The Book: In the history of the world, certain winds get names. Think of the Santa Ana winds in North America. In Great Britain, only one wind has a name: Held. This is the story of Held, as Held observes the formation of the world and the coming of peoples. This is also the story of the people who lived with Held including the neolithic people who considered Held a god, a medieval "wizard" who considered Held a demon, a Victorian scientist who wanted to study Held, a 20th century farmer's daughter who considered Held her friend, up to and including a scientist studying plastic particles in the air.
The Author: Sarah Hall
Genre: Historical Fiction
Length: 507 pp on ipad mini
One good thing: Hall creates Held as an actual character. Held is curious, mischievous, egocentric, ferocious, and in some cases as close to loving as a wind can be. Hall uses third person omniscient with Held (as with all the characters) but the narrator, when talking about Held, has a real sense of humor. I sometimes thought that the narrator of the chapters about Held could actually be Held referring to Heldself in the third person.
One not-so-great thing: There are many characters and their stories are strung out throughout the novel forcing the reader, with each chapter, to try to remember who the character was and where we were in their story. Although there is narrative flow I found my attention wandering at about the 75% point in the novel and didn't come back to it for a few days.
Nancy Pearl's "Four Doorways":
Story: There is a narrative arc for each of the characters (except possibly Held) but I would not call this a narrative driven novel.
Characters: There are many characters and they are well drawn. Each has a story arc. In fact the story arc of each character could be a single short story. If you like short stories you may like this. (I don't and found myself wanting more definitive endings for each character.)
Setting: Hall does a great job in setting the scene in Cumbria and specifically the Eden Valley. If a novel with a great setting makes you want to see the location, you will be booking plane tickets immediately after finishing the novel.
Writing: Hall's characterization of Held is the glue that holds this novel together. There were laugh out loud moments for me in reading about Held. The novel is structured as one of those novels that goes back and forth between characters but here the characters don't really have anything to do with each other. Most characters are unaware of the characters that came in time before them. It is their fascination with Held that ties them together. In some ways this is really a book of interconnected short stories but Hall split up the stories into chapters so that no story is told linearly. If you like short stories this may not bother you. I don't particularly like short stories so I kept expecting something else that would hold the characters together or at least more definitive ends of their stories.
