(Harper Collins Publishers Australia)
What great longing rests in the depths of our seemingly endless hearts and soul?
For most of us, it’s really no more than a guess though if pressed we could likely name a few wished and longed-for things that we would like to see manifest like the carriage in Cinderella; in Alexandra Almond’s fantastically clever, enormously funny and thrillingly heartfelt tale, Thoroughly Disenchanted, those unrealised truths play an unexpectedly pivotal role in both the imprisonment and realise of two very good friends.
The two people in question are Genevieve and Oliver, two close friends, and perhaps something more if only Oliver could have one of his fondest wishes come blessedly true, who find themselves trapped in the 1920s in Riverswood Manor, out in country Victoria, after wishing, somewhat offhandedly but with meaning, that they could stay there forever.
It’s a lovely thought; we’ve all been there after a particularly magical weekend with family or friends when the thought of returning to the real world doesn’t bear thinking about.
But unfortunately for the twosome, their wishes, or more significantly, Oliver’s, result in the rather powerful house deciding to fix things so they can’t ever leave, which is how they are found some century or so later by the brightly, unstoppable Ella who arrives one stormy night (it’s always storming when visitors arrive) surprised to see a house suddenly appear where she, and pretty much everyone in the district, has never noticed on before.
Genevieve huddled next to him to look at his phone screen.
‘She’s keen. Are we being very stupid?’
He put her arm around her shoulder and squeezed. ‘ Who knows? We’ve been driving blind since 1921. Let’s mix it up a bit and see.’
Ella’s arrival in Thoroughly Disenchanted proves key to what happens next though neither Genevieve nor Oliver, who are still friends but mightily sick of each other’s company after an invisible force stops them from stepping out of the property, expect anything to really change.
Visitors come and go with a welcome rapidity, but they never really stay for too long, with the exception of Oliver and Genevieve’s friend Fionn, who was staying with them that fateful weekend, but who is somehow able to come and go and at will.
Now, before we go much further, yes, the threesome have been imbued with a curious immortality which means, fashions updated and worldviews enlarged over the decades aside – they have the internet and strange speech patterns aside, are almost as modern as you or I – but what good is all that long life if everything around stays more or less the same?
Oliver and Genevieve’s wishes and longings have morphed and changed over the years but not quite as dramatically as each might have imagined; even so, when Ella turns up and Fionn, all fabulous flamboyance and deep-seated friendship, comes back, it’s clear that whatever the state of play up until that point, that it’s all about to change.
But how when the house and the land upon which it sits seems to have a mind and desires all its own, and the four people trapped, permanently or otherwise within its boundaries, can’t seem to communicate with it or engineer any kind of life-changing escape?
(courtesy official author site)
That is the key driver of this wondrously good, magically real novel which ripples joyously and meaningfully throughout, and which has some pretty intense humanity at its often buoyant heart.
Brilliantly fun title aside, Thoroughly Disenchanted is not as fluffy and Disneyesque as you might think.
Yes, there’s a great deal of playful dialogue, warm and rich friendship and lighthearted banter courtesy of Ella who doesn’t suffer, nor does Fionn really though he gets Oliver and Genevieve’s worn-down state of mind far more readily, from decade upon decade of entrapment.
But this emotionally rich and thoughtful novel takes its magically real supernatural underpinnings and its capacity for some pretty fantastical goings-on and fashions a novel of real humanity that asks a pressing and central question – if your heart’s desire can imprison you, can it also set you free?
No one’s quite sure at that point because all evidence to date points to the answer being a soul-crushing “NO”, but as Ella’s enthusiasm drives the narrative, everyone begins to learn about what makes Riverswood Manor what it is and how that might free everyone, including maybe even the house itself, from their current state of frozen-in-time life.
It just won’t be sleuthing that plays a role; everyone, will have to, to some extent or other, reckon with their deepest longings, their longed-masked feelings and their forever-buried wishes to finally escape, if they even can, from the beautiful prison in which they live.
‘This is a delightful form of magic, isn’t it?’ Ella said. “I mean, obviously it would be nice to have lots of magical power and rule the world, but this is all about making everyday life better and part of me would prefer that. I wish I could do it.’
To say anything more would be to tip things over into spoiler territory but suffice to say, Thoroughly Disenchanted is a novel with way more meaningful intent and heartfelt storytelling than you might guess from the playful title, though the gothic cover and the use of the words “salvation” and “breaking this curse” hint at a lot more going on that some frogs being kissed or beasts released by true love.
Though, it must be said, true love, does play an active role in proceedings but perhaps not as you might think, which is half the fun of a novel which keeps the balance between mischievously playful and heart-stoppingly intense perfectly and compellingly taut throughout.
It’s quite simply one of the most rewarding romantic fantasies you’ll read because it has all the cosy, fun, otherworldly stuff that makes it a diversion from the grim, nasty world outside the doors of wherever you’re curled up reading, but with a heart that knows life, the human heart and how while wishing and longing might seem the fun stuff of coins being tossed in well or fountains or watching falling stars fall to earth, that it can have some real world, pressing implications.
Thoroughly Disenchanted is a gem in so many ways; it has characters with snappy dialogue and real world concerns, all fully fleshed-out with some pretty out-there concerns, a storyline that peels itself back in some hugely rewarding ways and an ending that absolutely deserves all the build-up and which speaks to how, even trapped in a house for over a century that you can grow and change, and that what you end up might be wholly different than what you started out with but just as meaningful and just as fervently wished for.