The Carhullan Army

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On the other hand, in the process of toppling a repressive and dangerous regime, is it right to give up certain rights? The publication of The Carhullan Army is unnervingly well-timed: following a month of apocalyptic flooding, here is a dreadfully plausible and absorbing vision of a Britain whose unravelling begins with just that - a deluge of water . The Carhullan Army begins and ends in Penrith (here renamed Rith), and shows a provincial city at work (or not) after the apocalypse. People eat from tins donated by religious aid agencies and live, Soviet-style, crammed together in elevated urban areas unaffected by the floods. The main south-east elevation has a right end chimneystack and a right of centre ridge chimneystack.

I am tempted to begin by saying that this is the kind of book that Margaret Atwood would to have loved to have written instead of The Handmaid's Tale, but if I were so unwise as to say that then no doubt she would track me down, tie me by one foot to a high branch of a tree, and leave me for the squirrels to eat.

The women have meetings to discuss communal issues; they sing songs; they have a foul-mouthed rough friendliness and camaraderie, but these scenes aren’t whimsical. Like her first novel, Haweswater (2002), The Carhullan Army is set in Cumbria, and Hall's sharp and vivid evocation of landscape ("The light was fading fast, and the rust-coloured bracken in the banks looked like a tide of scrap metal") has the value of rooting her dark fantasy in a recognisable rural world . From Nobel Laureates Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter to theatre greats Tom Stoppard and Alan Bennett to rising stars Polly Stenham and Florian Zeller, Faber Drama presents the very best theatre has to offer. Unlike most recent dystopias I’ve read, however, this book is not so much about individual destiny or quest, or about the importance of dreams and desires. A dark cloud hovers over the horizon and the women of Carhullan have to decide how to handle the threat.

At what point are the most radical options—the ones totally outside our comfort zones—the best choice, the most moral choice? Most appallingly, in this world of scant resources and hard industrial labour, the Authority insist all women should be fitted with contraceptive devices. Life after “the collapse” is hemmed in by restrictions and regulations, with curfew at home and conflict abroad. Outside provides an enclosed lawned garden and gravelled area with furniture and a gas barbecue, as well as private parking and an external games room. Sarah Hall is garnering a reputation as a strong regional voice with her flavoursome historical fiction .Rather later than originally planned, for which I apologise profusely, I begin the discussion of Sarah Hall’s Tiptree-winning The Carhullan Army (published in the US as Daughters of the North, and that’s the last time I’m going to use that title – it’s not a bad one, but it’s not Hall’s). But this intimate concern with the physical is of a piece with the sensual collection of short stories Hall published in 2011, The Beautiful Indifference. About half the time they seem to think it's depressing, but I'm with you -- I think it's optimistic (it's a document recovered from the Authority, not in the possession of the Authority, after all). She retains her poetic exactness, though: rock showing through the grassland is "the bones of an older district, stripped by the wind".

I’ve often wondered how much that matters – Sarah Hall is a name I could read a dozen times and skip over, whereas something like Kurt Vonnegut sticks in my head instantly! Lower Carhullan is a bright and airy country cottage, lying in the ancient market town of Bampton, Cumbria. Life's a mystery which childhood makes even worse, so let us revisit it in all its haunting creepiness. despite the loss of the original roof structure, the interest of the barn is enhanced by evidence of a former domestic dwelling at its north end and the incorporation of early domestic doors and windows.Hosting four bedrooms: two doubles, one twin and one family room with a double and children's bunk, able to sleep a total of ten guests and served by two en-suite shower rooms and a family bathroom. Her detailed descriptions of the daily routines of subsistence farming in the beautiful but unforgiving landscape are wonderful.

It always feels a bit odd to say that I enjoyed a novel that I’ve described as bleak, but I did, as I so often do. A number of attractions are close by, including Haweswater Reservoir, which offers a variety of treks, and Keld Chapel, a National Trust property.With classics such as Ted Hughes's The Iron Man and award-winners including Emma Carroll's Letters from the Lighthouse, Faber Children's Books brings you the best in picture books, young reads and classics. Hall uses, judiciously, some Celtic dialect, which makes Carhullan seem slightly ancient and exotic even though it is in the future.