having no sympathy for anything or anybody, he proceeds to wreak havoc and destruction in the church and to the people in the town, especially a young woman he meets.

There is very little action in this book, especially in the beginning. The pace of this novel is slow and haunting - picture every day being cold and gray and wet. Something bad is always happening. John justifies all of it, telling himself he can't possibly be in the wrong.

I was curious to see how this all turned out in the end. The pace quickens toward the end. It is a story about stories and how everyone's viewpoint is just slightly off from the actual truth.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this little gem waiting for me at random on the New Book Shelf at the library. I am a sucker for the setting...a backwater English village in 1881. The not-so-likeable protagonist is an arrogant city-trained architect full of himself and of the social conventions of Victorian England. He feels himself to be a cut above the inhabitants of the town in which he is temporarily working on a church restoration project.

The architect, Stannard, shows contempt for his laborers, his landlady and the curate of the church. However, he also becomes absorbed, much against his will, into the strangeness of the village. Stannard's interest is piqued by Ann...an attractive young local woman. As his attraction to Ann grows, the misfortunes that plague his work at the church continue to occur and the tone of the tale grows darker.

I am enjoying the style of the writing very much. The author successfully uses Stannard's repressive style of communication and his obsession with class distinction and propiety as a counterpoint to almost gothic scenes of fever dreams (suffered by Stannard during a period of illness). The story is restrained when it needs to be and foreboding when I want it to be.

Although I have never heard of the author before, I will look for future efforts.

[David Maine · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best I've read in years. Poster has a way of creating a feeling of dread, I don't know how he does it but he's brilliant.

The story takes place maybe 150 years ago in a small English village. A church is being restored and the fellow sent in charge of the restoration is a complete blowhard who knows nothing and mucks up everything. It's told from his POV, though, so you're in his head the whole time, seeing things that he's missing himself. The language is extraordinarily controlled. There's a bit of a relationship story (would call it a love story exactly) which is of course also doomed.

There are few if any likeable characters in the book, but so what, it charges along with this grim inevitablility. It's short and a fast read and I fout it utterly riveting. Highly recommended.

[Eva Mitnick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stannard is a young architect assigned to restore an old church in a tiny and distand village in 1881. This being Victorian England, Stannard isn't hugely keen on actually maintaining the historical integrity of the building - he destroys dozens of ancient pews and defaces an amazing medieval "doom painting" that is discovered under plaster.

All that is by-the-by, however - what is fascinating are his interactions with several vivid inhabitants of the village, from the principled and emotional church minister Banks to the complicated laborer Harris. Stannard's increasingly desperate attempts to cling to "reason" and his refusal to be swayed by his heart are insufferable - and the claustrophobic feel of the village intensifies the effect, so that occasionally I felt like I was suffocating. This is the only reason it's not getting 4 stars, for the writing is wonderful and the atmosphere is most definitely sustained throughout.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

My reaction to this book is evidence that I don't HAVE to like or identify with the main character of a novel in order to find a book compelling. The narrator of this story is a snobbish, self-centered, insensitive, cruel young architect (who thinks of himself as honorable, sophisticated, & just). He's hired to restore an old English village church. He finds the villagers well beneath him, & is totally insensitive to their resistance to his lack of respect for the church's heritage. The impressive pastor works hard, if unsuccessfully, to sensitize him. Despite the deeply flawed main character, I cared deeply about what happened to him, & his story was strangely compelling, though the ending is something of a puzzle.

[TJ · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can only say I wish there was a negative star rating available. Although the author has obvious ability this book is so amazingly slow throughout the first half and so incredibly morose throughout the second half that it leaves the reader not only miserable and depressed at the end but angry at the wasted time it took to read it.

[Kate Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only was I mesmerized by this story, I studied fiction under Jem Poster at the University of Aberystwyth in 2009-10. His ability to spin a lyrical tale and his precise, poetic-sounding delivery while reading from his work is astounding.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was frustrated because I wanted more to happen – it felt like he was setting up the elements of a classic Gothic novel: Redbourne, the Creepy Nobleman [Redbourne might not be noble, but that's the function he's carrying out] in a Weird Home who lives alone and interferes in the main story for reasons of his own; Ann, the Maiden; the strange paintings and carvings in the church; weird possible incest with Daniel and Ann; Stannard's visions; the unearthing of a coffin with a strangely undecayed woman in it. But then he does nothing with most of those elements.

