The Quickening Maze

Of the 2009 Man Booker contenders, The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds was the book that I anticipated the most and I left reading it until last. The blending of fact with fiction and the literary appropriation of history excited me; although historical novels were a recurring feature on this year's Booker lists, The Quickening Maze was the one that initially appealed.

Based on real events in Epping Forest on the edge of London around 1840, The Quickening Maze centres on the first incarceration of the great nature poet John Clare. After years struggling with alcohol, critical neglect and depression, Clare finds himself in High Beach Private Asylum - an institution run on reformist principles which would later become known as occupational therapy. At the same time another poet, the young Alfred Tennyson, moves nearby and becomes entangled in the life and catastrophic schemes of the asylum's owner, the peculiar, charismatic Dr Matthew Allen. [from dust-jacket]

I knew little of Tennyson and even less of Clare before reading. This is a creative and deft exploration of madness. In nineteenth century Epping Forest, the lives of the great poets are imaginatively vividly rendered and Clare's insanity most of all. Rewriting the poems of Byron whilst in the asylum, Clare -in the novel- believed he was Byron and in his mind's decline confused his child love, Mary, whom he hallucinated, with the many Marys that Byron loved.

Foulds is a poet himself but I never found the prose overly-poetic; beautiful words, yes, but accessible, simple, and a demonstrable love-affair with language. Structured through seven seasons with short vignettes and shifting narratives, the novel is very accomplished but I was never fully engaged; I enjoyed the novel but I wasn't captivated. The characters, although interesting, didn't gel for me. The Quickening Maze is a very subtle novel that intelligently blurs the lines between fact and fiction; it is beautifully written and crafted but some of its genius and strong themes could easily be missed in its gentle style. Its power though lies in the raw and intense evocation of the peasant poet's descent into madness and the other characters movement into futility and hopelessness. For fans of Clare and Tennyson and of course those of beautiful prose then this will be a flawless and enjoyable read but for those of us who enjoy compelling narrative and characters, this is somewhat lacking.

[Tennyson upon being asked his opinion of Byron's poetry] 'I remember when he died. I was a lad. I walked out into the woods full of distress at the news. It was the thought of all he hadn't yet written, all bright inside him, being lost for ever, lowered into darkness for eternity. I was most gloomy and despondent. I scratched his name onto a rock, a sandstone rock. It must still be there, I should think.'

The wind separated into thumps, into wing beats. An angel. An angel there in front of her. Tears fell like petals from her face. It stopped in front of her. Settling, its wings made a chittering sound. It paced back and forth, a strange, soft, curving walk that was almost like dancing. It reached out with its beautiful hands to steady itself in the mortal world, touching leaves, touching branches, and left stains of brightness where it touched.

She lay in her open grave, miles down, with the sharp voices of the places like dim clouds far above. She lay as still as she could. Her heart kept up its hateful slow tread in her chest. Warm tears that gave no relief now and then rolled into her ears, stopped, started again.