Review: Cuddy by Benjamin Myers

Cuddy by Benjamin Myers is an historical fiction novel told in a blend of writing styles, including: narrative prose, quotes from historical reference books, poetry, diary entries and even a play. Anticipating a novel about the life of Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne told in a fictional first person point of view, Cuddy was an unexpected story.

Born in 634 AD in Northumbria (modern day Scotland), Cuthbert had been a monk, a prior and a bishop and was a hermit at the time of his death in 687 AD. Beloved in life, many came to pray at his grave at Lindisfarne and were healed. Deciding to elevate his remains as relics on the anniversary of his death, his body was found intact - hadn't decomposed - and he was declared a saint. Pilgrims visited the shrine for decades until Viking raids threatened the area.

Cuthbert's body was transferred to a coffin and transported by a dedicated group of worshippers seeking a safe resting place for their beloved saint. On the move until the year 995, a site was finally chosen and a series of churches were built to house St Cuthbert's remains. Construction of Durham Cathedral commenced in 1093 and still houses the Shrine of St Cuthbert today.

Pieced together from the non fiction quotes in the book, I share all of this because it's a fascinating slice of history and if you're still reading, it means you agree. Myers has created characters from each of these periods of Cuthbert's history in the wildly different formats mentioned above.

We hear from Cuthbert (affectionately known as Cuddy) early in the book but he's already close to death:

"Well now. You should have been here a candle or two ago. The scenes of despair amongst the monks at my final days of retreat to this bluff in the foaming ocean was quite the picture." Page 7

I love that phrase, 'a candle or two ago.' In Book I we join the religious folk in 995 AD carrying Cuthbert's remains and an orphan girl who has visions regarding his final resting place.

In Book II we jump to the year 1346 and through the eyes of the fletcher's wife, meet a stonemason engaged in building the great Durham Cathedral. The work of the mason and the history of the stone - then and now centuries later - was beautifully written:

"In the stone is yesterday's sun and the stories it has seen, not only of wandering holy folk and the fiery Norse, not only old white churches and milkmaids, galloping Frenchmen and the green men that took to the trees but other details not always pressed to the page by monks. Everything the stone has borne silent witness to is held within it now...... Rainstorms and quarrymen, Picts, plague pits and paupers, hawkers and jesters, skirling new life and coughing old death, archers and anglers, devils and angels, sunrises and sunsets, courting couples sitting on stone walls watching snowfall, villeins and franklin and wandering freemen, nets of cuttlefish and pails of crabs, sores and scabs, bed-bound mothers and gaoled fathers, babies - a thousand wailing babies - and church bells, cabbage soup and nettles and worms and sacks and jam and garlic and knives and deer and murder and toll gates and caravans and soothsayers and plums and coffin-makers and lepers and laughter and ice and logs and oats and sex and sin and Cuddy and Jesus and God." Page 237

I know that was a long quote, but it perfectly captures the awe and wonder I feel when gazing at a Cathedral built more than 1000 years ago and I want to be able to revisit these words again, even if I no longer have the book.

Leaving those characters behind to leap forward a few centuries, the Interlude was based on a haunting and shocking account of history. In 1650, Durham Cathedral was used as a prison by Oliver Cromwell to house 3,000 Scottish prisoners of war. Suffering in the cold without food or water, the prisoners destroyed the pews and burned the timber in order to keep warm. Devastatingly, 1,700 soldiers died from battle injuries, dehydration and starvation and were buried in mass graves nearby.

This is a disturbing chapter of history I knew nothing about but certainly won't forget, as the author has created a macabre play for the Interlude, whereby several soldiers being held captive engage in dialogue with eachother and the cathedral. Yes, you read that right.

It was a relief to reach Book III covering the period in 1827 when an arrogant Professor from Oxford travels to the Cathedral to oversee the disinterment of the saint in order to verify his remains are uncorrupted. Diary entries tell this tale and the character is haunted by his complicity and fears for his sanity. I felt the author's outrage at the desecration and believe the character met a satisfying fate. 

Book IV brings us to 2019 and it was perhaps an unnecessarily long tale to deliver the reader to Durham Cathedral and the tomb of St Cuthbert.