One of my biggest frustrations with books that might have something supernatural going on but the author wants to be cagey about it is releasing or not releasing the tension created by the atmosphere. Poster is very good at prose and atmosphere. But there's no release at all. I don't want everything to be explained, and I definitely don't want it to have a climatic overt supernatural action of some sort, but there has to be more to a book than there was to this one.

Stannard is awful, and is meant to be awful, but he never realizes it, so his character never changes & he doesn't get insight into himself or into, really, anything; the end is ambiguous, but not really in an interesting way; about three quarters of the threads Poster introduces are dropped. I don't think an interesting narrator (and Stannard was interesting) and the concept "well-off Victorian men could be unpleasant and blinded by class and other prejudice" are enough to hang the weight of even a short book on.

[Maren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a depressing tale. It was also compelling. The author is very skilled at conjuring a mood and even more skilled at creating depth in his characters. It doesn't matter that most of the characters are dislikable - even hateful - they are woven with the same complexity and intensity as the bleak landscape. The writing is beautiful, but the story is difficult and unpleasant.
This is not a book for those looking for a cozy romance or a gothic story with a happy ending. It is for those who appreciate the art of writing and the difficult task of character development.

[Annabelle P · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was thoroughly miserable to read. While I think that tone may have been the intent, and the narrator was certainly deliberately unlikable, there was no payoff at the end, and the whole thing felt like a big leadup to nothing.

[Steve Kirby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful. Haunting.

I loved this book. I was once a minister who presided over the remodeling of a sanctuary which was almost a hundred years old. The issues were similar, and brought memories both sad and happy. A powerful tale of what might have been if....

[SilveryTongue · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 estrellas

[P.J. Wiltshire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Credible early Victorian atmosphere

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not finish. It wasn’t *bad*, just depressing and predictable.

[Matias Lista · Rating 3 out of 5]

El personaje principal me pareció desagradable y en ciertas partes se vuelve reiterativo pero se deja leer.

[Oana-Maria Uliu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written - it reminded me of Iris Murdoch and Thomas Hardy.
It's not for everybody, though. There's no "action" per se, but a study of characters, of moral values in a small community.

[Aitana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buen libro, bien estructurado y con una prosa que deja en evidencia la experiencia poética del autor. Me dejó un sentimiento lúgubre/pesado en el pecho, motivo por el cual me sentía algo triste al leerlo. El protagonista es cruel y antipático, carece de respeto hasta de sí mismo, y por ello me produjo la maraña de sentimientos antes descritos.
A pesar de eso, cumple con su cometido, y aunque no lo reelería aprecio la visión del autor, quien se atrevió a presentar la perspectiva de un protagonista altamente egoísta, en medio de un mundo solitario y un pueblo que al final terminas por entender.

[Rebekah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this over the course of a few hours last night, which is not to say it was a fabulous book. Just that I was able to get through it quickly. I think I read so quick, waiting for something, anything to happen. It was such a morality play, with good vs. evil engaged in a Q&A every other chapter. The main character, who is neither hero nor protagonist, is inherently unlikeable, and completely unchanging. The whole novel felt very static, and at times, like I was reading some kind of reworking of A Christmas Carol without Scrooge's change of heart.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

this starts slow...perks up...and then goes back to meandering. i appreciated its evocation of the period and place--there is some nice use of language in there--but in the end, this was a smidge dull.

the only real positive thing i can say about it, relating to language, is the (mild) exploration of our conflicting natures. this is a subject of particular interest to me (saying/thinking one thing, doing another) but even so, it left me wanting.

[Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my type of book I guess. It was an ok read however. Imagined several turns that never occured. Had to read the last two chapters over several times to be able to follow them. But still, it was an ok read, and any book read these days is a good thing!

[Wren · Rating 1 out of 5]

The story of a spoiled, arrogant, unlikable man. The author has created a Victorian story of such little interest and action that I will be attempting to sell it at a tag sale. However, it does have one good point - only 269 pages.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

i was pretty puzzled by this book.

[Simon newson · Rating 3 out of 5]

deluded architect gets distracted whilst renovating a village church- readable but I think I've had enough victoriana for now.

[David Whittlestone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable book set in the 19th century. A love story but not a very successful love.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Struggled with the unlikable character. Lovel writing