Too much too young (Taming the Beast - Emily Maguire)

Member Name: Dinah93

Product:	Taming the Beast - Emily Maguire
Date:	17/01/09 (50 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful writing style, thoguhtful characterisation

Disadvantages: Uncomfortable reading

The outline premise of Taming The Beast is of love, and how unrequited or uncontrolled it can have life changing consequences. The storyteller in Taming The Beast is Sarah, who at the age of fourteen has an affair with her adult English teacher, Daniel Carr. Sarah leaves home young, and the majority of the novel is set in her early 20s, where she is living a solitary life, filled with lovers and literature, her only constant her childhood friend Jamie. However Emily Maguire avoids the predictable route of idealising Sarah as a poor corrupted innocent, and instead Sarah becomes a character more akin to Lolita. I have to tried to avoid spoilers in this review, however the enjoyment in this book is the quality of the writing, not necessarily the content.

The book is extremely dark in places, and on finishing the book I felt decidedly uneasy and as though I had undergone an extreme emotional journey. The book is decidedly less about what happens, than how it happens, and how this makes the characters feel. The emotional turbulence of some characters is fully explored, but this is always from Sarah's perspective. There is very little about Daniel Carr, which works to confirm that he is an enigma to her. Daniel is almost idealised by Sarah, yet I found him quite two dimensional and unpleasant. As a man he was weak and uncontrolled, and seemed unable to function as a civilised adult. In contrast Sarah's best friend, Jamie, has his soul bared for all to see. Sarah sees Jamie as childlike companion, and he is lessened because of this. Jamie is a very likeable character, and I felt great pity for him. Sarah's treatment of him does cheapen her more than her sexual promiscuity.

Ultimately Jamie is the most realistic central character in the book. In many ways his feelings for Sarah are similar to hers for Daniel, however Jamie exists to take care of those around him. He is ultimately torn apart trying to play the good, dutiful husband to Shelly, while wishing she were Sarah. His torment seeing her beaten and degraded by Daniel is heartfelt and beautifully described.

The concept of the book is disturbing, that a relationship at such an early age could lead a person to spend the rest of their life searching for that same heady high. Sarah becomes, for want of a better word, a sex addict, securing encounters with multiple men each week, always hoping one of them will make her feel the same way Mr Carr did. The character of Sarah is clearly very intelligent, if misguided. However her emotional intelligence appears stunted from when she was awakened to her sexual self at fourteen. She does not explore deeply why she needs sex to feel alive, why she can not feel comfortable in her own skin. Despite this the author has created a very likeable central character. There is something in Sarah that many readers will be able to relate to, her inelegance in social situations, her need to be validated by men or her love of classical literature.

The story is often told in cold, clipped phrases, which encourage the reader to disassociate with the characters. However I very much liked how the book related to classical literature. Daniel Carr is an English teacher, and Sarah an avid pupil, so much of the language of the book relates to classical sonnets and poetry, and parallels are made with struggling heroines and dashing suitors in Shakespeare, Bronte and Austen amongst others. The use of language was at all times suited to being written by someone who enjoyed a good read, and

While the book is undoubtedly sexual in content, very little of this is erotic, as the acts described are not passionate, but violent love. It is rare for a book to leave me feeling uncomfortable, but especially between Sarah and Daniel I found the relationship very abusive, from both sides, and decidedly unsettling to witness. Sarah and Daniel seem to gain pleasure from causing the other physical and emotional pain, and their relationship seems more like an addiction than anything the reader can personally relate to.

It is easy to dismiss Sarah as simply lacking in self esteem, however the author has cleverly created a much more thorough characterisation. While it is clear to the reader from quite early on, it is only towards the end of the book that Sarah realises she is a strong persona, and it is she, not the men she becomes involved with, that shape her life. While it is not true to attribute this to all her encounters, especially her rape as a young teen, Sarah wilfully and knowingly tempts fate, exposing herself to danger, to see how much her mind and body can take. Why Sarah needs to have herself degraded and pushed so far to feel alive is not explored deeply, as the story comes from Sarah's perspective, and Sarah herself does not see her behaviour as worrying.

I felt that the conclusion of the book was akin to Sarah failing. She accepted she did not need Daniel anymore, but at the same time took delight in revelling in their abusive relationship. If there was an epilogue to the book, I would imagine it would be a news report on a murder suicide as a result of a particularly aggressive encounter between Sarah and Daniel.

I very much enjoyed this book, and thought the writing quality was exemplary for a debut novel. However this is neither erotic fiction, nor a memoir, it deeply explores psychosexual issues faced by young women, but does this in a fictional context that reads easily and draws the reader into Sarah's world. I read this book in a day, it is a fairly standard sized paper back, and despite a lack of action, the writing style was such that I couldn't put it down. Excellent first novel, and I will be looking for more by the author in future.

Summary: Fantastic first novel establishing the formation of a young womans sexual identity