a wonderful surprise by Joanne Harris

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	• Sleep, Pale Sister (P.S.) Joanne Harris Harper Perennial, 2005 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 11 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Harris' characters never fail to fascinate

Let me start by saying that Joanne Harris is one of my favorite writers - this book is a re-print of a novel that had first been published before she became well-known.

It features her usual blend of colorful characters (including the occasional spirit!) bound together by deep, and often dark, passion and magic.

Unusually, in this book she seems to have little sympathy for her characters - though I must admit that most of them really aren't all that likeable, the fact that even their creator can't sympathize with them or try to make some sort of excuse for them, makes them that much sadder.

I enjoyed reading it, but it's nowhere near one of her best works - I personally think she's at her best when writing about food, Chocolat being one of my all-time favorite books.

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Great as usual

I love Joanne Harris's writing. She almost sounds like a poet at times and describes things so well. This book was hard to put down because there was always something happening and everything ties together so well. It's eerie and mystical.

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Artistic, Intriguing, FABULOUS!

I am a huge fan of Joanne Harris' work. The first book of hers that I read was "5 quarters of the orange" and I LOVED it. I began reading all of the works that I could, which I enjoyed, but they never stood up to 5 Quarters. In "Sleep, Pale Sister" I have finally been able to find that same immersive book experience. I LOVED IT!

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a wonderful surprise by Joanne Harris - author of Chocolat

SLEEP, PALE SISTER by Joanne Harris
November 3, 2005

Amazon Rating: 4/5 Stars

Fans of Joanne Harris, most famous for Chocolat, will be delighted to read this older work by the beloved author, SLEEP, PALE SISTER. Originally published in 1994, it is quite different from her more current novels. SLEEP, PALE SISTER is a gothic novel, complete with ghosts, evil men and fainting women. Harris' taste for food is not apparent in this novel either. Basically, persons reading this book as their first taste of Joanne Harris will not know that this older novel is not typical of what she is known for today. Whether that is good or bad is left up to the reader.

The novel revolves around two characters, Effie, who is introduced when she is a young impressionable girl, and Henry Chester, who is a much older man, an artist who discovers Effie and falls for her, despite their age difference. Effie eventually marries Henry, when she is seventeen and he is in his forties, and Effie soon finds out she's made a big mistake. Henry's ideal woman is virginal and chaste, and the act of sex disgusts him. What Effie doesn't realize is that having sex with HER disgusts him, because he was attracted to her innocence, but his lust for women is lurking underneath his facade of purity and godliness.

Effie becomes ill quite often, especially after the miscarriage of her baby, and loses her love of life. Henry thinks she's just a typical weak woman, and lets her sleep away her days under the spell of the laudanum he insists she ingests. In the meantime, Henry meets Moses Harper, who becomes his protege, and Moses falls for the beautiful Effie. He's much closer in age to Effie, and notices how unhappy she is. The two start an affair, a dangerous deed since Henry has never hesitated to punish Effie if he felt she needed it.

Effie in turn meets Fanny Miller, a woman of ill repute who turns to Effie as if she were her own daughter. Fanny has her own secrets, one that includes Henry. The plot thickens as the four lives become intertwined.

The book is narrated by these four characters, each insisting that their viewpoint of the story is the truth. Henry insists that he is the one that was misunderstood, and the reader may sympathize with him for maybe a few pages, but as one gets to know him, the worse Henry will appear.

Those who love these gothic novels filled with dark overtones, paranormal beings and ladies in distress, this if for you. The only complaint I had was that the novel I felt went on a bit too long, but at the same time, I enjoyed getting to know the characters and was very engrossed by the story, eager to know how the book would end. It's not the typical Harris novel, so old fans be warned! I enjoyed SLEEP, PALE SISTER a lot and would have loved to have seen Joanne Harris write more books like this.

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Joanne Harris' best book - better even than Chocolat

This is a consuming Gothic novel by the author of Chocolat. What lies hidden in that later novel is brought to the fore here. Whilst Vianne Rocher has a love/hate relationship with the Tarot in Chocolat, the cards here form the divisions of the text, the stepping-stones we take to reach the conclusion. And it is possible to make a reading from these cards, unlike those of T. S. Elliot's Madame Sosostris.

