Limits Of Enchantment
01/03/2005 . Source: Pauline Morgan 

Graham Joyce has always written on the edges of fantasy. His apparently straightforward style is accessible to readers of mainstream fiction as all the quirky bits can be passed off as psychological aberrations.

Buy from Amazon US - Buy from Amazon UK
nb: US titles may only be available from Amazon US, and UK titles from Amazon UK.

Buy Limits Of Enchantment in the USA - or Buy Limits Of Enchantment in the UK

check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk

Graham Joyce has always written on the edges of fantasy. His apparently straightforward style is accessible to readers of mainstream fiction as all the quirky bits can be passed off as psychological aberrations. Or can they?



Fern, the narrator, is a young woman living in rural Leicestershire in the 1960s. She has grown up in her adoptive mother's cottage, an old farm labourer's house which still has no gas, electricity or running water. The plumbing is a shed in the garden and a hand pump provides water. It could easily have been the setting for a tale in any rural part of the British Isles in the past five hundred years except that Fern owns a transistor radio and listens to pop music as she hangs out the washing.

Mammy is still a respected wise woman. Although the National Health Service is available, many of the local people call in Mammy to attend childbirth, visit for advice on unwanted pregnancies and to bake love into a wedding cake. Mammy has taught Fern some of her skills but there is a sense that she is holding some things back. 'Fern', she says, 'is not ready.'

Fern is caught between the old ways and the new. She is aware that regulations will stop her continuing Mammy's line of work but, at the start of the novel, these things do not concern her. It is only when Mammy is taken into hospital that her problems start. Fern is forced to consider the idea that Mammy will not be around for ever. Then the estate they rent the cottage from demands all the arrears of rent and she is faced with eviction. Fern has no way of raising or earning the money. To add to her woes, her enemies attempt to have her sectioned as crazy so that she can be totally disposed of.

Fern, though, does have friends. The hippies that live at the local farm are on her side, even if this is a bit of a mixed blessing since they tend to spend much of their time smoking cannabis and are not liked by the estate owner. She also finds that members of the local community are prepared to stand up for her, for her own sake, and not just because of their respect for Mammy.

For the characters in 'The Limits Of Enchantment', 1966 is a time of change and they are caught up within a greater change. Society, it structure, beliefs and expectations are in flux and the survivors are the ones that are prepared to compromise. Mammy, illiterate but knowledgeable about the old ways represents a past whose purpose has been replaced by the young, vibrant technological age. Science and legislation is not on her side. Fern is poised on a stepping stone in the middle of the fast flowing river of progress. A mis-step and she could be swept away. The hippies at the nearby commune have already made one decision to drop out of society's current yet Greta, once she becomes involved with Fern's problems, shows that she is capable of taking up the battles again against the misguided on Fern's behalf. Judith, the local teacher and a witch like Mammy goes the other way, being sucked into the circle of the commune.

Although Fern is twenty and has been attending births since she was thirteen, she is sexually inexperienced. Sexual tension is another thread that runs through the book. There are enchantments in plenty, not just the affection Fern feels for Arthur, but the lure of the hippie way of life for not only the members of the commune and Judith but for Fern also. There is the lure of the old magic that Mammy has always hinted at but that Fern is not sure about. She wants to believe but there are too many distractions and modern ways of thinking that make her unsure. For the estate manager and the landowner who owns Fern's cottage, there is the lure of money. Each of the lures or enchantments has its boundaries, its limitations which are imposed by personal belief, society or physical chemistry. Fern has to experience them before she can choose and decide the path she will take.

Once again, Graham Joyce has produced a book that will delight on a number of levels.

Pauline Morgan