Interested in getting your hands on four free books? Well you’re in luck, because Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature are offering just that through their Big City Reads campaign. With stories ranging from loneliness to police injustice, and styles varying from prose to graphic novel, there’s something for every reader. Four young writers give us their run down of the books, continuing with Eleanor Flowerday's take on Furthermoor...
Grief is not something we all process the same way. It touches individuals and communities with drastic differences. Yet there is something about our desire to freeze time, to stagnate, that seems universal, often to our own detriment. Darren Simpson proves this in his Big City Read, Furthermoor - a middle-grade fantasy novel about a teenage boy, Bren, finding courage and self-worth after it has been shattered by relentless bullying and the death of his sister, Evie.
Simpson pays homage to the fantasy worlds of children’s literature in his book, that for many of us were safe spaces to escape to when things got a bit rough - much like Furthermoor is for Bren. At one point, Bren travels to his imaginary world through opening a clockwork portal in his wardrobe - there’s no need to guess which fantasy series that alludes to - and the novel is dense with gems of the fantasy and folk tradition, with small nods to folk customs of grieving and fairyland metaphors for death.
The first thing to talk about is the concept of the Otherworld itself - or fairyland, dreamland, whatever you like to call it. The concept of an Otherworld is abundant in world mythology, British folklore, and fantasy stories: from Hades to Avalon to Neverland. These Otherworlds are often magical places within our own and sometimes inhabited by fairy-folk - but think elves from Lord of the Rings rather than Tinkerbell. Furthermoor itself is described a bit like a steampunk boudoir, with clockwork creatures of precious metals and silk. Otherworlds are places out of place, and out of time - just like how in Furthermoor, time “rarely tallied with the real world”. The most prominent theme that links these stories is death, and their purposes are often to explain it or to process grief. Otherworlds are immortal realms, and their fairy inhabitants are either the dead themselves or guardians of the dead. As morbid as it sounds, to be stolen away by the fairies is essentially to die.
There’s a vital lesson in acknowledging, processing, and talking about emotions in the novel. This is particularly important given it has a male protagonist, with teenage boys and young men often being told that hiding emotions is what ‘makes them a man’
Beyond the Otherworld associations, the two strongest motifs in the novel are that of clocks and crows. Bren’s watch is a precious object, not only for its magical powers but also for its memories. It was Evie’s watch, and so Bren’s clinging to it is essentially his desire to preserve Evie’s memory. This is one of the big things in Furthermoor - a desire to freeze time, to stop all the clocks like the W. H. Auden poem, and not process the challenging emotions of grief. Like traditions of stopping clocks until funerals, Bren tries to preserve the spirit of his sister in Furthermoor. Darren doesn’t demand that his character fully get over the death of his sister, but much like Bren’s passivity towards his bully Shaun, he highlights the detriment to taking no action in dealing with challenging emotions.
Bren isolates himself, rejects the friendship of new boy Cary, and ignores the concerned questions of his parents and teachers. Evie’s death is only ever alluded to with double entendre: he won’t acknowledge it and keeps her alive in Furthermoor, and this leads to the birth of the crow-like villain, Featherly (I won’t give any spoilers to the big reveal). Crows are another folk motif, long associated (alongside ravens) with omens of death. Often they represent the aftermath of death, feasting on bloodied battlefields just as Featherly seems to feed off of Bren’s grief.
But what effect do these folkloric themes and spaces actually have on the novel, and what is Darren trying to say about mental wellbeing? The use of folk culture in itself is all about preserving the old, keeping alive what is dead and gone, and often this is no bad thing. Magical fantasy worlds in books and media can be perfect shelters from harsh realities. What Darren warns against, however, is an over-reliance: they treat the symptoms but not the cause. There’s a vital lesson in acknowledging, processing, and talking about emotions in the novel. This is particularly important given it has a male protagonist, with teenage boys and young men often being told that hiding emotions is what ‘makes them a man’. This can be deadly, and so Simpson's showing of male vulnerability, and stressing the importance to not ignoring mental health, is incredibly vital in young adult fiction. Furthermoor offers some practical steps, too, with information and guidance at the end of the novel to accessing charities and support networks.
The plot to Furthermoor is clear and accessible, but Darren’s message is not to be simplified. His encouragement to be proactive with mental wellbeing, to take courage and stand up to monsters (be they bullies or crow-like metaphors of grief) does not come with a dismissal of emotional suffering. Furthermoor wants you to acknowledge the difficulties of life, to speak their name, to feel them and eventually to seek help. It’s ‘lateral thinking’, as the book calls it: even when you seem to be locked in a freezing cold room of an abandoned house, there is always a way out.
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