Henry Paul Chester is a Victorian artist, the owner of a deadly secret, which goes to the very depth of his heart and art. Here we seem to be on traditional Gothic turf: that of James Hogg and his 'Confessions of a Justified Sinner', for Chester postulates that he may well have a secret double. Joanne Harris obeys the literary conventions of the early Gothic here by making Chester a Catholic - Matthew 'Monk' Lewis' Ambrosio removed from his Abbey and placed into the art world. He is just as repressed and far back in denial as Father Reynaud is in Chocolat. Then there's a touch of Sheridan Le Fanu too, with the distressed maiden taking liberal doses of laudanum. However, 'Sleep, Pale Sister' is not just homage to old fictions. Joanne Harris is an excellent storyteller, with a quite distinctive style. The tales of Le Fanu and Stoker may have had their powerful, exciting moments, but Harris outshines them all with her excellent technique.

Chester is obsessed with painting young, 'innocent' girls. Which leads him to spot the nine-year-old Effie in a park. For the price of a few shillings, Chester gets his perfect model. Effie becomes the star of a series of portraits of young, distressed children, such as 'The Little Beggar Girl'. After ten years, Chester marries his 'perfect' model, and this is precisely the moment when their relationship sours. She turns to one of Chester's rivals, the unscrupulous Moses Zachary Harper, for solace. But he is not about to lead her to the Promised Land. It is at a carnival that Effie finally heeds her calling, summoned by Fanny Miller, a brothel keeper who sees something of her dead daughter in Effie. With Effie under her spell, Fanny finally unlocks Henry Chester's dark secret. Together with Mose, she devises a deadly plan to expose and ruin Chester. But with the use of magic, there is always the danger of the unseen...

In Chocolat, there's a delicious scene in which Harris refers to 'Alice in Wonderland', and it seems as though she could be hinting to Charles Dodgsons' suspected paedophilia. But there is also the example of the Pre-Raphaelite John Ruskin, whose name is often mentioned in this novel, as Chester seeks the art critic's approbation. Ruskin too married an Effie, Euphemia Gray. Ruskin's marriage was annulled after six years due to it being unconsummated, leaving Effie free to marry another Pre-Raphaelite artist. It's possible that Joanne Harris got part of her story from this source, from Ruskin's repressed sexuality. One also has to take note of the fact that Kate Atkinson has taken the name of Euphemia as the heroine of her latest novel, 'Emotionally Weird'. Now that Harris and Atkinson are both published by Doubleday, it would seem prudent to investigate such links between these two writers. However, Atkinson's use of Effie may well be coincidental, since this name seems to be beloved of the Scots and 'Emotionally Weird' is very celebratory of all things Scottish. Besides, 'Euphemia' means 'to speak well', and since Effie is not the most articulate of narrators (in her narrative which knows it is prose), this is probably another sign of Atkinson's wordplay at work.

However, as mentioned before, Harris' 'Sleep, Pale Sister' can be linked to a number of other Victorian and Pre-Victorian Gothic fictions. Also running through the novel is the figure of Scheherazade, the heroine of 'A Thousand and One Nights', who, to prevent her execution by the king, her husband, cleverly told him so many fabulous tales that the time of her execution had to be constantly stayed, because he was so eager to hear their resolution. Of course, the Arabian Nights do have a happy conclusion, and it's intriguing to see Joanne Harris playing with the rules of convention here.

'Sleep, Pale Sister' is then a quite complex work, but combined with Harris' typically strong plot, any reader will be compelled to race to the end. It's a very rewarding novel, operating on many levels. Take, for instance, Harris' employment of 'My Sister's Sleep', the poem which forms the basis for one of Effie's portraits - it does have a great deal of relevance to the plot. One of Harris' main themes is that of Childhood, as excelled in her latest novel, 'Blackberry Wine'. It is entirely appropriate then, that she should attempt to tackle the Victorians, who are widely credited with having created 'childhood'. However, Harris is quite clear as to how some Victorians set out to [...] their creation. This is a narrative conceived from the same pen as that of Chocolat, and therefore deserves to be read by a much wider audience. At its heart lies the same battle between the supposed rational man and the 'hysterical' woman, as defined here by the fictional psychoanalyst Dr. Francis Russell. Like 'Chocolat', an equal balance of male and female antagonists narrates the novel. You'll not be disappointed by this rare and bloody fiction.

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