Ghosts of Christmases Past
Alison Littlewood's "Mistletoe"
A review
Alison
Littlewood’s previous novels, particularly The Hidden People and The
Crow Garden, show her mastery of what one could call “neo-Victorian” fiction. Besides successfully evoking the atmosphere
of the era, these novels reference the popular genres of the time, particularly
the “Gothic” and “sensation” novels of Wilkie Collins and others.
Littlewood’s
latest book, Mistletoe, appears at first to be quite a different
proposition – an atmospheric ghost story set over the Christmas period in modern-day,
rural Yorkshire. Then again, the custom
of telling ghost stories around the fire during the festive season is a
long-established one. It hardly needs
reminding that Dickens’ Christmas books – such as A Christmas Carol and The
Chimes – are seasonal supernatural tales.
Mistletoe taps into this
rich tradition.
The initial
chapters of the novel introduce us to young widow Leah Hamilton. Having just
lost her husband and son, Leah feels she must honour a project her late husband
had been planning – that of acquiring and converting a farm in remote, rural
Yorkshire which might actually have belonged to Leah’s ancestors.
Leah
wants to avoid the stress of a city Christmas: “the gaudy shop windows, the ever-repeating
chirp of carols, the cheerfulness of her colleagues that faded when they saw
her watching…” She rushes through the move from Manchester to Yorkshire, even
though Maitland Farm still needs a lot of hard work for it to be made
comfortably habitable. Leah arrives to a
scene of picture-postcard (or should I say Christmas card?) prettiness: fields
covered in snow and a sense of expectation “hidden in the spaces between
snowflakes, almost visible through their flicker and dance”. Quite soon, however, Leah discovers that the
house harbours dark secrets. Barely into
the second chapter, she must face unexplained happenings such as snowballs
thrown by invisible figures, disembodied voices, strange visions and upsetting
discoveries.
In its
first part, Mistletoe presents us with many typical “haunted house”
tropes: the “naïve” city dweller who
relocates to the country; the overeager estate agent; the pangs of ‘buyer’s
guilt’; restless spirits awakened by new residents; neighbours who clearly know
more about the house’s past than they are willing to let on.
Once the
scene is set, however, the novel comes into its own and reveals some pleasant
surprises. Firstly, although subtitled “A
Ghost Story”, Mistletoe is more of a time-slip novel. As the barrier between past and present
crumbles, Leah starts having increasingly detailed visions related to heinous deeds
connected to the house. The book retains
its supernatural bent, but the scenes set in the past take us into the realm of
uncanny historical fiction at which Littlewood excels.
Another
distinctive feature of the novel is that it weaves into its plot strong
elements of folklore, particularly plant lore related to Christmas. The “mistletoe”
of the title, of course, features heavily, but there are also references to
holly and ivy, and other seasonal traditions such as wassailing. In other
words, Christmas and its customs are not simply a convenient “frame” to the story
but play a central role in the novel.
Because
of its plot, Mistletoe is best savoured in front of a fireplace on a long
winter’s night, preferably accompanied by hot punch and mince pies. However, its delightful brand of spookiness ensures
that, like Dickens’ seasonal novels, it can be enjoyed all the year round.
When I
was a little boy, my parents had a treasured LP of carols sung by Nat King Cole. Christmas
was announced by his distinctive voice, singing about “chestnuts roasting on an
open fire”. Nowadays, it is more
likely that I will play one of the Christmas CDs of folk musician Kate
Rusby. Rusby, who has been hailed as the
“saviour of English folk music” (no less!) is a “Yorkshire lass” like Alison
Littlewood. I therefore thought it
fitting to start this playlist with her carol The Ivy and the Holly from
the album “Angels and Men”.
Christmas is a feast that has managed to reinvent itself through
time. Its proximity to the Winter Solstice meant that certain traditions
related to pagan winter festivals and their marking of the gradual return of
better weather were subsumed into Christian celebrations and customs. One of the traditions referenced in Littlewood’s novel is “wassailing”.
The wassail was a celebration by which the lord of the manor would dispense
food and drink to peasants in exchange for wishes of blessing and goodwill.
It also has links to the so-called
‘orchard-visiting wassail’. This refers to drinking and singing to the health
of trees so that they give a bountiful harvest and is explicitly mentioned in Chapter 15 of the novel in a decidedly more sinister context.
Composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958)
was also an indefatigable folksong collector who not only incorporated traditional
tunes in his “classical” works but also arranged some of them for Church
use. A case in point is The Yorkshire
Wassail. The purity of the children’s voices and
the sound of the church organ cannot hide the earthier (and darker?) pagan
underpinnings of the carol.
The darker, folkloric aspects of Christmas
carols are given prominence in “Lighten the Dark: a Midwinter Album” by
the folk music outfit Kerfuffle. The cd contains many traditional seasonal
songs in brilliant arrangements, including several carols inspired by plant
lore, legends and apocryphal stories from the childhood of Jesus. Here’s The Cherry-Tree Carol – the simple,
lilting tune seems at odds with its depiction of Joseph as a cold and jealous
husband and the miracle (willed by Mary) which teaches him a lesson.
Kerry
Andrew is a multi-talented composer, musician and novelist, whose musical works
– as in the case of Ralph Vaughan Williams – sometimes bridge the worlds of “folk”
and “classical” music. She is also a founder-member of “Juice Vocal Ensemble”, who
describe themselves as “an experimental female vocal trio mixing up the alt-classical
with folk, jazz, world music, pop and electronica”. With “Juice”, Kerry Andrew recorded “Snow
Queens”, a winter album which includes several compositions which reference folklore. Here’s her piece “Apples, Plums and Cherries”
But,
after this brief musical journey, and given Mistletoe’s setting, it’s to
Kate Rusby I return, to wish a happy read and a Yorkshire Merry Christmas…
This post
is being published on the publication day of "Mistletoe"as part of the novel's blog tour .
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