Book #20 Tampa by Alissa Nutting

Tampa

I bought Tampa by accident on a buy one get one half price - I didn't read the back cover and had literally no idea what it was about. I started it on the train and was in minutes mortified both by what I was reading and that anyone I knew should see me reading it!

Tampa is without a doubt one of the most controversial and shocking novels I've ever come across - it is also by far and away the filthiest, and I have read The Fifty Shades Trilogy. If you are easily offended, I do not recommend this book.

For my part I found it genuinely disturbing but it is tremendously well written with that.

I have never read Nabokov's Lolita but I have some idea what happens in it, and Tampa is a similar novel with a woman at the centre. I have never read a book about a paedophile before and certainly have never read much of any kind about the female sex offender. 

What struck me as I read this book is the number of times cases both in this country and in the USA have emerged of teachers having relationships with underage pupils. Are these men and women in love as they profess to be with their young charges or are they simply perverted predators?

Alissa Nutting quickly dispenses with the idea that her protagonist Celeste Price is anything more or less than a paedophile who is only interested specifically in fourteen year old boys, and is not interested in long term relationships with them or any relationship extending beyond them hitting puberty proper.

Written as a first person narrative Celeste Price is clearly delusional and a sociopath with literally no interest in anything beyond sexual gratification and not being caught.

This book was a very intense, often uncomfortable experience but as a piece of original and unique creative writing is also worth reading. In her review for the Times Helen Rumbelow says "by the time I got to the end I was traumatised and in awe" and I can only echo that I think. Dazed and Confused also called it "truly dangerous fiction".

Because it made me uncomfortable as it would I think any normal person I would hesitate to recommend it, however, though I was reminded at some points slightly of Notes On A Scandal, there is no book like this, you will never read a book like this unless you read this one. The other questionable thing about Tampa I suppose is that if this protagonist or this author were male - this book might well have been banned, which leads to an interesting debate.

For that  a 9/10 verdict with a warning that it is utter unrelenting filth, and from the point of view of both parents and teachers pretty scary filth at that.     

 

Book #36 The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie

Length Of Time In Possession : 6 years

What an odd thing this book is. It is the story of one Jean Brodie who teaches 10 year old girls, she elects to turn a group of 6 of them : Sandy, Jenny, Rose, Mary, Monica and Eunice into her "set" a group of petted favourites to whom she extends her influence, and becomes involved with on a personal level turning them into friends and confidantes at an impressionable age, winning both their minds and their hearts. As they age into the Senior School, the headmistress, wary of Brodie attempts to break the girls bond and uncover a reason to dismiss the eccentric schoolteacher.

Certain stylistic approaches irritate, we are repetitively told that Jean Brodie was in her prime or at least considered herself to be, we are repetitively told that Rose became "famous for sex"  etc, and in what is quite a short book it proves annoying.

As far as the plot itself goes I found Jean Brodie to be an alarming even sociopathic character : I was thoroughly unsurprised that the Headmistress wanted to oust her. Whilst every parent hopes that their child will find a inspirational teacher who is willing to light up their child's mind and deviate from the "rules"; Brodie is more like a spider to whom the girls are flies, that she manipulates, controls, and puppeteers at her own whim. Mary, as an example, seems to have only been included in the "set" to serve as its whipping boy, an example for Brodie to criticise for the benefit of the other girls.

As the girls age, Brodie manipulates their burgeoning sexual blooming to her own ends and in one instance is indirectly responsible for a child's death. Finally seeing through her, one of her own set betrays her, but which one, and why?    

This is a really strong if very strange book about the alarming power to influence children adults hold because even in old age the girl who finally turned on her cites her as her greatest influence. Interesting and thought provoking if not always excellently written.

Verdict : 7.5/10

Destination : Charity Shop