Books & Poetry

This poetically titled story is Jeanette Winterson’s first foray into children’s fiction – and with her pared-down prose and topsy-turvy view of the world, she fits right into the genre. Her heroine comes from a long line of diminutive but stout-hearted girls who must overcome hardship and loneliness in order to return home. When we meet her, Silver is an orphan living with her irascible, mean-spirited aunt Mrs Rokabye in the house where she had once been happy with her parents and sister – the sprawling and mysterious pile called Tanglewreck.While the ancient house exists in its own curious vacuum, the outside world is experiencing strange shifts in time.

Time tornadoes are striking London with such force that whole busloads of schoolchildren have been lost, trapped in a torn space-time continuum. Silver’s suspicions that her own family’s disappearance might be linked to the phenomenon inspire her to leave the house and embark on a twisting and often dark adventure with two very different enemies in pursuit – the glowering Abel Darkwater, collector of clocks and wannabe master of time; and Regalia Mason, an Armani-clad, time-travelling beauty who is every bit as scary and ruthless as CS Lewis’s White Witch and Philip Pullman’s ‘Dark Materials’ baddy, Mrs Coulter.

It’s impossible not to draw comparison with Pullman’s trilogy: the power Silver draws from love, truth and goodness echoes Lyra’s, while both have important male companions. Like Pullman, Winterson is always ready to criticise adults for their greed, dishonesty and lack of empathy. Yet where Pullman ultimately critiques Christianity, Winterson chooses to lambast more modern ills. The time tornadoes seem to be a direct result of everyone rushing, while Regalia Mason is obsessed with staying young and beautiful. In one disturbing scene, uncomfortably reminiscent of Nazi doctor Mengele’s experiments on twins, Mason drains the youth and beauty of a young twin to reinvigorate her own ageing body.

‘Tanglewreck’ does not, at first glance, seem hugely original, Winterson’s colourful imagination and unexpected wit ultimately make it a success.