The Spire Chronicle [Kindle Edition]

I'm not generally one for books written in the style of Dickens so I was unsure about this book at first. However, once the story got going I barely noticed the Victorian dialogue, in fact if anything it served only to enhance my enjoyment. The story is centred around a fellow named Ralph Chatterforth and is a detailed account of his life. At times almost a laddish tale, at others a sad tale of loss or misspent youth, this book tugs at a vast range of emotional strings. Chatterforth is a character who doesn't always learn from his mistakes, not straight away anyway, although he does have his regrets and that is in as much what the book is about, his confession.
What gives the narrative its momentum is the well rounded characters. The author often asks you to empathise with his characters but not necessarily sympathise, and nor should you in some cases. There's also a useful map at the beginning of the book which helps guide you through the areas of Salisbury that appear in the story.
I wouldn't class myself as the target audience for this book, but I enjoyed it (partly because I have been to Salisbury once or twice) and would recommend it to anyone looking for something a bit different to all the cheap crime thrillers filling the bestseller lists these days.
Nice cover too, when you stare hard at it, it looks like it's in 3D!

In a frank, first-person narrative, a sometime journalist from a nineteenth-century English country town chronicles the first three decades of his life. He is talented and well intentioned, but his craving for acceptance traps him in a life he despises. Ineffectual attempts at rebellion only worsen his predicament, and he is told what he must do to atone. Though the task is dangerous and illegal he is too weak to heed his misgivings, and goes along with the plan.

I bought 'The Spire Chronicle' out of affection for Salisbury; I read it because it is a page-turner. The manuscript was, allegedly, hidden some hundred and fifty years ago by an author using the pseudonym 'Ralph Chatterforth'. Ralph writes in the style of his time about characters with outrageously Dickensian names who share similarities with Dickens' characters. The real-life town of Salisbury, under whose cathedral spire the story unfolds, parallels Dickens' London in its mixture of gentility and grime. However 'The Spire Chronicle' is not a parody or imitation. Ralph writes about his desires and inner life with a freedom unthinkable for a Dickens' character, sparing us no details of their consequences. There is no Dickensian happy ending. Ralph's actions in the closing pages, when his only choices are between different evils, are appalling, and their outcome uncertain. Yet they are a bizarre triumph, for at least he is thinking for himself.

Well-researched, tightly crafted, thoroughly recommended.

The Spire Chronicle is an extraordinarily vivid and interesting foray into Victorian Salisbury. The anonymous narrator recalls the life of Ralph Chatterforth in Ralph's own words, tracing his early life and the relationships, marriages, trials and tribulations of himself and his three closest friends, whom he met at school. One of these school friends, Thomas, a distinctly bad influence, remains his best friend throughout his life. The Victorian atmosphere, names and places evoke another, less fast-paced world of horses and carriages and rigidly controlled behaviour, where constraint of feelings, emotions and ambition are ever present, but human desires, hatreds and loves are just as they've always been.

I was expecting a tale of hedonistic selfishness, an unpleasant hero who rode roughshod over others, but I was pleasantly surprised. Although Ralph does terrible things, in fact absolutely appalling things (I won't spoil the book by listing them), he remains a likeable man, in fact someone forced by bad luck, force of circumstance and weakness of will into all his acts of vice. So don't expect some awful selfish rapacious character: Ralph does his best to help his friends, both male and female, and any acts of savagery are not rooted in wickedness.

It's very witty tale, with humour on every page, however there's a thread of sadness too, and you feel that poor Ralph is doomed by fate. Yet I can reveal there's a happy ending, and the reader can be genuinely delighted that this is the case. Ralph is a hero who does his best to be a good man, yet ends up acting dreadfully almost by mistake. Fate deals him blow after blow and he tries his best to survive.... You feel as if you are privy to his innermost secrets, you know the reason why he behaves as he does, so you like him all the more. In fact his more worldly best friend, Thomas, is much more of a rogue, though never to Ralph.

From the death of his first sweetheart to the ignominy of an unhappy marriage and one ghastly blow following another, we are with Ralph all the way and thoroughly enjoy sharing his adventures.

`Anonymous''s Dickensian style works well, but it's a style very much his own too, a clever mix of humour and seriousness. There's certainly plenty of humour, lots of drama and an exciting climax. What's more, there's even a totally unexpected happy ending, so that you feel that Ralph can put his past misdeeds behind him and begin a better life.

Thoroughly absorbing, easy to read and fun. Read more ›

I thought this book was so clever, and loved the Dickensian style in which it's written, not least of all the hilarious character names! It's a very funny story, and reminded me more than once of Jerome K Jerome's 'Three Men In A Boat', which is one of my all time favourite novels. It's obviously very well researched, and I think it would appeal to all lovers of Dickens. I couldn't help liking the scoundrel Ralph, as I think is the intention. The book varies in pace, picking up nicely at the end ~ but I won't say any more than that (spoilers!). Suffice to say it's a sort of crazy adventure, with ghastly circumstance after bad luck after accidental murder, but with happy escapes, too.

A very unusual and entertaining book ~