Cuddy by Benjamin Myers seemed to me to be the story behind the building of Durham Cathedral over time told through the lives of a handful of individuals:

"My story, and that of Fletcher Bullard, just one story in a thousand million stories that combine to define a place, concludes thusly:" Page 263

While brief, each serves as a complete story and while the reader may be reluctant to leave a character or point in time, their stories reach a natural conclusion of sorts.

A word on the layout as there were several techniques that were used - presumably - to impress but which I found slightly irritating. In one case, a character's visions were presented in one continuous paragraph with font that slowly reduced in size until it was barely readable by the end. Elsewhere, poetry was presented with varying alignment choices that left me cold, with just one word or sometimes even one letter per line. I guess you could say that while I enjoyed the mashup of writing styles within Cuddy, the unconventional layout choices fell short of the mark.

The descriptions of the cathedral from characters across time were incredible, with the 2019 character of Michael describing the vast edifice before him as enrapturing. It certainly had me pausing at certain times in the novel to research a fact or take a virtual tour of the cathedral and I'd love to visit in person one day, even just to see the sanctuary knocker.

"The face of the Sanctuary Knocker then, is that of the lonely miscreant, the damned, the doomed, the cursed, the blasted, the blighted, the bedevilled, the fated; he who shall live their life seeking God's eternal forgiveness alone." Page 197

Now that I've finished reading Cuddy, I believe it to be the complex history of Durham Cathedral rather than the story of a saint. This unique blend of fact and fiction and multiple writing styles felt original and is recommended for fans of Ken Follett and his series beginning with The Pillars of the Earth.

Prologue AD 687
Book I Saint Cuddy AD 995
Book II The Mason's Mark AD 1346
Interlude The Stone Speaks AD 1650
Book III The Corpse in the Cathedral AD 1827
Book IV Daft Lad AD 2019

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Extraordinary Insects by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson

Deciding my reading line up could do with a dash of biology, this month I listened to the audiobook of Extraordinary Insects: Weird, Wonderful, Indispensable - The Ones Who Run Our World by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson, previously published as Buzz Sting Bite - Why We Need Insects.

Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson is a professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Norway and a scientific advisor for the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and has successfully managed to make her research interesting for the layperson.

Translated by Lucy Moffatt and narrated by Kristin Milward, this list of chapter titles should give you a clear idea of what to expect:

Chapter 1 Small Creatures, Smart Design: Insect Anatomy
Chapter 2 Six-legged Sex: Dating, Mating and Parenting
Chapter 3 Eat or Be Eaten: Insects in the Food Chain
Chapter 4 Insects and Plants: A Never-ending Race
Chapter 5 Busy Flies, Flavoursome Bugs: Insects and Our Food
Chapter 6 The Circle of Life - and Death: Insects as Caretakers
Chapter 7 From Silk to Shellac: Industries of Insects
Chapter 8 Lifesavers, Pioneers and Nobel Prize-winners: Insights from Insects
Chapter 9 Insects and Us: What's Next?

In Chapter 1, I learned the competition for the noisiest insect most definitely includes the male Water Boatman beetle:

"An aquatic insect a mere 2 millimetres long is the one most likely to walk away with the prize because the male of the Water Boatman species, part of the micronectidae family, competes for the female's attention by making music. But how are you supposed to serenade your sweetheart when you're the size of a coarse ground peppercorn? Well, the little Water Boatman does it by playing himself using his abdomen as a string and his penis as a bow." Chapter 1

Nature never ceases to amaze, and you'd better believe I was off to YouTube to track down a recording of the music which is said to reach 79 decibels but which actually sounds more like a frog than 'music'.

I saw my first bumblebee in London in 2012 and was absolutely transfixed, so when the author mentioned a study where bumblebees were trained to pull on a string to access sugar water, I rushed off to watch the experiments; again on YouTube. Apparently scientists also witnessed the ability of trained bumblebees to teach new ones, just amazing!

As you might expect, Extraordinary Insects is full of insect trivia and some surprising facts like this one: dragon flies can operate each of their 4 wings independently.

I was less convinced when it came to the practice of preparing insects for human consumption. Already a practice and a delicacy in some countries, the author made some convincing arguments although I can't see the West getting over their 'ick factor' any time soon.

I was interested to learn that the keeping of crickets as pets has been a huge hit for modern geriatric care in Asia to treat depression and loneliness. I went down an online rabbit hole and saw potential owners and collectors perusing specimens at a cricket market and was reminded of just how narrow my own experience of the world is.

