Marguerite Valentine

Marguerite Valentine

Books for the Psychologically Minded

Review of ‘Pink Mist’ by Owen Sheers

A century ago, Wilfred Owen, one of the greatest of the first World War poets wrote ‘Dulce et Decorum est pro Patria ‘ [It is sweet and right to die for your country]  It was a bitter commentary on the savagery of war, written from Wilfred Owen’s personal experience. Move forward to the present day, and Owen Sheers, also a poet, gives a dramatised account of three young men who leave Bristol to fight in Afghanistan. Has much has changed? Absolutely nothing. Because however  ‘sophisticated’, however ‘primitive’  the weaponry, now as then, the outcome is the same, the probablity of death or terrible injury.  Of the three young soldiers, one is blown up by an IED, another...

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REVIEW: Echo

Bristol author Marguerite Valentine’s new novel Echo documents a young girl’s transition from troubled adolescence to adulthood in uncompromising detail. Stylistically, meanwhile, the book seamlessly melds realism and magical realism. Marguerite took time out of her busy schedule to talk to Bristol/24! 7 – starting with her influences and background and when she began to write. “Thinking about influences on my writing, I realised fairly early on that for many, life is tough, usually because they’ve been dealt a bad hand of cards – but it’s how they play those cards that’s of interest to me. My work and background in...

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Review: Echo

Echo is sharp and sassy – she courts challenge – meeting and losing her first and only love, discovering hidden information about her missing father, an obsession with a Welsh poet, and the very person who should help her – lets her down spectacularly – the revenge is sweet and entertaining. You will love Echo from the beginning to the end    –  It is a compelling read. Lorraine Edington

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Review: Echo

Echo – Marguerite Valentine. This page-turning novel is set in a dramatic landscape that reflects Echo’s early experiences in handling relationships. We are taken on an adventure into the heart of a feisty teenager who doesn’t flinch in adversity but remains true to herself whatever the circumstances. Anna Schlesinger (5 stars)

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‘The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk’ A Review

‘The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk’ A Review

Who hasn’t been entranced by Chagall’s surreal and vividly coloured paintings of lovers surrounded by flowers and clasped in an embrace flying across the sky? And who wouldn’t be captivated by the writer’s Daniel Jamieson’s portrayal of Chagall’s love affair with his first wife. Marc Chagall played by Marc Antolin and Bella Chagall by Audrey Brisson, perfectly capture their childlike delight for each other and their joy for life. It’s a marriage made in theatrical  heaven, and brought to Bristol’s Old Vic by Emma Rice, formerly Director of the Kneehigh Company. The production, the story of their life together, veers between  fantasy and harsh reality but it is...

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REVIEW: Echo

Marguerite Valentine’s novel Echo, transports the reader in the, often irritable, humourus and also painful and tender world of the young adolescent : Echo. Echo, tries to separate from her mother, without the help of a father, who left Echo and her mother when Echo was born. Echo’s efforts to try to find a father figure in the outside world, without having had any experience or capacity to discriminate between seductive and real affection, results in her having to learn from bitter experience, who the people are who have her real interest at heart. For Echo to transform into the adult, who calls herself Anja, she has to learn to listen and develop her own...

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To Plot or not to Plot

There’s three kinds of writers; one embarks on a journey with a map, they know where they’re going. Another type gets in a car and drives as far as they can see their headlights. A third combines the two approaches. They have a vague idea of where they’re going and if or when  they get lost, then they bring out the map.Which are you? I’ve always been the ‘let’s see where this is taking me’type and that was true even when I wrote non-fiction.  It usually worked. I’d begin with the  problem, move onto a discussion and then wrap it all up. So far so good. It worked for shortish academic papers of about five thousand words, but what of the...

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Review ‘Right Now’ Ustinov Theatre Bath’ 19.3.16

I wasn’t prepared, I’d read no reviews and I knew nothing about this play other than I’d been told it was about to transfer to the West End and was written by a French Canadian. Relevant? I think not. Five characters; a wife, a husband, two neighbours also a wife and husband, but older and with an adult son with a nervous facial tic. The relationships are bizarre and the characters perform a complex psychological but unlikely dance. Has the writer read Freud or some other analytic writing? Maybe or maybe not, but the actions and dialogue at some level make a kind of crazy sense. We start with the young wife, tortured by her baby’s cries, a...

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Film Review : The Lady in the Van

‘THE LADY IN THE VAN’ Alan Bennett is a national treasure. He’s also a gifted writer, a humorist and a shrewd judge of character. These all come together in his latest film. ’The lady in the van’ is a superb characterisation of an elderly vagabond who randomly parks her van with herself in it, along the streets of Camden in London. One day, the van breaks down and she persuades Alan Bennett who just happened to be passing, to help her push the van to an area which more suits her. But she remains in the area and from that moment on, the two begin a kind of psychological war dance. What’s wonderful about this film is the writer’s honesty because it’s not just...

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Police Chief apologises for actions of Undercover Police

So what’s different from the betrayal of women [or of men] that’s gone on over the centuries. Promises to marry, declarations of love, for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, to love and to hold, till death us do part- like it says in the marriage vows, only this time in this case, that someone was an undercover agent. That’s what makes it different. He, and we’re talking here of ‘he’, in fact several of them, took advantage of their professional position and bcame involved with women, one even fathering a child,  so that their roles as police officers were ultimately  lost. It was almost as if they felt they had a licence to...

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