Customer Reviews

The Night Battles

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A pre-Christian fertility cult is alive and well in modern-day Valparuta, Sicily. The "Benandanti" still do battle with the "Melandanti"...in Night Battles..to ensure the success of the Harvest. I am in no way equipped to discuss the historical aspects of this book...so i point my finger in the direction of a title mentioned by the Author herself The Night Battles: Witches and Agrarian Cults in the sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by Carlo Ginzburg....there is also a Website for this book.....[....]...

the Paranormal aspect of this book? Not the Laurell K Hamilton variety..no hunky weres and vamps..herein you will find Folklore still living..lying close to the living bones...herein you will also find two seriously flawed characters (the Romance angle, if you will)
............Joan: a failed American academic, trying to come to terms with her trashed career, her own past, her mother's death, her childhood in Sicily, to which she's returned in a last ditch effort at meaningful work

............Chiesa....the Man-of-Mystery...the Archivist of Valparuta....at whose behest Joan has landed in this Sicilian backwater.....Chiesa..a man with more secrets than is healthy for anyone to bear...is he, or is he not an actual Benandanti? or is he a flunky for the local Mafia (which no one names directly)?

who is using who(m) here? to what ends? the mutual obsession precludes any Romance-of-the- Doomed...in other words...HOLD THE HANKIES...neither of these people is likeable...too many sharp edges...Joan's tendency to ramble is annoying....but this trait works to the Author's purpose....which is to make a strange and compelling novel...one of the more Unusual i have read in the past year..and i am a Fool for the Unusual

4 Stars (and i look forward to the author's next effort..whenever) ( )

M.F. Bloxam's novel "The Night Battles" is phenomenal, a mind-altering experience. It's set in Sicily, but almost immediately I had the sense of entering a dreamscape. The leading character, Joan Severance, is a tough-minded, discredited American academic in Ray-Bans whose excavations into newly opened archives put her in jeopardy physically and metaphysically from page one. The suspenseful plotting and forward-driving style made the book almost impossible for me to put down. Bloxam captures seemingly small moments between characters and mines their psychological depths in a few deft strokes. She's an absolute master of the simile! She uses it like a staple gun. If you love language and the art and craft of fiction, this is a must-read. Joan meets her match in archivist Cosimo Chiesa. Not only the two damaged central characters but the whole community around them, we learn, has taken or will be forced to take sides in "night battles" where truths about ourselves engage in an endlessly cyclical conflict with mortal consequences.

M.F. Bloxam uses superb skill in crafting a truly unforgettable novel. Her vivid descriptions leap out of the page to bring landscape of Sicily alive. Her characters are filled with the well-formed mix of virtue and flaws as to make them seem real. Her narrative style creatively builds an aura of suspense that leads the reader through a breathtaking journey into a supernatural realm that seems both haunting and plausible. I found it difficult to put down once I started reading it and I look forward to her second effort.

M.F. Bloxam has succeeded in creating a beautiful novel full of tension and suspense with characters that you truly form a relationship with. The scenes, feelings, and emotions come alive for you with her remarkable use of language, she paints the picture beautifully and transports you right into the scene. The story keeps you on the edge of your seat, yet the author requires you to use your imagination to come to your own conclusions. Its a novel that you are still thinking about hours after you've put it down for the day and I lent it to all my friends so that we could discuss our conclusions and different points of view. I can't wait for novel number two from this wonderfully talented author!

The Night Battles is a gripping story that plunges the reader into both historical darkness and cultural intrigue from the very first page. Bloxam's uncanny and masterful use of language tickles the literary senses while making the reader work to uncover the true meaning behind each phase of the story.

The reader stealthily uncovers secrets and subtle hints about Joan's mother, the hotel desk clerk, the mayor and his wife, Chiesa, and Chiesa's cousin, Vergone, who nudges the entire story into action. The sense of inevitability to Joan's destiny pervades the novel, but still keeps the reader guessing until the end.

This is not a light summer beach book, it is a deep, passionate, intense celebration of a novel. I encourage you to embark on an enriching reading experience, for readers of The Night Battles will certainly reap a great return on their investment.

A gripping and utterly unforgettable story set in Sicily. A compelling, can't-look-away, dark, and intensely literary work. The plot and motivations of the characters were complex, murky, and intricately woven into time and place. So much so, the town, its people, and history were almost a story unto themselves, driving the characters through the plot. You can believe there are mysterious, unknown forces. You can believe in madness. You can believe whatever you want. Either way, you're in for a tense, slow-moving train wreck you'd do anything to stop.

The author is generous with trust in her readers, allowing them to think for themselves, rather than being spoon-fed every character flaw and dynamic to the story. It is a thinking person's book; thought provoking and open to interpretation. The writing is eloquent, smart, and accessible. With spare dialogue and sharp metaphors, the characters are strikingly real. The author, purposefully perhaps, lets the characters speak for themselves - tell their own story. I'd highly recommend it for book clubs. After reading it, it'll drive you crazy until you can talk to someone about it.

I'd recommend to anyone looking for a truly original story that stretches your imagination, but is, at its core, intensely human.

Joan Severance starts the novel having utterly destroyed her academic career. As she wanders the halls of Brown University, waiting for the college to officially terminate her, a colleague suggests she investigate an opportunity to do research in the archives of the town of Valparuta. With little other choice and hoping to postpone coming to terms with the disaster she has made of her life, she applies to be given the opportunity to work with the archives and is granted permission.

The archive is under the auspices of Cosimo Chisea, who appears to have some knowledge he is withholding from her. As Joan researches the archive--full largely of banal historical data--she discovers clues to a strange sect which would has been operating since the Middle Ages. Her confrontation with Chisea regarding this sect is only the beginning of her strange journey back into the Sicily she left behind as a little girl and a youth she has avoided coming to terms with.

The novel's strongest point may be the well executed atmosphere that permeates Joan's time in Sicily. M.F. Bloxam's prose and her use of imagery and dialogue successfully convey a sense of a world in which mortal battles are being fought just beyond the placid surface of the everyday. At moments, I was reminded of Shirley Jackson's ability to make even commonplace conversations hold an edge of violence. That Joan's mother was murdered violently for crossing the Sicilian mafia only adds to the sense of dread which Joan is up against. Everything, from political maneuvers to spoiled food, seems to part of the struggle, one in which Joan and Chisea threaten to become victims.

What I found least satisfying about the novel is that even though it builds up such great atmosphere, it never feels as if it really goes anywhere. The quiet sense of unease can be maintained during a short story to brilliant effect, but can become less satisfying in a novel. Ultimately, there are a couple of surprising twists in the plot, but nothing that really took advantage of the sense of dread created. I would still be intrigued to read future works by this author to witness her develop her uncanny Sicily or perhaps even have her next novel draw a little more blood.

Not at all what I expected. The author spends so much time creating atmosphere that she abandons everything else. The idea was interesting (good and evil forced to live side by side and interact with each other every day) but the execution was lacking.
The author invokes beautiful images in nearly every paragraph - wind sawing against a building like a train taking a curve; an open window breathing like a mouth. But after 100 pages of this I felt like screaming, " I get it! It's a creepy little village where nothing is what it seems! Stop hitting me over the head!"
Reading "The Night Battles" was a lot of work for little pay off. A disappointment.