More generally though, it was troubling to face the facts that many insects are endangered due to loss of habitat, global warming and the endless threat of the human population while science still has so much to learn from them.

Extraordinary Insects by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson is recommended for nature lovers and those with an interest in biology, conservation and the environment. You can read a FREE extract here.

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis

I love playing Scrabble! It's a popular word game of skill and chance and journalist Stefan Fatsis entered the competitive world of Scrabble hoping for some material worthy of publishing.

What he discovered was an intense sub culture with its own rules and guiding principles and a range of dedicated, intelligent and sometimes eccentric players all striving to win. Word Freak - Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players by Stefan Fatsis is the result of his research and complete immersion in the Scrabble scene.

First, it's important to know Scrabble can be played on a competitive level and the book largely takes place in the USA.

"To play competitive Scrabble, one has to get over the conceit of refusing to acknowledge certain words as real and accept that the game requires learning words that may not have any outside utility." Page 40

This is why competitive Scrabble doesn't appeal to me as a player. The author explains that vocabulary defines the better player in a living room situation, but in a competitive environment it's about mastering the rules of the game and memorising words. Two letter words are 'twos', three letter words 'threes' and so forth. Players keep track of tiles the way a card shark counts cards and there are endless strategies for discarding tiles, playing offensive and defensive and more.

Fatsis explains that players who compete at tournaments receive ranking points based on a very complicated system of wins and margins and are paired within divisions according to their latest ranking. A competitor will play multiple games at each tournament and Fatsis tells us just how hierarchical these tournaments are:

"In the playing room, you can't just sit wherever you fancy. The top-division tables typically are farthest from the main doors. And Table 1 of Division 1 - where the players with the best records meet in the latter stages of most tournaments - is usually in the farthest corner. The quality of play descends to the weakest novices in the room's opposite corner. And there isn't much interdivisional mingling. Experts have no interest in novice boards, and novices, who could benefit from learning new words or watching experts analyze positions, appear afraid to cross class boundaries." Page 37

In this way, the author quickly establishes the basics of competitive Scrabble and is glad to be warmly welcomed into the fold so to speak. Players knows he's a journalist from The Wall Street Journal and readily answer his questions while encouraging him to improve his game.

Many of the top players enjoy anagramming with each other in a playfully competitive nature and intellect is celebrated. Anagramming involves arranging tiles alphabetically on a rack - or saying them aloud - and identifying words made from the letters. This helps the players refine their skills and see the potential in the rack, and the majority of highly ranked players have created or implemented some kind of study program to learn and remember words.

There's quite a lot of content around the accepted dictionary of words, how it began and how it's updated etc.

"The Scrabble world decided that The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary [OSPD], first published in 1978, would for the purposes of the game, answer the question: What is a word?" Pages 40-41

But just to complicate things, there are two separate word sources that govern the game of Scrabble in North America and Great Britain.

"The new book is called the Official Tournament and Club Word List, and is known as the OWL." Page 41

I'd elaborate further but it gets quite confusing, suffice to say that Americans are at a significant disadvantage when playing overseas. Some embrace the additional words available to them, whilst others - predictably - refuse to change; essentially creating two camps. The deletion of offensive words caused a ruckus in the Scrabble community and several players who did a lot of work contributing to dictionary entries and study programs have been screwed over and distanced themselves from competitive play as a result.

There was even drama at the top level, with the dissolution of the National Scrabble Association (NSA) and the formation of the North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA) in its place. Some players had various issues with the way NASPA was organising things and while many readers may find this overkill or boring, my interest - just - carried me through. It seems politics and drama exists everywhere.

It's unclear when exactly Fatsis becomes subsumed by Scrabble, but he quickly fixates on his rating, loses his temper when he doesn't play well and embarks on a range of study techniques, implementing tips from top players along the way.

Here's an example of some advice from Joe Edley that we can all learn from:

"Studying Scrabble words is like walking around the world, but as you start walking your feet start getting bigger. Every step you take is taking you farther. The more you study, the more ability you develop and the easier it becomes to learn more." Page 133

I'd say reading is the same! This is excellent advice and it can be applied to more than just Scrabble. Witnessing the author's improvement and progression through the rankings as he dedicated more and more time to it was satisfying. Often frustrating for the author himself, it was hard not to become invested in the nitty gritty details of specific plays gone wrong, missed opportunities, excellent plays and hard won victories.

