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Angela and Diabola
Lynne Reid Banks’ new novel deals with extremes of good and evil.
Ever since the first story was told, around a fire that was less for warmth than to keep away whatever unknowns lurked in the darkness, good has been slugging it out with evil, in bedtime tales or classic literature, world religions or comic papers.
But, although good normally triumphs, it is evil that enthrals us, no matter what age we are, even when the prize fight is notched down to good v bad, or right down to good v naughty. Who lingers in our memory? Long John Silver, Heathcliff, Cruella de Vil, Huck Finn, Toad, Grendel, Fungus, Lucifer, Tom Kitten, The Joker, Mr Hyde? So when Lynne Reid Banks was reading the My Naughty Little Sister stories to her six-year-old granddaughter, they were a huge success until they came to When My Naughty Little Sister was Good. ‘She’s boring now,’ Emily said.
I know that because Lynne Reid Banks has written an explanatory ‘letter’ to be sent to readers of the advanced proofs of Angela and Diabola, a story for young readers about twin girls, one angelically good and one diabolically bad – no, let us notch it up, evil. Their real names are Jill and Jane, but their simperingly conventional parents, the Cuthbertson-Joneses, dutifully abide by the vicar’s outbursts at their christening, when, besotted by the one and appalled by the other, he breaks into Latin and Angela and Diabola the twins become.
Already it must be clear that Lynne Reid Banks has produced a very different novel from her usual output – a comic with words instead of pictures. Every character, bit part or major player, is a blatant stereotype, ferocious emotions and violence are recounted with relish but have no reality, the narrative is extremely simple, tongue-in-cheek. (It is Conrad’s War in reverse.) Angela’s nauseating blue-eyed sweetness enchants everyone, from midwife to taxi drivers; Diabola’s rage and awesome powers overwhelm everyone, from the same midwife, whose finger she bites to the bone, to her father, who does a bunk. Arson, car crashes, attempted murder – Angela has her work cut out to control her twin.
Like all comics, there is a punchline. Diabola is killed – Splat – trying to drag her sister over the top of a tower block when Angela is busy saving her, but some of her spirit enters Angela (who becomes normal and likeable), their soft little mother discovers her own strength, and even Daddy knuckles down. Good and evil are balanced as, says Banks, they are in us all. Apart from self-conscious stage accents to denote the working classes (to her credit, Banks once self-critically said she ‘may not fully have solved the problem of finding instantly recognisable signals without stereotyping,’ and although that’s actually ideal in a comic, those accents do jar), the book is a rollicking success.
But not to be taken seriously.
So why the explanatory ‘letter’? The message is hardly profound or obscure. And what is this publicity handout? For eight to twelves? Surely not. Twelves are reading R L Stine and watching Alien for the umpteenth time. ‘As darkly powerful and controversial as it is funny, (Angela and Diabolal -.speak to readers on many levels and will provoke many questions about contemporary childhood.’
So I rang Lynne Reid Banks. Yes, everyone had been very anxious, both here and in the States, and had even suggested upping the reading age to teenagers. It was tried out eventually on nine-year-olds (‘a bit old really, I’d say seven), and American reviews have loved it. Banks continued:
‘But you’ll notice the ward “devil” is conspicuously’ absent, and I had to be careful with the vicar – exorcism is out. Like witches: in America good ladies march into: libraries and strip out offending pages.’ Not, as I had always been told, because they, are old-ladyist. `If you mention witches, real witches will be summoned! Why do. we kowtow to such lunatics? I once got a letter from New Zealand asking why I had spoilt a good book by having a character who could magically read the future – lady, you’re a teacher, these things are not real!’
And I had been thinking times must have changed. Twelve years ago, when I pseudonymously published some shivery stories originally intended for under-nines, one horrid girl was not allowed to stick pins in a plasticine model of a teacher (she overcooked a gingerbread cutout instead) and the reading age was inexorably raised. Admittedly my settings were supposed to be realistic – and she did eventually bump off the teacher. In Angela and Diabola we have a monster child growing up in a cage, with glaring green eyes that zap (you almost see’ the arrowed line) anyone who gets in the way. As Lynne Reid Banks would say, do me a favour!
Angela and Diabola, Lynne Reid Banks, ill. Klaas Verplanke, Collins Children’s Books, 0 00 185685 5, £9.99
Stephanie Nettell is a critic, author and journalist on children’s books.