Reservoir 13: A Novel

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Damn, another good review but gives away too much! Save review for after you are done… https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20... From the beginning, we know that a young girl of 13 goes missing and the village where this occurs is never the same. Each chapter explores yet another year in the life of the village and its people, and for me there was a slow-growing undercurrent of nebulous unease as more and more time passed without her being found. There’s water (reservoirs, river, rain); metal (“ The reservoirs were a flat metallic grey” and “ like beaten pewter”); fire (arson) and sun; soil, stone and clay (farmers’ fields, allotments, quarry, disused mines, a potter), and wood (actual woods and a character of that name). She was the daughter of a family who was visiting, and her parents stayed for a long time as the search widened. The police repeat her description, almost as a mantra.

The Costa beats the Booker and Goldsmith this year as second most perceptive judging panel of the year. The novel then unfolds over 13 chapters, one for each of the 13 numbered reservoirs in the surrounding area, each chapter set over a year in the life of the village. The (limited) developments in the hunt for the missing girl and the girl’s parents interactions with the villagers;But McGregor gives equal attention to the rhythms of the natural world - crops, flowers and trees, and wildlife - foxes, badgers, swallows and herons. The cycle of human life is echoed in the rhythms of the natural world — the flowering of trees and wild plants, mating and hibernation of wildlife and weather conditions marking the changing of the seasons.

A book of rhythms to be taken slowly. Don’t expect a fast paced mystery. Devour every word and every moment.I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like this one. I’m not sure I can explain it or do a review that does it justice, but I’ll try. The passive voice was really deliberate because it just feels very English to me,” McGregor says. “It’s a gossipy village, but they would never think of themselves as gossips. ‘Somebody was seen.’ They’re not going to say: ‘I saw so and so.’ Small communities can be very inclusive, but they can also be very claustrophobic.” The book is a slow burn, like fire in peat, smoke hinting at fire somewhere, though pinpointing the source is difficult. McGregor is an impassive observer with no dog in any fight, recognizing the churn of seasons and families and friends, and recording how lovers grew apart and found new lovers, or did not, or how difficult it is to keep an allotment well-weeded and producing. Except that the story was his to create and so he must have had some reason for choosing the threads as they crossed, their color and texture and placement. In the end, this diet of village life fills one with surprise, curiosity, delight, and despair. Late last year, Rihanna paid homage to Nefertiti for Vogue Arabia – just too late for comment by historian Joyce Tyldesley in her new book on the Egyptian queen, but rather underlining her point that a 3,000-year-old bust has become a cultural icon. Tyldesley first sets the scene of the Armarna age in which Nefertiti lived before exploring the creation of the bust by royal sculptor Thutmose and finally explaining why, on its rediscovery in early 20th-century Germany, it caused such a stir. It does feel a little like an extended essay – there aren’t enough of Tyldesley’s enjoyable personal asides – and she has already published a Nefertiti biography covering a lot of this ground, but it’s breezily readable stuff nonetheless. Restless Souls

Looking at his own work, McGregor was only too aware that in Reservoir 13 he could have written a “great state-of-the-nation thing about the farming crisis, the land use crisis, the housing crisis”. His research took him to villages where people commute into office jobs in Sheffield or Manchester, while rural workers can only afford to live in the cities: the two groups drive past each other morning and evening – a brilliant image of the messed-up housing market. But he stresses that he’s “allergic to trying to make points in fiction”. With his antipathy towards “big drama” he was also relieved to have sandwiched the book between the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001 and the Brexit vote. He did, though, find himself last June mentally dividing the characters into leavers and remainers. “I started looking at them while I was editing, thinking OK, so which one of you … and realised that yes, I probably could tell.” It is about scale and completeness and continuity. My sense of scale finally made my give in and stop sweating the small stuff. I became more aware of McGregor's music, his use of repetitions, symphonic movements shaped by the seasons. And feeling at home in the landscape gradually made me feel at home with the people too. No, I couldn't always place everyone, and I can't say that I had my heart in my mouth wondering how anyone's particular story would turn out. But I did begin to get to know many of them, much as one gets to know one's neighbors and is genuinely interested to hear that their daughter is getting married. McGregor plays into this by giving longer sections to some people as the book nears its end. It is not about bringing closure to a particular story—McGregor is not big on closure—but making you feel that you are no longer a stranger in the village, but connected, at one with its rhythms, one of them.I must stop. I really need only have quoted what the publisher said of the author’s first book (which I haven’t read . . . yet). This is every bit as astonishing, I’m sure. His works have been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and it’s only a matter of time before he moves his way up, I’m sure. A pale light moved slowly across the moor, catching in the flooded cloughs and ditches and sharpening until the clouds closed overhead.”