Towards the end of the book, the author acknowledges that he's played more than a thousand games of Scrabble since embarking on his journey to write about the sub culture and it's taken him to unexpected places. I was surprised at the depth of relationships he developed over the course of the book, always rooming and carpooling with fellow players, regularly socialising outside of competitions and playing endless games in between.

Openly sharing their advice, strategies and study techniques, Fatsis also shared personal observations of their character, personality and lifestyle choices giving the reader quite an intimate view of some of the players. I often wondered whether he'd crossed the line and later learned in the Afterword that at least one player was unhappy about the way in which he was portrayed in the book.

Originally published in 2001, my new copy has an updated Preface and - cleverly titled - Afterwordfreak published in 2011. I particularly enjoyed reading updates on players who featured quite prominently in the book, and in a very meta way, the impact Word Freak had on new and upcoming players in the ten years it's been on shelves. The increase in technology and the emergence of new players who grew up playing bots online and using apps to improve their skills have now entered the fray. You'd assume the old-school players would feel threatened by them, but they seem to enjoy seeing new talent emerging and celebrate the successes of players decades younger than themselves.

While reading Word Freak I started playing the odd game of Scrabble online - against the computer - and found myself enjoying the game immensely and implementing many of the techniques outlined in this book. Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis was a terrific deep dive into the competitive world of Scrabble and I hope to watch the subsequent documentary Word Wars.

For more: 
- Read a FREE excerpt
- Check out my review of It's All A Game - A Short History of Board Games by Tristan Donovan

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Review: Abominations by Lionel Shriver

Lionel Shriver is a somewhat controversial author here in Australia, although I found myself agreeing with most of her opinions in Abominations - Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction by Lionel Shriver.

Some readers might remember when Shriver made Australian headlines after giving the keynote speech at the 2016 Brisbane Writer's Festival. Her speech was about cultural appropriation and in Abominations we hear the speech in full, together with the subsequent fall out, attempt at cancellation and finally her response to it all.

For the record, I agree with her. Political correctness and the woke brigade have definitely gone too far if wearing a sombrero at a party is considered cultural appropriation and therefore offensive. If authors can only write from their own lived experience in order to avoid being accused of cultural appropriation, then their work will be dull and limited. I want authors to have the creative freedom to write about a priest living in the time of the black plague or a courtier dancing in the court of Elizabeth I and this automatically extends to creating characters with different nationalities and ethnicities; ages; sexual preferences and identities; socioeconomic backgrounds; levels of education; backgrounds and personalities than themselves. (For more, I shared my thoughts on 'own voices' in my review of Honeybee by Craig Silvey in 2020).

Shriver is open about the many attempts that have been made to cancel her and while she admirably shrugs them off, she does highlight the impact a 'successful' cancellation has on authors, publishers, actors and other creatives and the often devastating and unintended consequences that follow. Shriver gives examples of well known celebrity cancellations and I agreed with most of her opinions on the topic.

Abominations contains more than 40 essays of varying length and covers a broad range of topics, including: tennis, politics (Brexit and the troubles), IKEA furniture, economics (wages and taxes), health care, ageing parents and the pro-death movement. I found her essay on the nature of friendship break-ups particularly interesting.

In her instantly relatable essay entitled Quote Unquote published in the The Wall Street Journal in 2008, Shriver breaks down her pet peeve of quoteless dialogue:

"While the use of quotes to distinguish speech is still standard in English language fiction, undemarcated dialogue has steadily achieved the status of an established style. In fact, this is one of those stealthy trends that no-one confronts directly." Chapter 33

Shriver explains that it's harder to read fiction without punctuation marks for dialogue and making the reader work harder isn't in the author's best interests. She goes on to address each of the arguments in favour of undemarcated dialogue - love that phrase! - including improved aesthetics on the page and a perceived edginess. Shriver asks editors, agents, critics and established authors for their opinion and discovered the majority found dialogue without speech marks annoying. I was nodding the entire time and occasionally thinking to myself, YES! 

Listening to the author read her essays added to the overall experience and I'm giving Abominations by Lionel Shriver an extra star just for the sheer quality of the writing, vocabulary and turn of phrase. Whether you agree with her views or not, there's no arguing she's one hell of a writer!

My Rating:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★