Fifteen Wild Decembers

By Karen Powell - a review measured in moors

I am not English, and I am not classically trained in English literature, you want a thorough introduction to Danish literature, a rudimentary understanding of six languages, the inner workings of neuro-pedagogy and psychology - I am your girl. All the other reading I have done - all the painting. It is all passion-based. Lust based even. Ok and escapist-based, a smidgen of what-did-I-find-in-the-charity-shop-based and perhaps just a helping of the compulsive reading disorder I have (if there is such a thing, which there must be because I can’t not read …) if there is writing I WILL read it. Have you any idea how frigging awesome it was when we for a short spell growing up could afford the small packages of cereal!?!? With the big ones, I’d read the same sodding words every day until the carton was finished, and if Mor had bought bulk - oh dear - heinous. probably tantamount to child abuse tbh.

NOT THE POINT

What I meant to say was: I did not have to read the Brontës in my Danish Gymnasium, so it wasn’t until I fell upon their poetry at the tender age of 18 when I was doing a Cambridge Proficiency in English course in Bournemouth, Dorset. And oh what glory.

I have since read quite a bit if not most of their combined works but never actually finished Wuthering Heights. I know. It is a travesty. But also. I am afraid to. So I do not have it in my house. If someone gifted it to me, I would read it. But I have never bought it, and what I have read has been stolen lines in bookshops and articles. Plays, films and radio dramatisations have made their way into my life too. Not least because I now live mere miles from the Parsonage and have made many a journey on the preserved railway to the narrow streets of Haworth. 

However. 

Unpopular opinion coming up: This molecular (I suspect genetically modified) fascination with the bleakness of moor and defensive arousal when rained upon… I don’t get it. They are beautiful, the moors. Sure. The haunting sounds of restless wind carving tunnels through heathers and sheep… absolutely and soddenly unique. Unless of course you've spent some quality time in Norway or even small Greek Islands in November, and think goats, not sheep, then the sounds are probably just, you know, normal. 

However! 

I do love wild storms. And I adore December. I would prefer it frosty rather than wet, white rather than black, but the build-up to Solstice always gets me excited, so when I saw this book Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell, I was sold right there. Excellent title. I wasn’t expecting a Brontë story, especially not one told in the first person from the point of view of Emily, so I was intrigued. Intrigued and a tad worried that this would be another one of those endless retellings with wooden language and a desturbing hyperfocus on death and despair. 

I promise you. 

The language in this book is not wooden. Karen Powell writes in that domesticated lyrical yet dogmatic way that spellbindingly makes the Brontës more than #thebrontes and thus makes the Powell more than the Powell. There is not a word out of place not a sentence not true to its purpose. It is a tragic story. SO yes, the ‘bleaky’ Moors instil their power upon the Powell, and she too falls prey to their wiles. But she does it with more than the boring awe so many trying to write about the bedraggled yet heroically intelligent sisters do - she makes of their story a feast for her own language of despair. And she savours every dish as she chews and tears into the story we know so well but she holds us tight as she eats it up, so when we at the end of the story we know so well, shed tears for these women’s hardship and (frankly lack of sea air and warmth) crève-cœur it is in the arms of their distant little sister. I am sure. I demand a gene test. It is in the public’s interest. 

This book, even if you’re fed up with these sisters or indeed the gloom of Yorkshire dank, will leave you contemplating remodelling your kitchen (so many wonderful scenes from the Parsonage kitchen) and rooting out your blacks so you can send yourself off on the pilgrimage of breathing Brontërian dust. And if you play your cards right, maybe even a passionate romp amongst the adders and sheep while wrapping your tongues around words like

‘Bitterest things’

‘... like wine through water, you altered the colour of my mind.’

And

‘Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad!’

Or

‘It sounded like a ghost carriage, or else we are ghost girls.’

Karen has mothered a beautiful book, a viscerally lingering book. Stretch marks of the story are tattooed across these thinning skin things we’ve become while reading.

Haunting it is

Destructively Yorkshire and a sure winner for any Brontë fan. Is the language innovative in its allegories or metaphors, sometimes, but probably not as much as in non-historical fiction, does it matter? NO. The reason why we recognise the images and turns of phrases is because of The Brontës (and that girl Jane, you know the one ;-) ) and all the words they laid before us. Karen is true to her subject and flawless in her style. She has her own voice and that would have pleased the sisters no end, I am sure. As Charlotte says in Jane Eyre ‘I would always rather be happy than dignified.’ Not that Ms Powell isn’t dignified, but you know what I mean. She doesn’t conform. She is her. And she is glorious.

Now stop reading my sea urchin drivel and go buy the book.

Scoot.

And if you live in the north, why not join us in the Grove Bookshop, Ilkley, on Thursday, Sept 26th at 7pm where Karen is coming to read from and talk about this gorgeous novel?  

Erna has a soft heart and is still upset but she has agreed that Fifteen Wild Decembers gets  four traumatised but impressed whales 

🐳 🐳🐳🐳

#ernatheflyingwhale and

Sussi Louise Smith 

If you're QUICK #15wilddecembers is on the 4for3 table in @thegrovebookshop  go get it.

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#readingishealing 

#readingisasuperpower

#thebrontes

#fifteenwilddecembers